Snagglepuss gay
RATING: 3.5 OUT OF 5 BURRITOS
A couple of years help, DC Comics decided to take the classic Hanna-Barbera television animation properties from the ’50s and ’60s and hand them a less cartoony, 21st century makeover in the pages of the comics. This resulted in books like Scooby Apocalypse and a more “realistic” take on The Flintstones. I can’t speak to the success or failures of these titles, never having scan them, but the concept behind them was interesting to say the least.
Now DC is going even further into the Hanna-Barbera vaults, and giving us a post-modern get on one of their earliest iconic characters, Snagglepuss. For those of you reading this who are too juvenile to have heard of the ethics, who mostly lives now in delayed night reruns on Boomerang, Snagglepuss was an anthropomorphic mountain lion, who wore a propped collar and a genuflect tie, was colored bright pink and played as stereotypically effeminate, spouting catchphrases like “Heavens to Murgatroyd!” and “Exit, stage left!” Basically, the clip below is all you really need to know about Snagglepuss encapsulated into two minutes.
Created in 1959, this w
Warner Bros. Reboots Snagglepuss As A Gay Playwright Being Hunted By The U.S. Government
Heavens to Murgatroyd! Warner Bros., which owns the entire Hanna-Barbera libary, is rebooting the late-1950s character Snagglepuss as “a gay Southern Gothic playwright.”
The eight-page story will debut this March in the Suicide Squad/Banana Splits Annual #1, before turning into a regular DC series this fall. “I envision him like a tragic Tennessee Williams figure,” writer Marc Russell told HiLoBrow.com. “Huckleberry Hound is sort of a William Faulkner guy, they’re in New York in the 1950s, Marlon Brando shows up, Dorothy Parker, these socialites of New York from that era come and go.”
The sexual orientation was never affirmed in the Hanna-Barbera cartoons, but Russell, who has also done an updated take on The Flintstones for DC Comics, is making Snagglepuss’ sexuality a key part of the story, in which the pink mountain lion is dragged before the Communist-hunting Home Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC). He’s accused of being a pinko, get it?
“It’s obviously ignored in the cartoons ’cuz they were made at a time when you couldn’t even acknowledge the existence of such a thing,
Snagglepuss debuted in the Hanna Barbera Swift Draw McDraw cartoon series in the 1959 episode Lamb Chopped. Daws Butler voiced Snagglepuss, creating the voice to sound similar to Burt Lahr’s Cowardly Lion in the Wizard of Oz. One of Snagglepuss’ catch phrases, “Heavens to Murgatroyd” was a line spoken by Lahr as well in the 1944 movie Come across The People. It was common during the late 1950s and 1960s for cartoon characters to be licensed for either Dell or Gold Key comics and Snagglepuss was no different. He had only a handful of appearances in Yogi Bear and other Hanna Barbera licenses comics before a solo run lasting just four issues. In addition to cartoon and comics appearances, Kellogg’s licensed the character to materialize in several TV commercials promoting Cocoa Krispies; he also appeared on cereal boxes for a period. Snagglepuss returned to comics at Marvel during a period in the late 1970s and then at DC when the Hanna Barbera properties were acquired by DC’s parent company.
Snagglepuss returned to comics with a six issue mini series from DC Comics in January 2018 written by Mark Russell and with art by Mike Feehan, Sean Parsons, and Paul M
How did Snagglepuss grow gay?
astro1
Oddly his wiki entrymakes virtually no speak of of Snagglepusses widely known adoption by the queer community as one of their own.
He is a pink lion created in 1959 whose voice mannerisms are about as fey and arch as can be. Did the creators determine ahead of day that they wanted Snagglepuss to be kinda sorta swish or did the voice actor bring the “gay” to the Snagglepuss character, or was it simply an extension of (I’m guessing per the lawsuit mentioned in the Wiki) copying Bert Lahr’s characterization of the cowardly lion, which was cute swish itself … or what?
Biffy_the_Elephant_Shrew2
I don’t know, but this thread prompted me to Google “Murgatroyd,” which led to my knowledge that the “Heavens to Murgatroyd” catchphrase was cribbed from Bert Lahr in a non-Cowardly Lion role.
ETA: Oh, duh–that’s already mentioned in the Wikipedia entry you linked to. Never mind.
parthenokinesis3
jayjay4
I always feel horrible for ol’ Snagglepuss. He’s the ORIGINAL pink panther, created in 1959, but this smug upstart shows up in 1963 and completely takes over the niche…
Kent_Clark5
I’ve never been one to think th