Customer Reviews

Hoppity Hooper Volume One

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

If Waldo Wigglesworth were real and alive today he'd have the entire Hoppity Hooper series restored and put out on a DVD set that does it justice. Other than we baby-boomers who remember actually watching this show on Saturday morning, it seems that nobody has ever heard of Hoppity, Fillmore, and Waldo Wigglesworth, the con man (or should I say "con fox" played so brilliantly by Hans Conreid.

Sadly, what we have here is several full story-arc episodes that look like they came of aging 16 mm prints or video tape. No scene selection or anything. Just basically a Video Tape on disc, and with an inexplicable "silly symphony" type cartoon from the 1930's about a couple of donkies. What is that doing there?

This is a totally amateur production, but sadly the only Hoppity Hooper out there. Someone please rescue this brilliant and ahead of it's time cartoon series from the dust heap of history before it's too late.

While most reviews stick with "I liked it" or "I hated it", the ones that are most useful to me are the ones that describe the contents in detail. With that in mind, here's the lowdown on what you can expect if you buy this title:

This DVD only contains two four-part story arcs, along with the completely unrelated vintage cartoon mentioned in another review. It's worth having, but make sure you get it cheap.

Volume Two has several more cartoons, and I will be writing a review of that as well.

Another DVD I would recommend for Hoppity Hooper fans is from Mill Creek Entertainment, entitled "200 Classic Cartoons". It's available at WAL-MART, but don't bother ordering it from their website... if you can find it in a store it should be about five bucks. The fourth disc is where the Hoppity 'toons are, and there are six four-part story arcs, only one of which is included on either of the EastWest DVDs shown here.

Hope this helps everyone... with any luck, I'll be back to review an OFFICIAL set of the complete run of Hoppity Hooper! Hey, I can dream....

Well, this is sure a tease. "HOPPITY HOOPER", this little-known and long lost Jay Ward series that followed "ROCKY & BULLWINKLE" and preceeded "FRACTURED FLICKERS" was a major favorite of mine back in its day and had some interesting and twisted episodes. I recall one called "THE TRAFFIC ZONE" which was a takeoff on of course "THE TWILIGHT ZONE" and any number of the "KILLER TOMATO" movies (now there's a strange pairing), and it worked. In fact, this particular story arc is the first and *ONLY* time I'd ever seen a caricature of Bob Newhart performing his button-down comedy!

But one is immediately drawn in to "HOPPITY HOOPER" because the main characters of this series are anti-heroes, Professor Waldo Wigglesworth, a Dickensian fox of a con artist who seems to continuously be running from the law. In fact, in the first episode of the first story arc, he and his simple, innocent sidekick, Fillmore Bear, a truly untalented horn-blower with little gift for melody, are desperately looking for a place to hide out. They choose the "quaint quanset" of the title character, Hoppity Hooper, a tadpole just looking for adventure, and they somehow convince this naive little guy that they are relatives far removed.

This leads to an unlikely friendship as only Jay Ward Productions could create it. If this ever does show up on DVD, I'll be one of the first to snag my copy. While not as consistently witty as "ROCKY & BULLWINKLE", there are still pop culture references enough to recommend at least one multi-disk collection and, since the full story arcs never seem to go beyond four episodes, I would think that almost the entire series could be fit onto four full disks with room for extras like those elusive Jay Ward TV commercials for equally colorful breakfast cereals and snack foods. Jay Ward could sell me anything!!

So where is this series? Lost somewhere in Foggy Bog, Wisconsin? Please track it down and make it available once again...if it were available at all!!

"Hoppity Hooper" is one of those underground cult items that only two groups of people know about. (1) people who were kids when it first came out in 1964-67 and (2) Adult CGA's (Cartoon Geeks of America) who are fans of all things from Jay Ward's moosical megangerie.

That said, HH was produced by the Jay Ward crew after production stopped on THE BULLWINKLE SHOW. The similarities exist. The wild puns (one episode where the adventurous amphibian stops a bomb attack is called "Hallelujah I'm a Bomb") cliffhanger endings, and surreal slap-happy humor are all here too.

Essentially, this is where a fox named Waldo and his stupid bear of a partner Fillmore (more about him in a minute) are con artists on the run from the law. They temporarily hide out in the nearest home they could find-that of a frog named Hoppity Hooper. The fox (somehow) convinces the frog that he is his "long lost Uncle Waldo"(which explains this repeated reference throughout the series) until the heat's off, and Hoppity joins the twosome for a life of adventure on the road.

These episodes can really get bizarre. In one episode, the threesome meets a giant who terrifies them at first, but Waldo befriends him and turns the giant into a basketball star who they play against the Harlem Globetrotters. In another, Hoppity unwittingly becomes a rock star by accidentally creating a dance called the croak. Waldo in one tale digs for diamonds which leads them to be taken prisoner in an undergound kingdom of mole men. Pretty imaginative stuff, albeit not for all tastes.

A word on Fillmore the bear. Careful viewers will notice that he has a slightly different (but familiar) voice in the first two episodes. That is because his voice in the first two stories was Alan Reed, better known to all true CGA's as the voice of Fred Flintstone. After Reed left to play the comical caveman, Fillmore was played by Bill Scott, who was also the voice of Bullwinkle.

So if you want someting really different in animation with wild twists that does not tell the same story every time, this is for you. A real thinking man's cartoon, underground classic, and the Simpsons of the Sixties.