My Friendly Pets

Wow!!! Guess what this entry is about???!!!! Today, I had the unique pleasure and privilege of being on an interview conference call today with Joe Harris, who is a co-creator of the original Underdog cartoon series. He was the supervisor of animation for all General Mills products when the Underdog idea came about. The interview held today was to help promote the release of the original Underdog cartoon in DVD format. The dvds came out on July 24th.

Mr. Harris is an interesting and engaging individual. Of course, my recorder stopped working about 10 minutes before the interview began, but I wrote a lot of info down and hope to give you some highlights here. Keep in mind, these are not the direct quotes, but summaries of Mr. Harris’ answers.

Question: How did the idea for Underdog come about?
Chet Stover, Buck Biggers and Joe Harris all worked for the General Mills account at a New York Ad agency and were designated with the duty of coming up with cartoon characters to promote General Mills products. There were cartoons before Underdog, such as Tennesee Tuxedo and King Leonardo and His Short Subjects.
Chet was watching an episode of I Love Lucy where George Reeves was coming on the show as Superman and Lucy dressed up as Superman and was going to surprise him by flying through the window, but she never got the chance, because she got stuck out on the ledge because the window was closed and locked.

The next day, Chet said,”We have to create a superhero and it should be a dog.” According to Mr. Harris, the dog is of no particular breed, just an animated dog.

The character of Sweet Polly Purebred is fashioned after, the one and only, Marilyn Monroe. Mr. Harris had a lot of say in the voices of the characters and as soon as he heard Wally Cox, he knew that was the voice of Underdog.

Mr. Harris felt the late 50’s and early 60’s was the perfect time for the development of such an anti-hero. It appealed to kids that Underdog was a hero but in reality was a imperfect, often clumsy and bumbling Shoeshine Boy. The 50’s were the good times, post war boom and everyone was happy. The tumultuous 60’s hadn’t taken off yet, and the political climate was the best setting possible for the next crimefighter.

I asked Mr. Harris why he believed that Underdog has endured so long and still appeals to kids today and he said because kids can identify with Underdog and want to love an imperfect hero.

Underdog always speaks in rhymes, because they truly wanted to differentiate this superhero from any other before him and this was a great way to do it.

Mr. Harris has had input into the development and promotion of the DVD collection and is proud to have Underdog as his legacy.

Mr. Harris says that the cartoons of today are great and couldn’t be done without the support of computer animation, but that the personal nature of the cartoon that was done with sketch pads, pencils and erasers, truly captured the emotion and ideas of the animator years ago.

As I mentioned, the interview was great. I apologize for the lack of direct quotes. There is great information about the DVD series on www.underdogshow.com. And sing along….”there’s no need to fear…Underdog is here”

Speaking with Mr. Harris was a pleasure and took me back many years when cartoons were simply about good versus evil and we all could root for an imperfect but loveable hero. Thank you Mr. Harris…your legacy lives on.