Dogs in Spacesuits and Trenchcoats

We all grew up with cartoons on TV. We couldn’t get enough of them. Worthless old theatrical cartoons suddenly found a new audience—millions of children watching them over and over and over. Ratings were huge. Ratings = money. Money = more and more companies getting into the cartoon business to get a piece of the action. Suddenly, new cartoons were made especially for TV. Networks bought them. Stations bought them. More ratings, more money, more companies.

For every success story like AAP, which originally syndicated the Warner Bros. and Fleischer Popeye cartoons, there were other cartoon distributors which wallow in obscurity, their cartoons forgotten or unseen. One such company was run by Phil Davis.

Davis wasn’t a cartoonist, he was a writer-producer. His son was David Davis, who produced a bunch of successful sitcoms for MTM Productions. The two of them worked together on that series beloved by fans of 1928 Porters—“My Mother the Car.” He evidently saw the success of TV cartoons and jumped in.

In 1961, Davis created and wrote a sitcom pilot for Screen Gems satirising the space race called “Astronuts” (Richard Donner was hired to direct). Evidently he liked the punny title because he used it again. Kind of. Here’s Daily Variety from May 3, 1963.

Animation Of Pilot ABC Films Ordered Being Done In Yugo
Phil Davis leaves next week for Yugoslavia to film the pilot of a half-hour adult cartoon series, "The Astromutts." Animation will be done at the Zagreb studio with live symphony music and in Eastman color. Voice track will be made in Hollywood with featured actors. Davis previously produced the cartoon series, "Hound For Hire," in the same studio and it is now in syndication

Who appeared on the voice track? From Variety again, May 13th edition:

Len Weinrib has been set to do vocal role in "Astro-Mutts," cartoon strip being produced by Phil Davis for next fall. Series will be made in Yugoslavia.

You may know Lennie from his work at Hanna-Barbera a number of years later or his guest shots on ‘60s sitcoms. Lennie was a busy guy around this time. Among other things, he was the comic in Eve Arden’s act at the Sahara in Las Vegas (the comedian in the lounge at the time was a chap named Rickles). He was also an accomplished voice impersonator of J.F.K. and did the President in two satirical LPs released in 1962 by Capitol. Lennie once joked about Astromutts: “It must be a dog’s life behind the iron curtain.”

Davis wrote the words to the Astromutts theme song (music by Herman Stein and Harry Green) and it was copyrighted on May 7, 1963. It was almost two full years before we hear anything more about the proposed series. Davis’ copyrighted a 26-minute episode entitled “Operation Moonshot” (in Eastman Color) on March 23, 1965. Whether it ever appeared on TV or in theatres, I have no clue. I’m sure someone reading does and can fill us in.

Davis’ cartoon career evidently dates back to 1959, and this is where his other series mentioned above comes in. Daily Variety reported on November 27th of that year that Davis had “formed Cinemagic Internationale, a new company to make animated cartoons for television. Films will be produced at the Zagreb Studios in Yugoslavia, and voice tracks will be done in Paris with American actors. First series of 89 tele-films is titled ‘Hound for Hire’ and deals with adventures or a private-eye dog. Davis left for New York yesterday, and arrives in Paris Dec 2 en route to Yugoslavia.”

He evidently needed additional backing as the trade paper reported on March 9, 1960 that he and Arthur Epstein “have formed Cinemagic Corp. International to produce ‘Hound For Hire,’ animated tv series, in Europe for distribution in the United States. Initial batch will be 52 segs of from five to seven minutes each. It concerns a basset hound who plays a deadpan private eye.” By March 26th, Davis had written words and music for a children’s album based on the yet-to-be-made series. On April 6th, the paper announced he and Epstein had left for Europe to supervise the final processing then revealed on November 9th that the first 13 cartoons had been completed.

Why Zagreb? A headline in the May 18, 1960 Variety says it all: “O'Seas Animators Supplying Yanks; 50-75% Cheaper.” Actually, the March 20, 1960 edition of Sponsor magazine said the cartoons were produced in Yugoslavia and France, and processed in Germany and England. Here’s an episode of “Hound For Hire.” Good luck watching it to the end.