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48-534: Help! ... It's the Hair Bear Bunch! was an American Saturday morning animated television series, created by Joe Ruby and Ken Spears and produced by Hanna-Barbera , which aired for one season on CBS from September 11, 1971, to January 8, 1972. Daws Butler , Paul Winchell and William Callaway voice the three bears that comprise the Hair Bear Bunch, while John Stephenson and Joe E. Ross voice Mr. Eustace P. Peevly and Lionel J. Botch, respectively,

96-402: A "pin-up" on the back cover". In June 2001, DIC Entertainment announced they would purchase Golden Books Family Entertainment for US$ 170   million (equivalent to $ 293 million in 2023) and take it out of bankruptcy. However, DIC would pass off the purchase due to high costs and instead Golden Books Family Entertainment was eventually acquired jointly by Classic Media , owner of

144-419: A trademark registration for a logo identical to the original Gold Key logo. Later that year the trademark registration was purchased by the newly-formed Gold Key Entertainment LLC. Gold Key Entertainment LLC consists of comic book enthusiasts Lance Linderman, Adam Brooks, Mike Dynes, and Arnold Guerrero. Linderman describes trading a copy of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles #1 to Willis for the rights to Gold Key, in

192-546: A year, they had reverted to using inked panel borders and oval balloons. They experimented with new formats, including Whitman Comic Book , a black-and-white, 136-page, hardcover series consisting of reprints, and Golden Picture Story Book , a tabloid -sized, 52-page, hardcover containing new material. In 1967, Gold Key reprinted a number of selected issues of their comics under the title Top Comics . They were packaged in plastic bags containing five comics each and were sold at gas stations and various eateries. Like Dell, Gold Key

240-570: A younger audience, citing its similarities to The Phil Silvers Show as an additional reason. It returned Sunday mornings at 9:30 AM on September 9, 1973 then was moved to Saturdays at 8 AM on February 2, 1974 after CBS revamped their Saturday line-up. In syndication, the series was replayed on several television networks after its cancellation. USA Network ran the series beginning February 19, 1989, and until November 7, 1991. The United States' Cartoon Network began broadcasting it in 1994 and its sister channel Boomerang did so on several occasions in

288-770: The Jesse Marsh drawn Tarzan ; and some of the Russ Manning -produced Tarzan series. They started several revivals of characters under Jim Shooter , including Doctor Solar , Magnus , Turok , and Mighty Samson . The Checker Book Publishing Group, in conjunction with Paramount Pictures , began reprinting the Gold Key Star Trek series in 2004. Hermes Press reprinted the three series based on Irwin Allen 's science-fiction TV series, as well as Gold Key's Dark Shadows , My Favorite Martian , and

336-543: The 1960s, due to its offering of many titles based upon popular TV series of the day, as well as numerous titles based on both Walt Disney Studios and Warner Bros. animated properties. It was also the first company to publish comic books based upon the then current NBC TV series Star Trek . While some titles, such as Star Trek and The Twilight Zone , were published for many years, many other licensed titles were characterized by short runs, sometimes publishing no more than one or two issues. Gold Key considered suing over

384-456: The 1970s, the entire comics industry experienced a downswing and Gold Key was among the hardest hit. Its editorial policies had not kept pace with the changing times, and suffered an erosion of its base of sales among children, who instead of buying comic books, could now watch cartoons and other entertainment on television for free. It is also alleged by Carmine Infantino that in the mid to late 1960s, DC Comics attempted to pressure Gold Key from

432-529: The 1990s to launch Valiant Comics ' fictional universe. Dark Horse Comics (and later, Dynamite Entertainment ) have published reprints, including several in hardcover collections, of such original Gold Key titles as Magnus, Robot Fighter ; Doctor Solar ; Mighty Samson ; M.A.R.S. Patrol ; Turok: Son of Stone ; The Occult Files of Doctor Spektor ; Dagar the Invincible ; Boris Karloff's Tales of Mystery ; Space Family Robinson ; Flash Gordon ;

480-679: The Dell Comics era mostly continued into the Gold Key era. In the mid-1960s, a number of artists were recruited by the newly formed Disney Studio Program and thereafter divided their output between the Disney Program and Western. Writer/artist Russ Manning and editor Chase Craig launched the Magnus, Robot Fighter science-fiction series in 1963. Jack Sparling co-created the superhero Tiger Girl with Jerry Siegel in 1968, drew

528-406: The Gold Key imprint at that time as the comics could no longer be found on the newsstands, but in department, variety, and grocery stores. Our new management assumed that comics could be treated like coloring books or puzzles. That proved an ill-fated decision. The following years were characterized by delays and erratic distribution. Eventually, arrangements were made to distribute these releases to

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576-489: The Hair Bear Bunch! was compared to several other Hanna-Barbera productions. David Mansour, author of From Abba to Zoom: A Pop Culture Encyclopedia of the Late 20th Century , compared the show's premise to the storyline of Hanna-Barbera's Top Cat and wrote, "but instead of a gang of hip cats residing in an alley, it starred a bunch of cool bears living at the zoo." Christopher P. Lehman, who wrote American Animated Cartoons of

624-516: The Hair Bear Bunch, a group of three bear cousins who live at the Wonderland Zoo run by zoo director Mr. Peevly and zookeeper Lionel Botch. They also serve as the "wacky heroes" of the show. The three bears would occasionally escape their luxurious cage to ride on their "invisible motorcycle[s]"; however, they would always return to the cage before Mr. Peevly or Lionel Botch were able to catch them. Even Peevly and Botch are visited by their boss

672-521: The Invincible , and Tragg and the Sky Gods . Also in the 1970s, writer Bob Gregory started drawing stories, mostly for Daisy and Donald . Artist/writer Frank Miller had his first published comic book artwork in The Twilight Zone for Gold Key in 1978. Diana Gabaldon began her career writing for Gold Key, initially sending a query that stated, "I’ve been reading your comics for

720-547: The Phantom. Bongo Comics published a parody of Gold Key in Radioactive Man #106 (volume 2 #6, Nov. 2002) with script/layout by Batton Lash and finished art by Mike DeCarlo that Tony Isabella dubbed "a nigh-flawless facsimile of the Gold Key comics published by Western in the early 1960s...from the painting with tasteful come-on copy on the front cover to the same painting, sans logo or other type, presented as

768-455: The TV series. Editor Chase Craig stated that Gold Key would launch titles with Hanna-Barbera characters with direct adaptations of episodes of the program because "[t]he studio had approval rights and the people there could get pointlessly picky about the material ... but they rarely bothered looking at any issue after the first few. Therefore, it simplified the procedure to do the first and maybe

816-523: The United States. Sometimes, the bears (usually Hair) would activate a hidden switch to reveal a cave with more luxurious surroundings (complete with modern furniture) instead of the more meager accommodations they were normally seen living in. The series features the following five main characters throughout its run: Executively produced and directed by William Hanna and Joseph Barbera 's Hanna-Barbera Productions , Charles A. Nichols served as

864-473: The Vietnam Era , also compared it to a previous television series, but instead to the live-action The Phil Silvers Show . Author David Perlmutter considered the show to be a reworked version of Yogi Bear , which he deemed appropriate because "the youth of the late 1960s and early 1970s" had a "'hippie' mindset." He also noted that because the series "incorporated some of the 'flip, sophisticated' style of

912-466: The Whitman logo, as well as that of Marvel Comics, with its diamond (before the direct market even arrived). Former DC Comics executive Paul Levitz stated, "[The] Western program was enormous — even well into the 1970s, they were taking very large numbers of DC titles for distribution (I recall 50,000+ copies offhand)." In 1979, Western ceased to be an independent company when Mattel Inc. purchased

960-471: The Zoo Superintendent. The bears had several motives for pranking and fooling Mr. Peevly and Mr. Botch, including trying to "improve their living conditions" and wanting to "embark on get-rich-quick schemes". The bears also wore clothes; according to author Christopher P. Lehman, Hanna-Barbera "dress[ed] the bears in counterculture apparel" in order to stay on track with the "mainstream" fashion in

1008-436: The catalog of United Productions of America , and book publisher Random House in a bankruptcy auction for the lower $ 84.4   million (equivalent to $ 145.2 million in 2023) on August 16, 2001. In turn, Random House, and Classic Media gained ownership of Golden Books' entertainment catalog (including the family entertainment catalog of Broadway Video which includes the pre-1974 library of Rankin/Bass Productions and

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1056-430: The comics business through sheer volume of output. Among the original titles launched by Gold Key in the 1970s were Baby Snoots and Wacky Witch . By 1977, many of the company's series had been cancelled and the surviving titles featured more reprinted material, although Gold Key was able to obtain the rights to publish a comic book series based upon Buck Rogers in the 25th Century between 1979 and 1981. It also lost

1104-418: The comics for which he wrote were The Flintstones , Uncle Scrooge , Daffy Duck , Bugs Bunny , The Three Stooges , and Woody Woodpecker . Leo Dorfman , creator of Ghosts for DC Comics , also produced supernatural stories for Gold Key's similarly themed Twilight Zone , Ripley's Believe it or Not , Boris Karloff Tales of Mystery , and Grimm's Ghost Stories . One of Gold Key's editors at

1152-500: The company. The new management stopped selling returnable comics at newsstands, preferring the nonreturnable bagged comics sold at toy stores. In a 1993 interview, Del Connell, the managing editor at Western's West Coast office in the late 1970s, recalled, ...the Western comics line was killed by distribution. Perhaps you know that by early 1980 our comics were only being distributed in bagged sets of three. The Whitman label replaced

1200-559: The distributor for a refund, but the bagged comics were not. To discourage unscrupulous dealers from opening the plastic bags and returning the nonreturnable issues, Western published the newsstand versions under the Gold Key Comics label, and put the Whitman Comics logo on the bagged versions, although otherwise the issues were identical. Western, at one point, also distributed bagged comics from its rival DC Comics under

1248-606: The early animal con-artist formula, the series maintained a distinct connection with the time and place in which it was produced." Besides Wait Till Your Father Gets Home (1972–1974) and Hong Kong Phooey (1974), Nichola Dobson wrote in The A to Z of Animation and Cartoons that Help! ... It's the Hair Bear Bunch! was one of Hanna-Barbera's more successful shows. However, in The Encyclopedia of Guilty Pleasures: 1001 Things You Hate to Love , three different authors labeled

1296-629: The early-to-late 2000s. A physical release on VHS first occurred in September 1988 and features three episodes from the series. Years later, as part of the Warner Bros. Television Distribution 's Archive Collection , the complete Help! ... It's the Hair Bear Bunch series was made available on DVD as a four-disc set. It was also released digitally to the Google Play Store and iTunes Store libraries in its entirety. Help! ... It's

1344-652: The emerging collector market, containing classic stories of the Disney characters by Carl Barks and Floyd Gottfredson ( Best of Walt Disney's Comics ). In the late 1970s, somewhat higher-grade reprints of various licensed characters were also aimed at new venues ( Dynabrites ), plus Starstream , a four-issue series adapting classic science fiction stories by authors such as Isaac Asimov and John W. Campbell . Golden Press released trade paperback reprint collections such as Walt Disney Christmas Parade , Bugs Bunny Comics-Go-Round , and Star Trek: The Enterprise Logs . In

1392-481: The last 25 years, and they’ve been getting worse and worse. I’m not sure if I could do better myself, but I’d like to try." Editor Del Connell provided a script sample and bought her second submission. According to former Western Publishing writer Mark Evanier , during the mid-1960s, comedy writer Jerry Belson , whose writing partner at the time was Garry Marshall , also did scripts for Gold Key while writing for leading TV sitcoms like The Dick Van Dyke Show . Among

1440-437: The late 1970s, the distribution of comic books on spinners and racks at newsstands, drug stores, and supermarkets continued, but Western Publishing also sold packages of three comics in a plastic bag to toy and department stores, gas stations, airports, and bus/train stations, "as well as other outlets that weren't conducive to conventional comic racks". The newsstand comics were returnable; the dealer could return unsold copies to

1488-426: The library of Total Television ), as well as production, licensing, and merchandising rights for Golden Books' characters and the Gold Key Comics catalogs, while Random House gained Golden Books' book publishing properties. Random House had previously acquired Dell Publishing through a series of mergers since 1976, effectively reuniting the remnants Gold Key Comics and Dell Comics . On July 23, 2012, Classic Media

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1536-632: The mildest of mild violence, and the characters' tendency to poke fun at each other, the series is fun and inoffensive." List of animated television series These are lists of animated television series . Animated television series are television programs produced by means of animation . Animated series produced for theaters are not included in this lists; for those, see List of animated short film series . These lists include compilation series of theatrical shorts such as The Bugs Bunny Show since they often feature some new wrap-around animation. Gold Key Comics Gold Key Comics

1584-504: The nascent national network of comic-book stores. Western also prepared a prospectus in the early 1980s for a deluxe Carl Barks reprint project aimed at the collector market that was never published. In December 1983, a struggling Mattel sold Western Publishing to real-estate investor Richard A. Bernstein. Bernstein closed Western's comic-book publishing division in 1984. Three of Gold Key's original characters, Magnus, Robot Fighter , Doctor Solar , and Turok, Son of Stone , were used in

1632-493: The part, Barbera was unimpressed and cast Stephenson for the part instead. Barbera claimed "that Joe Flynn didn't sound enough like Joe Flynn." Gold Key Comics adapted several Hanna-Barbera and "Saturday morning-based" productions (such as The Funky Phantom , The Harlem Globetrotters , and Lidsville ) into comic books. The adaptation of Help!... It's the Hair Bear Bunch! was titled just The Hair Bear Bunch and began distribution in 1972. 13 different issues were made for

1680-517: The rights to publish Star Trek -based comic books to Marvel Comics just prior to the revival of the franchise via Star Trek: The Motion Picture , with the final Gold Key-published Star Trek title being issued in March, 1979. In this period, Gold Key experimented with digests with some success. In a similar manner, to explore new markets in the mid-1970s, it produced a four-volume series, with somewhat better production values and printing aimed at

1728-577: The second issue as an adaptation. They couldn't very well complain that a plot taken from the show was inappropriate". Over the years, Gold Key lost several properties, including the King Features Syndicate characters ( Popeye , Flash Gordon , The Phantom , etc.), to Charlton Comics in 1966, numerous, but not all, Hanna-Barbera characters also to Charlton Comics in 1970, and Star Trek to Marvel Comics in 1979. The stable of writers and artists built up by Western Publishing during

1776-477: The series aired on multiple television networks in the United States, including Boomerang , Cartoon Network , and the USA Network . In total, Help!... It's the Hair Bear Bunch! contained sixteen 30 minute-long episodes. It has also been released digitally to the Google Play Store and iTunes Store and physically on DVD as part of Warner Bros. ' Archive Collection on a four-disc set. The series follows

1824-520: The series as one of Hanna-Barbera's "lesser-known efforts" but ultimately called it a "guilty pleasure" and enjoyed that it had its own score. In a retrospective view of older cartoons, the staff at MeTV included the show on their list of "15 Forgotten Cartoons from the Early 1970s You Used to Love." Deirdre Sheppard from Common Sense Media rated it three out of five stars and noted that it has "no educational content"; however, she also said that "other than

1872-402: The series overall. Help!... It's the Hair Bear Bunch! contained a laugh track created by Hanna-Barbera . Help! ... It's the Hair Bear Bunch! was broadcast on CBS between September 11, 1971 and January 8, 1972. The series was cancelled after the first season, consisting of sixteen episodes, was completed airing; according to Lehman, the series was unsuccessful because it did not appeal to

1920-399: The series' main producer. Additionally, Robert "Bob" Givens contributed as the layout artist for the storyboards. The show's official theme song was written by Hoyt Curtin , who also served as the series' music composer. Other than the main cast, frequent Hanna-Barbera voice actors Janet Waldo , Joan Gerber , Lennie Weinrib , Vic Perrin and Hal Smith played several minor characters for

1968-482: The show. A group of five writers wrote for Help!... It's the Hair Bear Bunch! , including Joel Kane, Heywood Kling , Howard Morgenstern, Joe Ruby , and Ken Spears . Despite Stephenson ultimately playing the role of Mr. Eustace P. Peevly, Barbera had intended for Joe Flynn to play the part since the character was based on Flynn's Captain Binghamton from McHale's Navy ; however, when Flynn came into audition for

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2016-477: The similarly themed television series Lost in Space for its resemblance to the preexisting Space Family Robinson , but decided their business relationship with CBS and Irwin Allen was more important than any monetary reward resulting from such a suit; as a result, the Gold Key series adopted the branding Space Family Robinson Lost in Space with issue #15 (Jan. 1966), though its narrative had no connection to

2064-444: The time told Mark Evanier, "Leo writes stories and then he decides whether he's going to sell them to DC [for Ghosts ] or to us. He tells us that if they come out good, they go to us and if they don't, they go to DC. I assume he tells DC the opposite." Editor Frank Tedeschi , who left in 1973 for a job in book publishing, helped bring in such new comics professionals as Walt Simonson , Gerry Boudreau, and John David Warner. During

2112-784: The toyline tie-in Microbots one-shot , and illustrated comic book adaptations of the television series Family Affair and Adam-12 . Dan Spiegle worked on Space Family Robinson , The Green Hornet , The Invaders , Korak, Son of Tarzan , Brothers of the Spear , and many of Gold Key's mystery/occult titles. Among the other creators at Gold Key were writers Donald F. Glut , Len Wein , Bob Ogle , John David Warner , Steve Skeates , and Mark Evanier ; and artists Cliff Voorhees , Joe Messerli , Carol Lay , Jesse Santos , and Mike Royer . Glut created and wrote several series including The Occult Files of Dr. Spektor , Dagar

2160-538: The two individuals who patrol the zoo in which the bears live. The series' producer was Charles A. Nichols , with William Hanna and Joseph Barbera directing, and Hoyt Curtin serving as the composer. A 13-issue comic book series was created by Gold Key Comics and began distribution in November 1971. Many television critics compared the premise of the show to other Hanna-Barbera productions, such as Wally Gator , Top Cat and Yogi Bear . While in syndication,

2208-564: Was acquired by DreamWorks Animation for $ 155   million (equivalent to $ 206 million in 2023) and renamed DreamWorks Classics . On July 1, 2013, Random House merged with the Penguin Group , forming a new company called Penguin Random House . In April 2016, the acquisition of DreamWorks Animation (owner of DreamWorks Classics) by NBCUniversal was announced. In 2021, comics creator and hacker Robert Willis obtained

2256-422: Was created in 1962, when its parent, Western Publishing Company , switched to in-house publishing rather than packaging content for branding and distribution by its business partner, Dell Comics . Hoping to make their comics more like traditional children's books, they initially eliminated panel line-borders, using just the panel, with its ink and artwork evenly edged, but not bordered by a "container" line. Within

2304-521: Was one of the few major American comic book publishers never to display the Comics Code Authority seal on its covers, trading instead on the reputation of its child-friendly stories. Gold Key featured a number of licensed properties and several original titles, including a number of publications that were spun off from Dell's Four Color series, or were published as stand-alone titles. Gold Key maintained decent sales numbers throughout

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