King Leonardo and His Short Subjects

King Leonardo brings back so many good memories of my childhood - this would have had to have been my all time favourite cartoon. I would love to be able to watch again, but it is never on the Cartoon Network channel and unfortunately I don't see a DVD arriving any time soon, but I would love to re-live the memories once again. My husband would know then about the show that I used to love.

Before anything else, I have to make a correction to someone else's comment. Jay Ward and Bill Scott had nothing to do with "King Leonardo and His Short Subjects." In fact, it was the first production of Total Television (AKA TTV), the same folks who brought us "Tennessee Tuxedo" and "Underdog." They used the same animators as Jay Ward and had a similar style, not to mention both were sponsored by General Mills, so it is very easy to get confused! At any rate, "King Leonardo and His Short Subjects" may not be as well remembered as "Underdog" or "Tennessee Tuxedo," but it should be. It has the same wit and sense of whimsy about it as TTV's later work. And the voice work, as with any TTV production, is superb.

This show was the cradle for other Total Television cartoons such as Underdog, Tennessee Tuxedo, Tooter Turtle, The Fox and The Hunter, Go Go Gophers, Klondike Kat, The World of Commander McBragg, and others, yet this particular cartoon has fallen into obscurity compared to the others. And it is not really a shock.

King Leonardo himself was the dense king of Bongo Congo, with his loyal skunk assistant Odio Colognie helping him out of various scrapes, mainly Biggie Rat trying to install Leonardo's even denser sibling Itchy Brother onto the throne, with other villains sometimes helping them out-but of course Odio Colognie saves the day every time.

So why did this fall by the wayside compared to the others? Undoubtedly because each episode had basically the same plot, with relatively little variety. Though Underdog always won the day, he at least had a variety of villains to deal with, and different ways to deal with them, sometimes even by solving their problems rather than simply defeating them. Tennessee Tuxedo had to get help from Mr. Whoopee each episode, but his problems were not the same each time. Even little kids don't like the same story each time, and why certain Total Television cartoons became more popular over the others.

King Leonardo and His Short Subjects must have made quite an impression on me ... I never forgot about this show in 60 years. I remembered all the characters names like Odie O Colognie (my version) Big guy Rat..and their characteristics. I always thought it was ahead of it's time whatever that really means and would love to be able to see them again. I never see them mentioned when questions come up about people"s favorite cartoons from their childhood so I throw in King Leonardo's name to bring it back to people's minds and seek out fellow fans. Nice to read the reviews here ..now I know I didn't imagine them. Now I need to find 65 more words so this review will go through. :-)

This was outstanding! I would admit it's better than Wacky Races. Odie Colognie is cool. If you like old cartoons you should see this. If you like Dudley Do-Right I highly recommend seeing this and possibly buy it if they sold it, or something!!!

My Opinion: *****/*****