King Leonardo and His Short Subjects

Even as a child I recognized a political element in the King Leonardo stories. Odie, ostensibly a loyal toady, was the power behind the throne in the constant conflict to maintain the status quo on one hand against the installation of a puppet of the scheming lower class Biggie. Neither of the lion brothers were really more than figureheads. Maybe I was reading too much into it, but then Jay Ward and Bill Scott were pretty subversive guys! I was fortunate enough to get on their mailing list (by claiming to be editor of a humour magazine) and the stuff they sent out free was even better than their cartoons. What stays with me after forty years is the stories were endlessly entertaining and the characters well defined. I can still hear the voices.

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.

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: *****/*****

I love this show!! You should see it. It's a classic! Never underestimate the power of the TRUE BLUE ODIE COLOGNIE (and his should-be sidekick, King).

*****/***** (this is even better than Wacky Races!)

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.