The Ruff and Reddy Show (also known as Ruff and Reddy) is an animated television series produced by Hanna-Barbera Productions for NBC. It is one of the earliest Saturday-morning cartoons, and the first series made by Hanna-Barbera. The series follows the adventures of Ruff, a smart and steadfast cat; and Reddy, a good-natured and brave (but not overly bright) dog. It was presented by Screen Gems, the television arm of Columbia Pictures. It premiered in December 1957 and ran for 156 episodes until April 1960, comprising three seasons total. It was repeated on NBC Saturday mornings in 1962–63. In the late 1950s it was sponsored by Post Consumer Brands.
Hanna and Barbera created The Ruff and Reddy Show for their cartoon studio, then named H-B Enterprises. The "buddy" theme had previously been explored in their Tom and Jerry theatrical shorts, but unlike Tom and Jerry, Ruff and Reddy aren't foes, but housemates and best friends. The series is notable as one of the earliest original animated television programs, and a pioneering use of limited animation techniques.
History
Background
In 1957, the animation/director team of William Hanna and Joseph Barbera were terminated from an eighteen-year-long tenure at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer producing the animated Tom and Jerry and Droopy theatrical short subjects. Their staff, composed of 110 inkers, painters, and animators, were also let go. MGM found it more profitable to continually re-release older cartoons than produce new ones. Hanna and Barbera remained a partnership and invested $30,000 out of pocket into a new venture, H-B Enterprises. The duo began work on storyboards featuring new characters, the first among them Ruff, a cat, and Reddy, a dog. Hanna later equated their respective names with he and his partners' dispositions at the period in which they were created. They forged a deal with former MGM colleague George Sidney in which he received a small percentage of the new company in return for acting as a business representative. Sidney arranged for a meeting at Screen Gems, which had at the time been considering re-entering the animation business. Feeling confidence in the Ruff and Reddy characters, the duo presented their proposal, along with a streamlined production budget, employing limited animation.
Animation
Ruff and Reddy, as one of the first original animated series produced for television, pioneered the technique of limited animation. Limited animation would require far fewer drawings, and, by extension, less inking and painting. This method was employed by necessity, as higher budgets had been the cause for the collapse of the theatrical cartoon business. Hanna, in a six-page memo, had attempted to convince his superiors at MGM to employ economized techniques in order to reduce the cost of their short films, but received no response. At that time, he had estimated a six-minute cartoon to cost $17,500 if it employed the limited animation technique (down from the $35,000 budget the duo received at MGM). When pitching to Screen Gems, Hanna had worked down the numbers to a much smaller $3,000, and the duo were very confident the company would respond with great excitement. Screen Gems appreciated the show concept, but explained to the duo that the budget for television, still an experimental medium, would be very stringent. Eventually, the company gave the partnership an option to produce five five-minute segments, with an escalating budget starting from $2,700.
Hanna described the process in his 1996 memoir, A Cast of Friends: "It was essential that we select only the key poses necessary to convincingly impart the illusion of movement in our cartoons." This method often emphasizes close-ups, rather than full or medium shots. All in all, the production process for Ruff and Reddy was not dissimilar from the process used to create theatrical cartoons: a script was written, followed by a storyboard illustrating key poses. Afterwards, a recorded soundtrack with dialogue was used to create a "pose reel," which would give the filmmakers a sense of timing. Watching pose reels during their MGM years had emphasized that simple key poses would be enough to demonstrate humor. Hanna believed the process in line with the nature of television during the period, stressing "intimacy rather than spectacle," represented an entirely different viewing experience (a large movie screen versus a small, standard-dimension television screen).
