Tennessee Tuxedo and His Tales is an animated television series that originally aired Saturday mornings on CBS from 1963 to 1966 as one of the earliest Saturday morning cartoons. It was produced by Total Television, the same company that produced the earlier King Leonardo and the later Underdog, and primarily sponsored by General Mills. A co-sponsor was Pillsbury's Funny Face Drinks. (Tennessee Tuxedo debuted on CBS on the same day that King Leonardo last ran on NBC.) The title is a play on the “tuxedo” dinner jacket worn as formal wear.
New short episodes were created for YouTube in 2014 by Chuck Gammage Animation in Toronto, and Cartoon Lagoon Studios in New York. Sponsored by Trix cereal, they resided on sillychannel.com. They feature the voice talent of Chris Phillips, Robb Pruitt and Ashley Albert.
Plot
The series centers on Tennessee Tuxedo, a penguin, and his dimwitted friend Chumley, a walrus. They live in the Megapolis Zoo along with friends Yakkety Yak and Baldy the Eagle. The Megapolis Zoo is run by the ill-tempered zoo director Stanley Livingston and his zookeeper assistant Flunky. In different episodes, Stanley has often threatened to skin Tennessee and Chumley alive. Four episodes featured Howler, a dog that Tennessee got from his Uncle Admiration. In addition, Tennessee competes against his rival Jerboa Jump and his later henchman Tiger Tornado.
Tennessee and Chumley regularly escape from the zoo only to find trouble outside. One recurring issue involves the gangster Rocky Maninoff who often orders Tennessee and Chumley to do his will at the point of a machine gun. Rocky is also served by a dimwitted minion named Pretzel. Whenever Tennessee proposes a hare-brained scheme, Chumley is skeptical. Typically, Tennessee assures the dim-witted Chumley that his superior intelligence will carry the day, often with his catch phrase, "Tennessee Tuxedo will not fail!" (though he more often than not does). Chumley then responds with his own phrase, "Duh, okay Tennessee!"
When faced with more trouble than they can bear, the pair turns to their friend Phineas J. Whoopee, the “Man with All the Answers". The latter knows about everything, and he often lectures the pair on diverse topics, from the physics behind the hot air balloon to how musicians become popular. His lectures are illustrated and animated on his Three-Dimensional Blackboard, which he pulls from an avalanche of junk that falls out of his overstuffed hallway closet when he opens the door. At the end of a Mr. Whoopee lecture, Tennessee praises his mentor with the line, “Phineas J. Whoopee, you’re the greatest!” Tennessee and Chumley occasionally must consult Mr. Whoopee again when they fail their first attempt to solve any problem as Mr. Whoopee snorts "But I've tried to warn you...". In a couple of episodes, Whoopee makes the pair promise him not to fool around with electricity and television, explaining the dangers involved in those fields.
In the series, Tennessee and Chumley have to overcome a personal problem that children can relate to, such as operating a camera when they are hired to photograph the Mayor of Megapolis to Chumley's requiring treatment for a toothache but fearing the dentist. On some occasions, Tennessee and Chumley are assisted by their friends Yaketty Yak, and Baldy the Bald Eagle.
The pair attempt to use their newly gained knowledge to get out of the mischief they created, but they frequently end up in more trouble with Stanley Livingston (mostly due to Chumley's screw-ups) who punishes them in different ways from having the police arrest them to scrubbing pots and pans in the cafeteria for six months. Episodes sometimes end with Stanley chasing Tennessee and Chumley around the zoo. There are some cases where the duo never caused trouble at all, such as performing in the music show, stopping Tiger Tornado from bullying the zoo animals, training for the Zoolympics without causing any damage or trouble (and winning), and successfully trimming the Christmas tree.
Production
On a Boing podcast, Underdog creator Joe Harris explained that F.C.C. commissioner Newton Minow declared television a "vast wasteland" in terms of educational material. Efforts were subsequently made to include education in programming. He added that in this show, Tennessee and Chumley were portrayed as the ones who were being educated so that children would not feel that they were being lectured to, even though they actually were.
Occasional back segments included "The World of Commander McBragg", "Klondike Kat", "Tooter Turtle", "The Hunter", and "The King and Odie" (the last three were re-run from the earlier show King Leonardo and His Short Subjects).