The New Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

Yes, I remember this, too. I was only five. I have the vaguest memories: one of our heroes squeezing under a door into a closet, only to find a giant animated slave eating out of a bowl, which he throws at them, narrowly missing. I also vaguely recall some episode where either Huck or Tom is sentenced to death by being hurled off a high tower, and they quickly manufacture a scarecrow and drop it to the ground instead, making off just in time.

No, they certainly don't make television like this any more. I remember the excitement; I remember the contrast of the flesh-and-blood heroes and heroine against the animated villains and scenes; and I remember the aforementioned plot snippets; but everything else is gone, filed somewhere in my brain where I can no longer access it these thirty-seven years later. Too bad.

I watched this on and off as a kid...I was too young to catch it in first run, but then it aired in reruns for a long time but trying to find it could be tricky as sometimes it was in a morning cartoon block, sometimes on Saturday mornings, and sometimes not at all. Later, as an adult, I told friends about this show and they didn't believe me...but now there's proof as it's on DVD!

Tom, Huck, and Becky are chased by Injun Joe into a cave that suddenly turns into animated backgrounds. They flee Joe through the cave (I guess it's meant to be a sort of inter-dimensional portal...) and they end up wandering through different locations and time periods, always encountering adventures with villains who look and talk just like Injun Joe.

The unique thing was that the three heroes were live-action actors against an animated background and interacting with animated characters. And for its time, it was very well-done. The animated portions were very much standard Hanna-Barbera of the late 60s.

The stories ranged from the comical to the adventurous to the downright sinister. Settings ranged from ancient Greece to Spain (where they meet Don Quixote) to China to India to a Gothic swamp to a generic medieval Europe to a valley inhabited by cave men. (No explanation is given as to why they shift time periods and location so easily; as I kid I wanted to know!) Injun Joe always showed up, as a robber captain or a Nemoesque mad scientist or a wicked king or even an evil sorcerer. (He never recognized the kids, but he was always their enemy. Again, no explanation.) Sometimes they riffed on classic literature; plots are cribbed from Don Quixote, Moby Dick, Greek mythology, and others. One episode, "The Ancient Valley," is a clear, wry commentary on the arms race, and another, "The Conquistador's Curse," is a commentary on greed with Injun Joe barely appearing at all.

In its time it was popular with kids and teens, and the young stars had their 15 minutes of fame, but actual ratings were so-so and a second season never produced.

Watching it today, it's still fun, making me remember snowy Saturday mornings watching this and dreaming of the sort of flamboyant, pulpy adventure it depicted. To modern eyes, it's sometimes primitive but still impressive, and on occasion the depiction of minorities is less than enlightened by modern standards, but nearly every group is depicted as having its good and bad, so there's that much, at least.

So, maybe not dazzling, but good if you're nostalgic like I am. I'm so happy it's now available on DVD!

This was a highly innovative show at the time it was released. This was one of the first shows to mix live action and animation and it will always be one of my favorites. Too bad it is not shown anymore. Someone should write to the Cartoon Network and demand that this be shown. This is definitely a lost classic of animation.

I absolutely loved this series when I was 11; it aired Sunday evenings, and I never missed watching it. I don't think they made more than a dozen or so episodes of it, and I was devastated when it was canceled. It was never given the chance it should have had. Ted Cassidy played Injun Joe, and a more menacing villain it would have been hard to find; he was great in the role. As he chased Tom, Huck and Becky from one animated world to the next, it pulled me farther into their predicament and I couldn't wait for the next episode. They always ended in a cliffhanger.

This is a series that will probably never be shown again, and I wonder if any episodes are even still in existence. It would be nice if TVLand would air them, even just in odd places, so we could at least see them again. It was a novel concept ahead of it's time.

Cartoon Network apparently has this episode in its extensive Hanna-Barbera library. They just showed an episode of "The New Adventures Of Huck Finn" on their Saturday morning program "Boomerang". The episode was entitled "The Eye Of Doogerah".

Unfortunately, the Boomerang program just shows random episodes of old Saturday morning cartoons, but at least this rather unique (if not odd) program has been preserved for now.