In previous installments of this series I’ve looked at intros for shows I don’t really watch. It’s not called “My Favorite Intros Of Shows I Watched”. A good intro can at least keep me around to see the intro, though I know these shows probably did have fans. Heck, there were installments of My Not-So-Favorite Intros that were about shows I did watch. I still pick on Conan The Adventurer. Tonight I bring an intro to one of those shows I didn’t really watch a lot, or at least I don’t remember watching this one as a kid.
By 1986 I’m pretty sure my preference for action shows had locked into place, even by Saturday morning cartoon standards. (The networks having to deal with parent groups and the studios having to deal with the standards and practices folks led to stuff you only got away with in syndication and later cable channels.) Even the few shows that involved the characters hanging out were stuff like The Smurfs or Shirt Tales where they also fought bad guys, especially after Johan and Peewee were added to the Smurfs cartoon. (Yes, I know why.) So Hanna-Barbera’s Foofur, which like the other two aired on NBC for two seasons, was not on my Saturday morning watch list. The series follows the title character, a blue dog, and his friends living together, getting along, and having fun together. I wasn’t a fan, but something about the intro keeps it popping up in my head from time to time.
Obviously it has mostly to do with the theme song. Have you heard a more chill theme song? It just settles you into the grove and based on what little I know/remember of the show it does fit the tone. We do see that Foofur and his friends (which apparently includes his niece, the blue puppy) dealing with dog catchers and a woman who at least appears to own the house, which I’ll get back to, that they have to avoid. Otherwise they’re just a group of friends having fun. It looks like a very relaxed and fun little show.
However, it doesn’t quite get the relationships right. I’m going by the Hanna-Barbera fan wiki (there’s a wiki for almost everything, but Foofur’s only fan wiki is a bit sparse), which is where I learned the blue puppy was Foofur’s niece. There are also couples in the group, including one the wiki says is married, but you don’t see them showing it. Additionally the woman they’re running from is apparently the executor of the will, who is supposed to be keeping the house maintained for Foofur in accordance with his late master’s wishes, but wants to sell the place, with her own dog failing to stop Foofur and friends from ruining her plans. The only thing you do get is that the dogs and one cat are strays that were grabbed by the dog catcher because who wants to live in a big house by yourself. Visually it could do a better job of setting up how the characters connect to each other and outside of the cat’s issues with the rats tell us something about the characters besides Foofur himself.
While I was looking for this video I came across other international intros but this one in particular caught my attention because it was in English, and offers a different theme song for the visuals of the intro.
Well, at least we know his name is Foofur. It’s relaxed as well but I don’t think it’s quite as chill. I don’t think this is an alternate US intro because the music really doesn’t have that Hanna-Barbera tone to it. It’s the same visuals but it doesn’t really match up with the song. I don’t think the intro would be on my favorites list had they gone with that song but the original is a lot more relaxing and better fits the tone of the show. I don’t know where it came from because I can’t really recognize an accent but it shows just how much the theme song plays into the intro.
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