Snagglepuss is a Hanna-Barbera cartoon character created in 1959 and voiced by Daws Butler. He originally appeared in episodes of The Quick Draw McGraw Show and became a regular in The Yogi Bear Show. Snagglepuss lives in a cavern which he tries to make more habitable for himself. No matter what he does, he always winds up back where he started or worse off than before. Snagglepuss is chased in some episodes by the tiny hunter Major Minor (Don Messick).
In addition to the cartoons, he also appeared in commercials for Cocoa Krispies, MetLife, and Cartoon Network.
Although he is a pink panthernote , do not confuse him with The Pink Panther, whom he predates by four years.
Tropes, even!:
- Accessory-Wearing Cartoon Animal: Snagglepuss wears a collar, cuffs, and string tie.
- Adaptational Sexuality: He is gay in the Hanna-Barbera Beyond continuity, though this is reconciled by making Lila his beard.
- All Gays Love Theater: His later persona presents him as a gay Southern Gothic playwright. Though with his hammy and theatrical personality, "Exit, stage left" (or "right") catchphrase, and Ambiguously Gay depiction, he arguably embodies this trope in the early 1960s shorts as well. Several episodes ("Paws for Applause," "Remember Your Lions," and "Footlight Fright") show Snagglepuss on stage and enjoying himself to varying degrees.
- Amazing Technicolor Wildlife: Snagglepuss is colored orange in the Quick Draw McGraw shorts, pink in his own shorts.
- Boot Camp Episode: In order to escape a hunter, Snagglepuss joins the army in "Charge That Lion."
- Boxing Kangaroo: "Fight Fright" sees Snagglepuss involved in a pugilistic battle with K.O. Kangy, a boxing kangaroo.
- Camp Straight: His flamboyant nature is his most distinctive attribute, and almost universally interpreted as him being gay. Lila was tacked on probably as an attempt to dissuade this, though to no success.
- Character Catchphrase: Three signature ones:
- Before dashing off, "Exit, stage left!" or “stage right.”
- He typically appends the adverbial "...even" focus particle to synonyms, or sentences in general.
- And most famously, "Heavens to Murgatroyd!"
- Circuit Judge: In "Legal Eagle Lion", a criminal is waiting for a trial and his henchmen are making sure no judge will arrive to preside over it so he'll eventually have to be released. The last judge to be denied entry in town makes Snagglepuss take over his role.
- Darker and Edgier: When DC Comics began making "reboot" comics for various Hanna-Barbera properties in the mid-2010s, they reinvented ol' Snaggy as a gay Southern Gothic playwright making a stand against the House Un-American Activities Committee. Seriously
. - Doorstop Baby: Snagglepuss finds an unexpected bundle of infant joy in his mailbox in "Having a Bowl." Turns out it's the nephew of his hunter nemesis Major Minor.
- Early-Installment Weirdness: Before he got his own cartoons, he was orange with no collar or cuffs. He also appeared as the brown "Snaggletooth" in an Augie Doggie cartoon, "The Party Lion". Confusion arises because in his first appearance, The Quick Draw McGraw Show episode "Lamb Chopped", he was called Snagglepuss, but referred to an unseen Snaggletooth as his brother. Snaggletooth would later show up in a Snagglepuss cartoon where he is pink like Snagglepuss. So perhaps Augie met the actual Snaggletooth.
- Feuding Families: "Feud for Thought" finds Snagglepuss in the middle of an old fashioned backwoods-style feud.
- Heel–Face Turn: Before he got his own series of cartoons, Snagglepuss was an antagonist.
- I Warned You: In "Lion Tracks", the Major tries to make Snagglepuss clear out of his cave so a railway can go through, while Snagglepuss constantly tells him there's a reason one can't go through apart from the cave being his home. It's only too late that the Major finds out Snagglepuss was trying to tell him there's no place for tracks beyond his cave.
- Kangaroo Court: Snagglepuss presides over one and plays nearly every role in it, in the short "Legal Eagle Lion"
- Leaving Audience: The episode "Footlight Fright" has a kidnapped Snagglepuss attempting to do Shakespeare in front of an audience of the Major's fellow adventurers at their club. When the audience leaves, the big cat sees his chance to escape.
- No Celebrities Were Harmed: Snagglepuss' voice was based on Bert Lahr, who played the Cowardly Lion in The Wizard of Oz. Driving the similarity further, the "Murgatroyd" catchphrase was spoken by Lahr in the film Meet the People (1944).
- Noodle Incident: Whenever the Major and Snagglepuss meet, Major is always surprised to see him, citing some random previous encounter in some random place, presumably because he thought he killed him.Major: Didn't I shoot you in the veldt?
Snagglepuss: I beg to differentiate, it was below the veldt! I couldn't sit down for a week. - Off Like a Shot: His default stance whenever he goes "exit stage left." He used to be the page image, even.
- Playing Cyrano: Snagglepuss serves as vocal substitute in "Don't Know It Poet" to woo a lady for a noble. It backfires, as the lady he wanted has moved and Snagglepuss wasted all his time romancing the wrong lady.
- Poorly Disguised Pilot: "Fraidy Cat Lion" is the only Snagglepuss short to feature Mr. and Mrs. J. Evil Scientist, who otherwise appear in Snooper and Blabber shorts. And they take up a good chunk of "Fraidy Cat Lion", just like they do in the other shorts. Ultimately, the Scientists did not receive an animated show of their own, but they did get a comic book series.
- Protagonist Title: The show is named after the title character.
- Ring Around the Collar: Like most Hanna-Barbera characters from this time, Snagglepuss wears an accessory around his neck (a shirt collar and string tie in this case) to facilitate animation shortcuts.
- Swashbuckler: The shorts "Royal Ruckus," "Knights and Daze," and "Cloak and Stagger" see the plucky mountain lion as a knight or musketeer-type back in The Cavalier Years.
- Three Shorts: Snagglepuss's segment traditionally was the second one for The Yogi Bear Show.
- Twin Switch:
- Happens to Lila in "One Two Many," in which she thinks Snagglepuss and his brother Snaggletooth are the same person.
- Also happens in "Twice Shy" when Snagglepuss himself gets confused between wildlife hunter Major Minor and his twin brother, wildlife photogapher Sir Clyde.
- Exit, stage left/right! *WHOOSH*
- The Wild West: Besides his early appearances as a villain in the Quick Draw McGraw cartoons, Snagglepuss finds himself an Old West sheriff in "Lions Share Sheriff."
