Huckleberry Hound

Huckleberry "Huck" Hound is a fictional cartoon character, a blue anthropomorphic coonhound that speaks with a North Carolina Southern drawl and has a relaxed, sweet, and well-intentioned personality. He first appeared in the series "The Huckleberry Hound Show". The cartoon was one of six TV shows to win an Emmy Award in 1960 as an "Outstanding Achievement in the Field of Children's Programming"; the first animated series to receive such an award.
Most of his short films consisted of Huck trying to perform jobs in different fields, ranging from policeman to dogcatcher, with results that backfired, yet usually coming out on top, either through slow persistence or sheer luck. Huck did not seem to exist in a specific time period as he has also been a Roman gladiator, a medieval knight, and a rocket scientist. He never appeared in futuristic cartoons, only those set in the present (1950s) or in the past.
One regular antagonist in the series was Powerful Pierre, a tall and muscular unshaven character with a French-Canadian accent. Another regular villain was Dinky Dalton, a rough and tough western outlaw that Huck usually has to capture, and Crazy Coyote, a wild Native American who Huck often had to defeat and who was his match. There were also two crows with Mafia accents who often annoyed Farmer Huck. Another trademark of Huck was his tone deaf and inaccurate rendition of "Oh My Darling, Clementine", often used as a running gag.
Concept and creation.
In 1953, Tex Avery created a character known as the Southern Wolf for his MGM cartoons "The Three Little Pups" and "Billy Boy". Introduced as an antagonist to Droopy, the wolf had a southern drawl and laid back mannerisms provided by Daws Butler. The most memorable trait of the character was that whenever something painful or unpleasant happened to him, the Wolf never lost his cool; instead, he calmly talked to the audience or kept whistling the song "Year of Jubilo". After Avery left MGM, William Hanna and Joseph Barbera produced two more shorts with the character. In two of his cartoons ("Billy Boy" and "Blackboard Jumble") the wolf plays a role that was exactly like a usual Huckleberry Hound short, aside from his frequent use of slang, and the echo-like repetition of words he had only in "Billy Boy". While "Sheep Wrecked" was the wolf's final appearance, Huckleberry can be considered his reincarnation.
Huckleberry's name is a reference to classic American novel "Adventures of Huckleberry Finn", written by Mark Twain. Hanna and Barbera almost named Yogi Bear "Huckleberry Bear".
He was voiced in the original cartoons in 1958 by Daws Butler, who had given a similar voice and characterization to the dog character in "Ruff and Reddy". The voice for Huck was actually inspired by a neighbor of Butler's wife, Myrtis Martin, in her hometown Albemarle, North Carolina. Butler would visit Myrtis and her family and would talk to the neighbor who was a veterinarian. Butler found the man's voice amusing, and would remember it when it came time to voice Huck. The voice bore similarities to that of Andy Griffith, who likewise based his character accent on a rural North Carolina town (in Griffith's case, Mount Airy), and Hanna-Barbera was known for its characters' voices being parodies of known celebrities; Butler, who had been using the accent for about a decade before Griffith became famous, denied using Griffith as an inspiration.
Huckleberry's voice was originally loud, enthusiastic and joyful, to fit his occupation of a showman. As the show progressed, it became deeper, and more calm.
In other media.
"Huckleberry Hound in Hollywood Capers" is a 1993 computer game for MS-DOS, Amiga, and Atari ST, released only in Europe. It was, in fact, adapted from an earlier game, "Dino Jr. in Canyon Capers".