Most of the characters in the Hanna Barbara universe were punching bags.  In fact, I’d say that about every last one of them.  Whether they were maniacal schemers (Yogi Bear) or good-hearted pansies (Huckleberry Hound), they always got their asses kicked left and right no matter what they were doing.  However, amongst all the characters getting mauled by dogs or shredded in wood-chippers, Lippy the Lion and Hardy Har-Har had to be the most tragic outlets for Hanna Barbara’s psychotic pent-up rage. 

They were traveling handymen, willing to take on any job if it meant a quick buck.  Lippy the Lion was the “brains” of the operation, always devising the schemes that would inevitably backfire in their faces and result in them getting poisoned or drawn and quartered.  Meanwhile, Hardy Har-Har was the depressed “laughing” hyena who was always sulking and fretting over every little thing.  Lippy was advertised as the brains of the pair, but I think Hardy was really the smart one.  He was aware that no matter what they did, be it driving a truckload of dynamite cross-country or eating a sandwich, it would inevitably end in their utter misery and suffering. 

I’d be suicidal, too, if I had to be a character in a Hanna Barbara cartoon.  Flat, lifeless environments, backgrounds that repeat in an endless loop no matter how fast you run, everyone and everything out to kill you, forced to recycle the exact same jokes over and over and over again for an audience that’ll forget you as soon as the show’s ended…my God, they were troopers.

People think life in the Hanna Barbara Universe would be all fun and games, but they’re wrong.  It’s a Hellish existence of raw, undiluted suffering and redundant gags that only get worse with age.  And, at the end of the day, unless your name is in the show’s title, you’re doomed to a future of obscurity, suitable only for occasional appearances in the All-Star Laff-a-Lympics or on Harvey Birdman.

Godspeed, Lippy the Lion and Hardy Har-Har.  Godspeed.

Ricochet Rabbit, the poor-man’s Quick Draw McGraw. To be honest, I’ve never been a big fan of Westerns or Western cartoons, Quick Draw included. So Ricochet Rabbit was never my cup of tea.
Still, I liked him more than Quick Draw McGraw, mostly because Ricochet had a super power; he was a speedster not unlike the Flash, Quicksilver, Max Mercury, Johnny Quick or, um, the Wizzer. Yeah, I guess Quick Draw was kind of a super hero. He had that El Kabong thing going. But that was just a crappy Zorro parody, and Zorro has always been lame.

No, Ricochet Rabbit would shout “Ping! Ping! PING!” and zoom off at light-speed, usually smashing through a plate-glass window and landing in a barrel of lemon wedges or something. All that, AND he shot criminals in the face with a Magnum. Hardcore.

But the best thing about Ricochet Rabbit is that he had a dark and secret origin. Ricochet Rabbit’s very first appearance was in a Touche’ Turtle cartoon, where he was the episode’s lead villain. I think he was stealing carrots or lettuce or something and Touche’ and Dum-Dum had to arrest him. He was a little different then, having a light brown fur coat as opposed to his later white one, and I don’t think he talked much, either.

And, true to Western-form, the once-villainous desperado ends up as a Sheriff. He even got saddled with some mildly-retarded deputy named Droop-a-Long. So, to be honest, whenever Ricochet ricocheted himself into a vat of piranha or off a cliff and into a scorpion’s nest, I never really felt sorry for him. I mean, I usually felt bad for the likes of Yogi Bear or Doggy Daddy when, despite their good intentions, they got brutally butchered for our entertainment. But not Ricochet. He was a former bad guy and this was just his comeuppance.

So that’s it for Ricochet Rabbit. Despite being a villain-turned-good with super powers and a handgun…he still sucked.

While I haven’t put very much research into this, I’m fairly confident that Loopy de Loop was the very first cartoon character to have a French accent and NOT be a sex-offender. And he was a wolf, too, which is especially surprising as wolves in cartoons are either shown to be godless killing machines or serial rapists.

But not Loopy de Loop. Probably because he was French-CANADIAN. Now, I’ve never actually met a Canadian before, but I hear they’re rather pleasant. Loopy de Loop’s major character-quirk was that he had a psychological urge to help anybody who needed it no matter what.

Most of the time he was trying to help a hot-headed midget bear win the heart of a Southern Belle polar bear (wha?). Typically, the episodes ended with Loopy de Loop getting molested by the female bear, but he always meant well.

Loopy de Loop was a testament to the old saying “nice guys finish last”, not only in his cartoons, but in the overall cast of Hanna Barbara characters, he ranks somewhere at the bottom below Scare Bear from Yogi Bear & the Galaxy Goof-Ups. The guy wasn’t even invited to the All-Star Laff-a-Lympics or Yogi’s Treasure Hunt.

So I raise my glass to Loopy de Loop, the guy who always tried his best to help everybody else, but ended up getting screwed-over for it.

You know what made Peter Potamus so entertaining? Well, mildly entertaining, at the very best. Anyway, what made him so cool was that he had a time-travel cartoon that DIDN’T try to teach you anything! Nearly every cartoon that had time-travel as a major plot-point used it as a front for supplemental education. Back to the Future the Series, Flint the Time Detective, Peabody & Sherman, Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventures, Times Squad…the list goes on!

But not Peter Potamus, no sir. Sure, he might tell you a date or something and give you a vague idea of when pilgrims hunted turkeys and wore those stupid hats, but nothing blatantly educational. The writers really just used the time-travel angle as a means for Peter to get his skull caved-in in new environments. One day he’d be eaten by a dinosaur, another day he’d be riddled with arrows by screaming Indians, and still another day he’d be hung from the gallows by a mob of Puritans believing him to be a witch. His little monkey pal never lifted a finger to help him, either.

Additionally, Peter Potamus was much like Ricochet Rabbit in that he had a super power. He called it his “Hippo Holler” or his “Hippo Howler” or something equally lame and predictable. Essentially, he could scream real loud and cause people’s ears to bleed uncontrollably.

Peter Potamus also didn’t give a damn about “time paradoxes” or “preserving the chrono-stream” or garbage like that. He’d go back in time, get into a fight with some Knight of the Round Table, blow his head off with his patented hippo-scream and BAM! John Cleese suddenly ceases to exist. Peter Potamus didn’t play by anybody’s rules, least of all God’s.

Peter Potamus can currently be seen on Harvey Birdman, Attorney at Law airing on Cartoon Network’s Adult Swim line-up. Despite being obscure and never very popular, and has managed a brand new catchphrase; “Didja get that thing I sentcha?”

Is this the beginning of a Peter Potamus-resurgence? I hope not.