Four Color #990
☆ Be the first to review + Add to your collection — Join freeFour Color #990 is the single most character-dense debut issue in the Silver Age television-tie-in format: in one Dell anthology package, it introduced Huckleberry Hound, Yogi Bear (and Boo-Boo), and Pixie, Dixie & Mr. Jinks to comic-book print for the very first time — five characters from a show that had only been on the air for months. The Huckleberry Hound Show itself was a cultural watershed: it premiered in syndication in September 1958, won the first Emmy ever awarded to an animated television program (1960), and is widely credited with legitimizing animation made expressly for television rather than the theatrical market. Bringing all three segments of that landmark show under one cover made this issue an instant time capsule of early Hanna-Barbera's stranglehold on American Saturday-morning consciousness.
"Badge 13 3/4" is a charming 1959 tale from Four Color #990, featuring a little bird whose quiet act of warning Huck about a bear sets off a chain of playful peril. With Harvey Eisenberg handling both the interior art and inks—and also crafting the cover—this whimsical story unfolds as a fox relentlessly stalks the bird, forcing it to repeatedly call on Huck for rescue. A 10-cent comic in 1959, it’s a delightful, tightly paced adventure with a touch of suspense and a classic animal fable charm.
In this 1959 Four Color tale, Huckleberry Hound lends a helping paw to a tiny bird who warns him of a lurking bear, promising aid if ever needed. Now the bird must rely on that promise as a sly fox shadows him through the woods, forcing him to whistle for help again and again.
In "Short Fire Hose," Fireman Huck faces a tricky situation when his water hose can't reach the burning doghouse—so he decides to bring the doghouse to the hose instead, proving that sometimes the solution is as simple as changing your approach.
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The Huckleberry Hound Show debuted on September 29, 1958, sponsored by Kellogg's, and quickly became a ratings and critical phenomenon — its adult viewership almost equaling its children's audience by 1960. Dell, whose Four Color series functioned as a try-out showcase for potential ongoing licensed titles, moved quickly to put the show's characters into print: the issue appeared just seven or eight months after the cartoon's premiere. The cover and interior art were the work of Harvey Eisenberg, a Brooklyn-born animator who had done layouts for Hanna and Barbera's Tom and Jerry unit at MGM and who already had a deep Dell/Western relationship going back to the mid-1940s; his encyclopedic command of the characters — he worked simultaneously in comics and at the Hanna-Barbera studio itself — earned him a lasting reputation among critics as the 'Carl Barks of Hanna-Barbera Comics.' The indicia title reads 'HUCKLEBERRY HOUND, No. 990,' reflecting Dell's standard practice of giving each Four Color issue a character-specific title rather than a series name.
Trivia · 8 facts
- First comic-book appearance of Huckleberry Hound (the title character of Hanna-Barbera's second television series, which debuted September 29, 1958).
- First comic-book appearance of Yogi Bear and Boo-Boo Bear — though Yogi does not appear on the cover, the issue contains his first printed story and a Yogi-featured activity page.
- First comic-book appearance of Pixie, Dixie, and Mr. Jinks, confirmed by the Grand Comics Database as the strip's print debut.
- Published May–July 1959 by Dell Comics as part of the long-running Four Color (Series II) anthology, which functioned as a licensed-property try-out vehicle throughout the 1950s and early '60s.
- Cover and interior art by Harvey Eisenberg, a former MGM/Tom & Jerry layout artist with a pre-existing partnership with Joseph Barbera; Eisenberg was the first artist to adapt the Huckleberry Hound and Yogi Bear characters to the comics medium.
- The indicia title is 'HUCKLEBERRY HOUND, No. 990,' consistent with Dell's practice of labeling each Four Color issue by its featured character rather than the series title.
- Interior stories include a Huckleberry Hound adventure adapted from the TV episode 'Huckleberry Hound Meets Wee Willie' and a Pixie, Dixie & Mr. Jinks segment; an activity page co-features Yogi, Boo-Boo, Pixie, Dixie, Mr. Jinks, and Biddy Buddy.
- The Huckleberry Hound Show — the TV property this issue ties into — won the first Emmy Award ever given to an animated television program (1960, Outstanding Achievement in Children's Programming), giving this debut issue additional historical weight.
Full credits
Reprints
Reprinted in Huckleberry Hound Annual #1960 (1960), Huckleberry Hound Comic Album #1 (1960), Yogi Bear Goes to College #B199 (1961), Huckleberry Hound #28 (1966), Huckleberry Hound #29 (1967), Familien Flint #11/1967 (1967), Familien Flint #21/1967 (1967), Huckleberry Hound Annual #1968 (1968), Quella buffa dozzina I Grandi Autori dei Funny Animals USA #[nn] (2024), Familie Feuerstein #1, Familie Feuerstein #7, Yogi Bear Annual #1962
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