Hong Kong Phooey and A Number One Super Guy.

I am deeply, deeply sad. Another major building block at the very foot of the teetering structure which is Pither-at-46 has crumbled into nothingness. First of all I discovered that Santa didn't exist, then it appeared that "Aunty Val" from Blue Peter was a "traveller on the other bus". That was followed by news that The Monkees had split acrimoniously and then they renamed Top Cat "Boss Cat" so as not to annoy the makers of a well known cat food. What next? I learnt of the latest hammer blow today. It's only that Iwao Takamoto is dead.
Not heard of him? - for it is, or rather was, a "him". Shame on you. To my mind he has had as big an influence on civilisation as the Greeks, the Romans, Karl Marx, Churchill, Ghandi and Jean-Paul Sartre put together. Come on, think!
He was, of course, the genius who created "Mutley", the cartoon dog who helped me form my attitude to life and other people, the mut I worshipped in front of the Devil's Lantern on my return home from school. While "The Big M" was, to my mind, his finest legacy, Takamoto was also responsible for a host of other heroes from my younger years - notably Disney's Cinderella, One Hundred and One Dalmatians and Sleeping Beauty, along with The Jetsons, the irrepressible Scooby Doo, Penelope Pitstop and the unbelievably superb Hong Kong Phooey (Is it the mild mannered janitor - could be!).
Iwao, who was born in Los Angeles in 1925 and worked for Disney and later Hanna Barbera Productions, died of a massive heart attack last Sunday, January 7. God rest his soul.
It's time to remember and reflect, I think. Grantham shall have none of them.




POSTSCRIPT: I've just been told by big blogpal that this death is old news - apologies to those bored by what I thought was a revelation. Pither never really was aka Mr Current And Topical.