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Hong Kong for way we love your way

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Number one super guy

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Well first of all I have to say

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By by the time Hong Kong food was in production we were all quite seasoned

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So we were able to meet the challenge. You know they they want to show a week and

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It was really

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Cranking it out, but you know I see well. No we met the death

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I think you know Hannah Barbera definitely had it down to a science

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They had certain guys that worked on certain shows

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And then you had evil who was overseeing the design and the layout portion of that and then you had you know

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Pretty pretty strong writers at the time too. It was just a huge collaboration as far as

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What everybody did of course had a staff of very talented artists to help me along with this too

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You know I think three artists Jerry Eisenberg Willie Eto

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Marty Murphy

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Were the ones that I think?

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contributed the most heavily to the conceptual design of the characters and I

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Sort of stuck my two cents in there here there wherever I would do three or four or five

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variations and

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People or somebody would pick the one they liked

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But it was basically the same process as as any other drawing

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You know you draw until you get you think you have it right and it fits with

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Hong Kong and of course that the drawings that I make will eventually be changed

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I mean there'll be another character designer, but I never worried about that

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I'm sure all of us that were working on development

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You know we would talk amongst ourselves sometimes

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You know maybe sharing thoughts or whatever just general kidding around there was always bantering going on. It was just quick ideas

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Ideas could come at any time from anywhere

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almost from anybody

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All of these things are all collaborative efforts

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We had a friendship group

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that

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really enjoyed

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our

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camaraderie

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socially and working

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Place so we never bucked heads or anything we laughed about everything we did

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Whatever Jerry did putting a toilet plunger on top of one of the characters we laughed and laughed

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We didn't say oh gee. I wish I had that idea now

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We just had a jolly old time so basically

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Developing these shows were all just a good fun time for all of us. I have a sneaking hunch

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that Joe Barbera in the back of his mind probably had a catalog of

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Scores of different ideas and the germs of different shows

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That was always constant. It was rolling around the already modifications

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They underwent was whether they were contemporary enough

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You know Hannah Barbera is very much into the pop culture of the day

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You know, whatever was was big at the time

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Of course Hong Kong fui was a natural because Bruce Lee and the kung fu

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Series was quite hot. And so what do you do? You just kind of jump in and develop it

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Joe Barbera always liked dogs almost every show had a dog in it

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Not all of them, but but I think he was smart because I think a dog is the number one pet in the world

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Probably get a load of this profile

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We always remember that he'd say, you know, let's get a dog in there too

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You know, that was the kind of thing that he enjoyed and they and they usually worked, you know

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But you gotta admit the power of Hong Kong. Fui is really something just the name Hong Kong fui

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I think that was actually you're gonna be kung fu at first and they changed the name but just that play on words

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It was funny. The thing I like about it too is that stylistically they went a whole different direction

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but ideally they went back to

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Animals running around in a human world and nobody even made reference to the fact that it was a dog and there was a cat

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That were you know saving, you know the city from from villains

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The attitude as far as we're concerned is why not it's there. Let's use it. It's funny. It fits, you know

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two words

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cartoon license

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Now observing all as I, a super humble janitor in the flick of an eyelash

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Become the super scourge of the underworld

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What I loved about the the Hannah Barbera cartoons too is they would have these stock

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Transformation things that you just waited for every week and as Penry he would plow through these vending machines that would fly open like doors

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And then he would jump into a filing cabinet and he'd go in the bottom drawer and then the top drawer would rattle

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he couldn't get out so a spot would bang the side of it and he would jump out in the gi and the mask and

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Be transformed into Hong Kong Fui

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then after he jumps out he's springing over to an ironing board that would fly up into

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The wall and then he would slide down and then land in the trash bin outside and drive the Fui mobile out

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With spot already in the car

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Which I don't know how spot got from that point to that point and the funny thing about it is that

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Penry being this janitor that works in the police station all the time. He mean he puts a mask on they don't know who he is

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He's like, oh, it's Hong Kong Fui is a superhero. It's like Superman with his

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Glasses, you know, he takes his glasses off. It's Superman and and that was the same kind of thing like a mask would

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disguise a dog with a

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The Hong Kong outfit on I don't I don't think so I can see through any disguise

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I think that's amazing that you know the fact that again, it's just an animal walking around a human world

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It could have been a human character

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And the Ken spot was was treated more like a cat and he would you know, he didn't talk

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He was he walked around mostly on all fours, but he would pull him out of

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Whatever jammy he was in at the time, you know, he would be the one that would actually

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Make it all work out and then Hong Kong free look like he was a hero. That's a do your own spot when you want things

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Concentrate

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The fact that spot was a cat that had stripes, you know, that's a whole different way of thinking about it, too

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This is a rosemary if you want a date I'm off at eight

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Oh, Hong Kong

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My dream man for you I'll get off at 730

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Rosemary has a little bit of a crush on him, which was kind of a strange thing

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She'd always really speak highly of him and then he'd always cut to Penry either thinking to himself or talking if she really knew

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Who I was if she only knew rosemary was definitely Marty Murphy design

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Marty has a certain way that he draws women Marty gave her these real sexy long legs and his very tight short skirt and

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these dark rimmed glasses and

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short hair as I recall and

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It was just fun

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And then you know rosemary had her natural way that she'd answer the phone, you know, and

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There's a lot of yeah

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just a little play on words and then there would be something that Penry was trying to do or the stars was trying to

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Do and Penry would like inevitably block in and you know screw it up for him

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I think because of the Asian theme to it. They wanted to give it that sort of the Asian

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Watercolor background technique. There's a lot of watercolor a lot of stuff is nebulous. You know, there's just kind of splashes of color

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Throughout that they use that and that had sort of an Asian feeling to it

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following on that idea

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You know, it's the design of the car

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We're sort of a pagoda like, you know design we did throw in

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Purposely this sort of a corny Asian type of feeling into the show

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Cleverly disguised as a free lounge

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That cotton pickin pocket picker will never escape the car could pretty much do anything it needed to do

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It'd be like Hong Kong food

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We would need to turn into a helicopter or a boat or whatever and he'd pick up the gong and and whack it

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You know do a karate chop on it and and it would just you know

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Have this little flurry of stuff and it would turn into whatever it needed turn into sometimes it would work. Sometimes it wouldn't

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You know, the other thing that was really really strong about this show was a theme song

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It had one of the strongest title sequences and theme songs of any Hannibal Bear show, I think

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And I think that's what

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probably people probably remember the theme song and

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The fact that scatman-crowther's did the voice and sang the song

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Probably more than they remember what the show was about in some cases

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Joe was going through

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Trying to cast a voice for Hong Kong fooey just couldn't

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Hit something that made real good sense and then on a hunch

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He had scatman read a few lines and then started to have people listen to it

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I remember him running in and saying what do you think? He said that's Hong Kong food

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Nice to know I got fans everywhere

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Scatman had this wonderful voice. I mean he was cast as the voice of Hong Kong fooey and

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I

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Remember I'd walk over to a coffee shop a couple of blocks away and sometimes scatman would be there

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It's hey Hong Kong and he'd stand up and start doing Hong Kong fooey for the whole restaurant was so funny

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It's amazing how meek little janitor can turn into the greatest crime fighter of all time

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They'd look at you like you're from Mars if you tried to pitch the show today

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Oh, you just sir because I thought of it before you did seriously

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It's just I don't know. It's a great. It's a strong idea. Like I said, they kind of went back to basics

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It's just amazing to me. Well number one all of us working at Hanna Barbera at that time love

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Doing what we were doing. I mean it was like I

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May sound like a cliche, but you know you pinch yourself saying gee, I'm making my living doing animated films, you know

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And so, you know, that's basically the love of the work that we were involved in

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And I I guess that sort of follows through with the popularity you could feel it in the shows

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With whatever Hanna Barbera did every year

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They would have one show that would be kind of a breakout show that would become a little more timeless than others

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You can take one that everybody just kind of like latches on to him

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like that was the one that you know that got me up on Saturday morning and my my

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Nephew and nieces and they all watched it and they liked it and that's the main thing if you get an audience that

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Seems to care for

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I was reminded that I worked on it from my grandkids

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and and so I could see there's a whole new generation of people that

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Is discovering Hong Kong food? So, you know, I could see where

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It's gonna go on forever. All of these shows that we've done all these years

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Make its Renaissance again

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Where's that wraps it up?

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The dream of every red-blooded American girl

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You