Since posting our
report late last November (Thanksgiving day, in fact) that
Dinky Dog - The Complete Series is coming to DVD on
February 19th, we have had questions on and off from readers who are confused: we reported that the show came from a section of Hanna-Barbera's
The All-New Popeye Hour in 1978, but our readers saw listings at the Internet Movie DataBase (IMDB.com) and elsewhere that there was a "Dinky Dog" show from 1969. "Didn't these cartoons come from it?," they asked, "and weren't the
Popeye airings a re-run?"
According to our sources, which include the management at VEI, the answer is "no." One of my contacts, who dabbles in animation history (although admitedly not professionally), had the common-sense idea of simply pointing to
Frank Welker's official homepage. Welker is nicknamed "The Voice God of Hollywood," having recorded many roles over the years including "Freddy" (and later "Scooby" himself) on
Scooby-Doo,
Megatron on the original
Transformers, "Abu" on the Disney
Aladdin films and TV shows, and even "Nibbler" on
Futurama. Welker also did "Dinky" on
Dinky Dog, and his official site says he recorded the character in 1978...he would know, wouldn't he? When we asked VEI, they had this to say:
The Dinky Dog we will be releasing on DVD was produced in 1978 & aired in subsequent years. As part of CBS’s "All-New Popeye Hour" it ran as an 11 minute segment, and it was also syndicated in a 30 minute
format later. So, there are thirty-two 11 minute episodes, or sixteen 30 mins episodes. VEI is releasing the 30 mins episodes, which are actually 22-23 mins without commercials. I do not know any real evidence about this 1969 Dinky Dog series. What I think happened is that someone incorrectly entered 1969, instead of 1979, on imdb.com, as this is where I saw it listed as 1969 as well. Someone should update the imdb listing.
One final comment we'll make here, is that the IMDB started out in its earlier days when it first became hugely popular - much as WikiPedia has more recently - with "everyday" people signing up for accounts and making entries on their own, all of which were not necessarily vetted with definitive proof. In recent years this has been tightened up and errors have been corrected. But, as the IMDB concentrates on films, it would be possibly easier for an old cartoon show to slip through the cracks of the folks running the site (it is currently owned by Amazon). On the other hand, a site dedicated to cartoon information would be expected to be more accurate where Dinky is concerned, and a
search at the Big Cartoon DataBase (bcdb.com) for "Dinky Dog" only shows the 1978 episodes for
Popeye. Case closed, as far as we're concerned, unless someone involved with the production of these cartoons steps forward with very definitive evidence. For now,hopefully this will satisfy our readers who have been asking about this (or wondering, but refrained from asking).
The release is now
available to pre-order from Amazon.ca for just CA$17.47 (as of this writing). VEI has sent us over a new 3-D picture of the final packaging artwork:
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