Today's Video Link

Another animated commercial from the Jay Ward Studios! This one's for a cereal called King Vitaman that I believe was only marketed in portions of the country.

The voice of the King was done by Joe Flynn, who most of you will recall from the TV series, McHale's Navy. He's the guy in the above photo. During the sixties when that show was big, a number of cartoon studios tried casting Mr. Flynn to do voices…but he was one of those performers, it was felt, whose magic wasn't present when you didn't see him. They'd record him, listen to the track later and then hire someone else. Hanna-Barbera did a show called The Hair Bear Bunch in which they modeled one of the characters after Joe Flynn, recorded him for a few episodes…then decided that veteran cartoon actor John Stephenson doing a Joe Flynn impression sounded more like Joe Flynn than Joe Flynn.

The King Vitaman spots — there was a whole series of these — were one of the few times that Mr. Flynn's voice was heard in animation. The other two voices in this spot are Daws Butler (as the bad guy) and Bill Scott (as King Vitaman's aide)…