Famous Classic Tales

I just signed on to this web site after searching for "Famous Classic Tales." My name's Jack, and I worked for Kenner Toys advertising agency in Cincinnati. I was the guy who found Walter Hucker (API, Australia), viewed a two minute piece of animation he'd done on A Christmas Carol and took it to Kenner with the recommendation that we produce an entire series to be run during the holidays. Kenner would fully sponsor the series, which they did. The first program to air was A Christmas Carol, on CBS, in 1970. It did so well that we ordered three more programs for 1971, and on and on.
The animation style in the two minute spec piece was more like Saturday morning cartoons, and I told API it should have "painted" backgrounds...more of a "fine art" style. Walt and his gang gave us exactly what we were looking for. The next problem was the audio track. All the voices were recorded in Australia by Australians, and it sounded like it. I told Walt we wanted "Middle Atlantic" accents for anyone who was "British." You may recall that the most famous "Middle Atlantic" accent is that of Cary Grant. Again, Walt gave us what we were looking for.
Selling CBS on the idea of selling us time for a fully sponsored program took a little doing. They hadn't done that for years. We selected a time period on late Sunday afternoons. They had to work around football games to slot us in, but did a great job of it. It didn't hurt in the negotiations with CBS to point out to them that I had been responsible for creating ABC's "Thanksgiving Friday." They ran wall-to-wall kids programming the day after Thanksgiving and it was a rating blockbuster!
When I went from being Media/Programming Director of the agency to President in the late '70's, the Famous Classic Tales series suffered. A couple years later, Kenner lost interest. Many kids saw the CBS first run versions, and then again in syndication for several years. The original program, A Christmas Carol, ran on CBS for about a dozen years before they lost interest.
Walt Hucker (API founder) sold his company to Hanna-Barbera after I had introduced him to Bill Hanna. The new company was Hanna-Barbera, Pty.,Ltd. Bill Hanna and Joe Barbera were both very impressed with what Walter had created. About the third year of production, API could not produce all the show titles we wanted, so I asked Bill Hanna to give us an estimate to produce a few of them in their LA studio. He said "he'd match API's price." When I told him how much that was, he almost died! But, being the true gentleman he was, he matched it.
The title, by the way, was supposed to be "Family Classic Tales," but WGN in Chicago owned that name. I think they still use it. So we switched to "Famous Classic Tales" which, based on the orginal idea, was to take the stories of famous children's stories and adapt them to our one hour animated series. We always tried to stay close to the book's storyline. The later "Tales", produced after our involvement ended, were terrible. The animation had changed and the storylines were awful! You can call that comment EGO on my part, and it probably is, but this was "my baby" they were fooling around with, and they weren't doing a very good job of it!
I hope this helps those of you who have expressed interest in the series. I had a great time as the Executive Producer, even though I couldn't be listed as such because I was an "agency guy," and agency guys don't get listed in the credits. At least not if they want to keep their clients.
Most, if not all programs in the series, were purchased by Walter Hucker's original agent in the US...Don Taffner of D.L. Taffner, Ltd. His office is in New York City on 56th Street, if you want to try to find him. He might be able to tell you where you can buy copies...assuming they're still available. Good luck!