For those who don't remember its namesake, "El Kabong" was the alter ego of
Hanna-Barbera cartoon horse cowboy "Quickdraw McGraw". "El Kabong" was a
Zorro-like hero, who swung down on a rope with a guitar, with which he to
bashed bad guys over the head. At the moment of impact, he would say
"Kabong!"

Now if this sounds lame in 2007, remember that is was 1963 or 64 when the
cartoon was popular. It followed on the heels of the very popular
"Huckleberry Hound" show, which introduced other cartoon heroes, including
"Yogi Bear". Hanna-Barbera was instantly famous overnight, then kept on
runnng extremely diluted off-shoot cartoons based on the originals. For
their time, they were extremely novel programs with the earliest having some
very well written, and funny - truely funny - dialog.

While totally unrelated, I think these cartoons were following to catch up
on the "Rocky and Bullwinkle" programs, which were perhaps the the funniest,
most intellectually pleasing, topical, cartoons of their day. These were
cartoons which didn't talk down to children or adults, and actually required
some literacy to really understand. These were produced by Jay Ward and
Bill Scott.

I don't think anything available today encourages the same literacy required
by these early gems. Couple that atmosphere with the prospect of human
going out into space, and a government drive to get us out into space, and
you have a tiny slice of what it meant to be thirteen, in 1963.




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