George of the Jungle

George of the Jungle
Cover to a George of the Jungle VHS tape
Created by	Jay Ward Bill Scott
Directed by	Gerard Baldwin Frank Braxton Pete Burness Paul Harvey Jim Hiltz Bill Hurtz Lew Keller John Walker
Starring	Bill Scott Paul Frees June Foray Daws Butler
Opening theme	Stan Worth Sheldon Allman
Country of origin	United States
No. of episodes	17 (list of episodes)
Production
Executive producer(s)	Ponsonby Britt, O.B.E. Jay Ward Bill Scott
Producer(s)	Jay Ward Bill Scott
Running time	30 minutes with commercials
Production company(s)	Jay Ward Productions
Release
Original network	ABC
Original release	September 9 – December 30, 1967
Chronology
Followed by	George of the Jungle (2007 TV series)

George of the Jungle is an American animated television series produced by Jay Ward and Bill Scott, who created The Rocky and Bullwinkle Show. The character George was inspired by the story of Tarzan and a cartoon characterization of George Eiferman (Mr. America, Mr. Universe, IFBB Hall of Famer) drawn by a cook on his mine sweeper in the Navy during WW2. It ran for 17 episodes on Sunday mornings from September 9 to December 30, 1967, on the American TV network ABC.

Each episode featured three segments in the form of three unrelated cartoons: George of the Jungle, Tom Slick, and Super Chicken. Each of the cartoons ended with a strike on the Tympani (Kettledrum), which changed to an ascending tone, following a bad pun.

Unlike previous Ward series, the animation production was done in Hollywood using veteran animators Phil Duncan, Rod Scribner, and Rudy Zamora, among others. Each segment's theme song was written by the team of Stan Worth and Sheldon Allman, though the cartoons themselves had little or no music scoring, as with Bullwinkle. Ward mainstays Bill Scott, June Foray, Paul Frees, and Daws Butler provided most of the character voices over all three segments.

The cartoons are technically more advanced than the rather crude animation in Ward's earlier series, which originated from Gamma Productions, a Mexican studio sponsored by Ward. He was so pleased with George of the Jungle that he allowed production to go over-budget, which resulted in considerable financial loss, ultimately limiting the series to 17 episodes.