Chumley The Walrus

So my first commenter, my friend Kristen, who co-runs the very nice boston-area foodblog North Shore Dish left the following comment:

Wow. Now all I can think of is Chumley the Walrus from the Tennessee Tuxedo cartoons. Love the site – nice and clean. Also, cracked up when one of the Google sidebar ads was for “need a carpenter?”

Well, Kristen’s only a year or so older than I am, but I had never heard of Chumley the Walrus, and had only a passing understanding of “Tennessee Tuxedo“, although now that I have the benefit of some Googling behind me, this Tennessee Tuxedo show sounds remarkably similar to my favorite cartoon of all time, “Help! It’s the Hair Bear Bunch”

Chumley is portrayed as the dim-witted sidekick, in some ways the equivalent of “Botch” on Hair Bear, and looking at the voice talent from the two shows, the back and forth between the Don Adams-voiced Tennessee Tuxedo and Chumley must have sounded an awful lot like the verbal banter between Botch and Mr. Peevley, the zookeeper on Hair Bear. Although it should be noted that TT had a zookeeper and inept sidekick character as well.

Notable Chumley facts: Apparently Chumley is a South Pole Walrus, the only one of his kind if thats’ the case. Hence the friendship between Chumley and Tennessee Tuxedo I suppose.

What other cartoon Walruses am I missing out on  – I’ve discovered two more since drafting this post, and I’ll get posts up about them very soon.