Behind the Scenes: The Making of Heyyy, It's the King! for Our YouTube Channel

Heyyy, It's the King! is a made-for-TV cartoon that William Hanna and Joseph Barbera produced for their company, Hanna-Barbera. It ran in 1977 as a segment under CB Bears, with a total of 13 episodes airing on NBC. Each episode followed a group of animals, led by the King, a lion, the group consisting of Yuka Yuka, a hyena, Clyde, a gorilla, Big H, a hippopotamus, and Skids, an alligator, as well as female cheerleaders, Sheena, a puma, and Zelda, an ostrich, as they attempt to get into the spotlight. The series shares aspects from the then-popular, Happy Days sitcom, with the King being a parody of the Fonz.

When we started creating characters for our YouTube channel, the group was in the first lineup we did for modeling, we made them as they were part of HB's history, I did all modeling work for the characters.

The first Heyyy, It's the King! story we produced for the channel, titled "The King's a Winner," which was written by me. I don't know if we still have the original storyboard. The plot followed the group entering a foot race. The second story, titled "Hey, It's a Trip," which was also written by me, involved the group going to the malt shop. In the final story, "Time with the King, is a Groove," which again was written by me, had the group volunteering for street cleaning.

We are still in the process of writing more Heyyy, It's the King! stories, as well as other Hanna-Barbera stories that you may see in the future. However, we haven't written a Heyyy, It's the King! story in a while as of 2023, but I hope we can create more in the near future.