Snooper and Blabber is one of the backing segments for Quick Draw McGraw, featuring the comical adventures of a cat and mouse team of detectives. Super Snooper (the cat) is the lead character with Blabber Mouse (the mouse) assisting him. Together, they tackle whatever cases come their way, leading them into one wacky misadventure after another.
After their original shorts ended, Snooper and Blabber appeared in a number of other Hanna-Barbera productions, including Laff-A-Lympics, Yogi's Treasure Hunt, Yo Yogi!, the Super Secret Secret Squirrel segment of 2 Stupid Dogs, and Jellystone!.
This series provides examples of:
- Animals Not to Scale: Blabber is half as tall as Snooper, much larger than a real mouse would be, barely taller than even Pixie and Dixie. "Slippery Glass Slipper" even has Snooper turned into a mouse, and he's smaller than Blabber.
- Art Shift: In 1985, Snooper and Blabber appeared on Yogi's Treasure Hunt, which during its first two seasons had the animation computer composited. To effect easier coloring, the crosshatches on Snooper's deerstalker cap were left untapered from the cap's outline. The crosshatches were tapered to the outline originally and thus didn't matter since it was on cels and painted on the back.
- Barefoot Cartoon Animal: Neither Snooper nor Blabber wear shoes, despite sporting trench coats and hats.
- Company Cross References: The series sometimes had throwaway references to other H-B characters.
- In "Masquerader Raider", Snooper thinks a department store floorwalker is Quick Change Quentin, but no:Snooper: Oops. You’re the real floorwalker, aren’t you?
Floorwalker: Well, I’m certainly not Yogi Bear. - In "Motor Knows Best", Blabber reacts to an appearance by the Villain of the Week.Blabber: Can that be Crash Smitheereens?
Crash: Well, it ain’t Huckleberry Hound.
- In "Masquerader Raider", Snooper thinks a department store floorwalker is Quick Change Quentin, but no:
- Couch Gag: Every time Snooper answers the phone, he uses a different, often rhyming greeting. Example from "Masquerader Raider":Snooper: Super Snooper Detective Agency. When others fail, we fill the jail. Snoop speakin’.
- Detective Animal: Snooper and Blabber are a cat-and-mouse detective team.
- Early-Bird Cameo: Snagglepuss ("The Lion Is Busy") and Hardy Har Har ("Laughing Guess") show up as proto versions in two episodes.
- Evil Twin: The episode "Impossible Imposters" has a Mad Scientist creating an army of Snooper robots programmed to commit crimes, so Snooper has to thwart the scientist and clear himself. After he does:Policeman: Good work, Snooper. You'll get a big reward for capturing this criminal.Snooper: Reward?! I just wanted to clear me good name. I ain't interested in no reward! And when do I collect it?
- Funny Animal: While Snooper and Blabber are respectively a cat and mouse, they otherwise act like humans. They are bipedal, wear trench coats and hats, work as private detectives, speak to humans intelligibly, and do not at all exemplify typical cat/mouse antagonism. They even employ an (unseen) human as their secretary!
- The Ghost: Snooper and Blabber's secretary Hazel, who communicates to the duo via a two-way car radio. She fills them in on any calls for a case and the status of her parakeet's health.
- Half-Dressed Cartoon Animal: Snooper and Blabber split the difference. They wear trench coats that reach to their knees, but no pants or shoes.
- In Case of X, Break Glass: After the cast volunteers to be firemen, Blabber is seen destroying windows with an axe. When Snooper asks what he's doing, Blabber replies "It says "In case of fire, break glass", Snoop!"
- Malaproper: Snooper has a habit of mispronouncing multisyllabic words.
- Master of Disguise: Quick Change Quentin, who lives up to his name; he can alter his appearance in seconds by just spinning around.
- "Metaphor" Is My Middle Name: In the Comic-Book Adaptation story "Air Tight Mystery", Snoop and Blab answer a call to a jewelry store theft. As they arrive:Manager: Wow, you got here fast!
Snooper: "Speed" is our middle name, sir!
Blabber: We even slow down fast! - Name and Name: The segment title consists of the two characters' names with "and" in the middle.
- No Celebrities Were Harmed: Snooper's voice is patterned after character actor Tom D'Andrea, while his Malaproper tendencies and phone answering Couch Gag were inspired by Archie the bartender from the 1940s radio comedy Duffy's Tavern.
- Police Are Useless: In "Baby Rattled", a policeman interferes in the duos' attempts to capture Baby Pants Pinkie, with him believing they were tormenting a poor child. The officer doesn't see through Pinkie's disguise until the end of the cartoon when Pinkie steal his patrol car!
- Predator-Prey Friendship: A predatory cat, Snooper, sides with its natural prey of a mouse, Blabber.
- Private Detective: Snooper and Blabber are detective animals, serving as an Affectionate Parody of the private eye genre.
- Ring Around the Collar: Like most Hanna-Barbera characters from this time, Snooper and Blabber wear clothing (trench coats in this case) to facilitate animation shortcuts, if not the more common collar and tie.
- Saying Sound Effects Out Loud: Inverted with Blabber, who actually mimics a police siren when he and Snooper rush to the scene of a case. In "The Lion is Busy," Blabber does this when he and Snooper walk towards their vehicle.Snooper: Not yet, you booby Blab! Wait till we get in the car!
- Shaped Like Itself: In "The Lion is Busy," Snagglepuss is reunited with Major Minor. He asks the Major how Africa is.Major: Africa is Africa. The tsetse flies are tsetse-ing, the veldt is veldting.
- Signature Headgear: Snooper wears a deerstalker detective-style hat, while Blabber sports a fedora.
- Speech-Impaired Animal: Zig-zagged. Blabber speaks with a pronounced lisp, slurring his "S's" when he talks.
- Three Shorts: The middle segment on the Quick Draw McGraw Show.
