Little Remembered Lippy Lion

I have a fondness for Lippy and Hardy too. oh, you don't recall those characters? most don't actually. at least not the people in my circle. Lippy the Lion and Hardy Har Har, a hungery lion and dour non-laughing hyena , respectivly, were a part of what was billed as the "The New Hanna Barbera Cartoon Series" At this time in 1962, H-B was enough of a known commodity that they could sell a show with their name on it so they did. the show consisted of the aformentioned anthropomorphic duo, plus Wally Gator and Touche Turtle and Dum Dum (is it "Dumm" with 2 "M's"??) in much of the pre publicity for the series, not only was Lippy seen differently than we know him now, (character designs of Lippy were leaked to some merchandisers before the official model was set, therefore you see the Lippy the Lion game with Lippy wearing a crown, a flintstone like tie and cuff links) but he was almost always sans Hardy. in the photo you see aboveon bottom, Hardy is nowhere to be seen. fine, for dear old Dum Dum, he was really only a second banana, But Hardy was billed on the title cards. no wonder he was never laughing, he was getting paid scale while Lippy was signing autographs and partying at the Sands in Las Vegas with the Rat Pack. from what i can tell, Hardy was also left out of merchandising. there is a Lippy Soaky, a shampoo bottle line popular in the 60's, and a lunch box with all the stars mentioned above but no Hardy. He did exact his revenge however, in the late 90's when the Warner Bros. Studio Store was selling Beanies of their characters. Hardy got a beanie and Lippy was left out. Very weird how these two have had seperate lives in merchandising over the years. Alas, they are finally together in a venture brought on by Funko, our friends who brought us bobble head toys of our favorite characters. as you can see above top, the titular twosome is together for the first time. good for them!