Doozy deconstructed: Paul Lynde’s voicing of Hanna Barbera’s animated villains

Abstract

‘Doozy deconstructed’ documents the research and animation production processes of artist-filmmaker Richard Squires’s debut feature Doozy. Part creative documentary, part essay film, the work utilizes a number of distinct techniques to interrogate the voice casting of American actor Paul Lynde as a series of Hanna Barbera villains in the late 1960s: an animated anti-hero Clovis ‐ designed by Squires and animated by Elroy Simmons ‐ who re-enacts alleged episodes in the life of the actor; a curious game show featuring specialist opinions from the worlds of animation, neurology, history and criminology; archival and documentary materials that reveal Lynde’s real-life circumstance. ‘Doozy deconstructed’ considers how sexuality is coded and performed by animated characters; Hollywood’s legacy of queer-coded villainy; the relationship between the actor’s real-life circumstance and his animated roles; Hanna Barbera’s motivations in casting the closeted actor and the experimental strategies Doozy employs to disseminate this research.