Beany and Cecil's creator, Bob Clampett, formerly a veteran director at the Warner Bros. cartoon studio where he was the father of Tweety Bird and one of the fathers of Bugs Bunny, Clampett set off on his own in the late 1940s with the dream to create what he called "dimensional animation." The result was "Time for Beany." The wild success of the show spawned several other shows, including one about a superhero horse, "Thunderbolt the Wondercolt," and the first puppet variety show, "Willy the Wolf."

Thunderbolt (a horse with super-equine powers) had a 15-minute show each night at 6. He shared the half-hour with reruns of "Ramar of the Jungle." Since Ramar was a 30-minute show, it meant chopping the episode in half, airing each half on a successive evening. The first segment had the full opening; the next night, there was an abbreviated opening.