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Colonel Bleep was the first color cartoon ever made for television. It was created by Robert D. Buchanan, and was filmed by Soundac of Miami. The show was originally syndicated in 1957 as a segment on Uncle Bill's TV Club. 104 five-minute episodes were produced. Of these episodes, only a handful are known to survive today.

The show took place on the fictitious Zero Zero Island, where the Equator meets the Greenwich Meridian. There, Colonel Bleep, an extraterrestrial lifeform from the planet Futura, protected Earth with the help of his deputies, Squeek (a cowboy puppet) and Scratch (a caveman). Colonel Bleep, like all of his fellow Futurans, could manipulate futomic energy in a variety of ways; to propel himself through space, or as an offensive weapon. The amount of futomic energy Colonel Bleep could absorb at any given time was finite, and several episodes show him in danger because he's run out of energy.

Their usual nemesis was a dark and mysterious hooded figure called Dr. Destructo, who could typically be found in his flying saucer and seemed to have no lower half. Other than that oddity, he was kind of a very-limited-animation, early version of Darth Vader. Other villains included The Black Knight, and Black Patch (a space pirate).

The animation in the show was extraordinarily limited, as was typical of TV animation during that era. Noah Tyler was the narrator for the show. Jack Schleh directed all of the episodes. The design of the series was greatly influenced by the futuristic googie designs of the '50s and early '60s: Cars had huge tailfins, boomerangs were frequently incorporated into signs and architecture, and atom symbols were used as frequently as possible.

Colonel Bleep has probably not been shown on TV in the United States since the early 1970s. Two videocassettes from the series were released in 1993, containing most of the episodes still known to exist today. A few episodes have also appeared on DVD.

Ren and Stimpy creator John Kricfalusi has acknowledged the influence of Colonel Bleep on his own work.

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 Their usual nemesis was a dark and mysterious hooded figure called Dr. Destructo, who could typically be found in his flying saucer and seemed to have no lower half. Other than that oddity, he was kind of a very-limited-animation, early version of [[Darth Vader]].  Other villains included The Black Knight, and Black Patch (a space pirate).
-The animation in the show was extraordinarily limited, as was typical of TV animation during that era.  [[Noah Tyler]] was the narrator for the show.  [[Jack Schleh]] directed all of the episodes.  The appearance of the series was greatly influenced by the futuristic [[googie]] designs of the '50s and early '60s:  Cars had huge tailfins, [[boomerangs]] were frequently incorporated into signs and architecture, and atom symbols were used as frequently as possible.
+The animation in the show was extraordinarily limited, as was typical of TV animation during that era.  [[Noah Tyler]] was the narrator for the show.  [[Jack Schleh]] directed all of the episodes.  The design of the series was greatly influenced by the futuristic [[googie]] designs of the '50s and early '60s:  Cars had huge tailfins, [[boomerangs]] were frequently incorporated into signs and architecture, and atom symbols were used as frequently as possible.
 ''Colonel Bleep'' has probably not been shown on TV in the United States since the early 1970s.  Two [[videocassettes]] from the series were released in 1993, containing most of the episodes still known to exist today.  A few episodes have also appeared on DVD.