What About Thad?

It’s been awhile since I’ve done a Tom and Jerry animator breakdown, so here is one of the best ones.

One of the problems I’ve started to have with a lot of T&J (and the Hanna-Barbera team’s direction in general) is that the gags don’t have much of a payoff, or at least ones I laugh at. Even in the best ones, like Mouse Trouble, there’s the infamous “surprise package” that goes on for half a minute, that doesn’t even have a payoff until we see that Tom actually did survive the Guantanamo Bay treatment in the next scene – a payoff I do laugh at, but it takes too long to get to. Had such a gag arose in a Friz Freleng Sylvester, the humor would have derived from the fact that we don’t see the cat get mutilated, and only see the results.

Mike Barrier has said that the H-B T&Js are “Terrytoons in a Harman-Ising shell,” which is too sweeping a statement. While it’s clear that H-B were not nearly as talented or inventive in their directorial approach as their co-worker Tex Avery (or most of their contemporaries at Warners), most Terrytoons generally feel as though somebody told those guys about comedy timing (never mind animation timing) over the phone, a vibe even the worst T&Js don’t give off.

Mouse Trouble, though, works on several levels. The cartoon, with its frequent renditions of “All God’s Chillun Got Rhythm”, is timed and animated like a musical, even more so than the ‘actual’ musical T&J shorts. For once the Bradley score and the action onscreen are in perfect balance. When Tom places the mouse trap, he just doesn’t scurry out of sight, he dances out of sight. Even the underscore of Tom setting the bear trap is meticulously done. The obscene violence also actually builds up in the short, leading to Tom’s inevitable demise. And you’ve got Jerry blatantly taking the Mae West quoting wind-up toy to make sexytime with. (Amazing that it got passed Joe “sex isn’t real” Breen; but then again, Tom & Jerry is the last series you’d think of looking for sexual promiscuity in).

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I’ve always had an unhealthy love for this cartoon, in spite of its bloated timing and animation (though Elmer’s “taken by suh-pwise” is done about as perfect as one could hope for). This is around when Jones was beginning to get a vague idea of how to make a funny cartoon, and most of what would become the norm in his best cartoons are in place here. Already his characterization of Bugs Bunny is world-weary, and his performance over his “dinner” (most likely animated by Ken Harris) has to rank high on my list of favorite Bugs scenes.

I’ve been told Jones just had Mel Blanc do this Jimmy Stewart-ish voice in spite of Avery having already established a voice for Bugs in A Wild Hare that became permanent; just to be different. So that’s the only reason he sounds like that here.

According to the (admittedly vague) copyright synopsis, this cartoon’s original ending is another Hare-Um Scare-Um, claiming: “Disgusted, Elmer leaves the house to the rabbit.” It sounds like they were making it a running gag of Bugs causing his adversary to have a nervous breakdown by the end of the short, just to piss the audience off for sheer fun. Luckily it didn’t catch on.

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Sure, we now know that reams of MGM cartoons have unique title art lost to the ages… but did you know Disney did too?

Example: here are some low quality screen shots taken from an original IB blue track print of Jack Kinney’s uproariously funny How to Play Football… We start on Walt Disney’s name spelled out by the spectators, over the same background we’re used to seeing in the reissue.

We then jump cut to the crowd spelling out (through cross dissolves) the hero of the picture. The illustration of Goofy here is funky (oddly 80’s video game-ish), but I still love it.

… dissolve to the film’s title …

… and one more dissolve to the copyrights.

Neat huh? Unfortunately, this print’s end title was clipped off, so alas, I don’t know if there was a special stadium title. (And for the curious, no, no “4-F” jokes, or any other WW2 references, were in the original version.) Gawrsh!

(Aside rant: I think it it says a lot about Disney’s conceit with him not crediting his artists on the shorts until literally the 1945 season, a practice none of the other studios had for so long. Sure, they were occasionally credited in trade ads and whatnot, but the actual film is what people are going to look at. Walt wanted to give the general public the idea he did all of the work himself on wonderful cartoons like this, and they sure bought it.)

(Better watch this fast, before they take it down… They’re getting fiercer lately, as DailyMotion wouldn’t even let this one process!)

There’s a lot of love for Clampett’s flea classic, An Itch in Time, but there doesn’t seem to be much for To Itch His Own, which I always thought was one of Jones’ best. It’s one of the last of the Jones-Maltese offbeat, obscenely violent one-shots, and the very last cartoon Carl Stalling did the score for. The design of the Mighty Angelo is hilarious too; it’s exactly what you’d expect an Italian musclebound flea to look like.

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I’ve refrained from saying that I’ve really liked Nina Paley’s Sita Sings the Blues for awhile, but since it’s available on a real DVD I might as well praise it now. (Since I actually liked something, I had to wait awhile for it to stew and see if I still did later.)

As Mike Barrier plainly puts it in his brief post, I didn’t know Flash could look this good either. I was worried when I attended one of Cornell’s screenings of it in 35mm that my positive opinion of it (having already watched it on the Internet) may waver seeing it so huge. (Actual film projection and Flash don’t exactly fit together in my mind). Thankfully it didn’t.

What can I say that hasn’t been said ad nauseum; the film is awfully funny in both the writing and animation (I had to settle for a blurry capture of one of my favorite pieces in it since the DVD hasn’t arrived yet), moves at a brisk pace, and is personal without being quirky. Its meta-style is hilarious without being smug or obnoxious, and we’re not reminded that we should cry here or there every ten minutes. Coming out of Cornell Cinema, it was the first time in awhile I can think of (at a non-revival screening anyway) where I thought that I should have paid more for admission. (Then again, it was only four bucks.)

Eddie Fitzgerald mentioned to me awhile ago that what he likes best about cartooning is its “grass roots” feel (a term that we should use more since it hasn’t been abused like others); that anyone can pick up a pencil and try. Animation was basically an extension of the print cartoon, so it (for awhile) retained the same flavor. Yet very little animation these days (and arguably, cartooning) abides by this law. Even a lot of the best animated product these days feels like it was made by a machine, regardless of the talent poured into it. I’ve had the feeling for awhile that the really good stuff is going to come exclusively from the non-studios, and Paley’s film only further cements that idea.

As if it wasn’t obvious, I don’t anticipate to enjoy new movies much these days. All I can do is pray to the skies there’s more I like about something than dislike. A friend advised me that he refrains from commenting on certain things, like CGI, because “that’s not made for me.” What he and I get upset about though is: where is the stuff made for me? Sita is the kind of film made for me. I can’t think of an animated feature I’ve liked on the whole like this since Bakshi’s Heavy Traffic. My sole issue with it is that Paley should have had more money at her disposal, but then again, the film probably wouldn’t have been the same with it. I can’t say that her plans to get the movie out there were sound (and you can read all about them by going to her blog) but it was a huge gamble that paid off faster than it could have.

If Sita is playing at a theater near you, go see it, because if it fully convinced me that Flash can be used to create art rather than sausage, so imagine what it will do for you. If it isn’t playing, buy the DVD, and kick in a few bucks more so Paley can start her next movie. We need it.

(The audience reaction at Cornell was great, I might add. The only complaint I overheard was that it was too short, but I guess their brains must be fried from Speilberg, Lucas, Jackson, etc. and forgot that most movies used to wrap up within 100 minutes.)

I bought this title from a guy who claims that he got this and dozens of other 16mm IB Tech Paramount cartoons (they were mostly all 1960s shorts, this was one of the few exceptions) from a retired theater owner. By the looks of some of their conditions, they’ve seen better days, and were probably stacked for years under a leaky radiator or toilet by said theater owner. This is by no means any sort of extraordinary cartoon, but it does have an Irv Spector story that’s ahead of its time warning about the hazards of smoking, and an ending that was obviously hacked off when Harvey bought it. There’s a lot of great Marty Taras animation in this one too.

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NSFW. I know people have fiery opinions of my writing style, so I’ll reply to them with a very sophisticated YouTube video a noted animation historian sent to me. The funniest thing to me is that while watching it with Tom (whose WB cartoon watching doesn’t expand beyond those in the public domain), I came to the realization that he has probably never heard the real song.

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I know this isn’t as cool as the stuff David posts on a regular basis, but I thought people would like to see them anyway.

First, courtesy of a generous private collector, are the original opening titles to Tex Avery’s Wild and Woolfy; compared to the reissue here, we see that they completely redid the opening background (probably lifted from Homesteader Droopy), omitted Walt Clinton’s name for whatever reason, and of course, changed the wanted poster.

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Next is one I posted before, but it had been taken offline, so I’m presenting it here on my own server: the original opening to Hanna-Barbera’s Tom & Jerry in the Hollywood Bowl. In the reissue, they decided to get rid of the pan on the night sky over the Bowl all together (as well as the Tom & Jerry headshot without the names), and just let the credits appear over bland blue titles. Included as a bonus is the MGM Cartoon Carnival tag (MGM’s answer to Warners’ theatrical Bugs Bunny Festivals) with a unique rendition of the 1950s Avery theme by Scott Bradley.

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(For those curious, HB was on a reel with a few other cartoons, but they were ones that did not suffer the same kind of manhandling when reissued. Grumble, grumble…)

Welcome to another installment of Your Saturday Bowl of WTF! Today’s entry is a lost classic of the golden silent era: Felix the Cat in Germ Mania, from Otto Messmer and Pat [the rapist] Sullivan. We at ThadBlog are proud to be parters with Stathescope (the archive of Tom Stathes) so we may present this product of absolute sheer genius.

This is an example of a “good WTF.” It’s what animation is all about; an exploitation of the human imagination, and an emphasis on unique funny drawings and movement. I defy anyone to name an animated film made in modern times that even comes close to having the amount of pure fun seen here.

And Felix.. what a great character! I would have to say after sampling a good helping of [surviving] silent cartoons that the cat is the only one to have a really shining and interesting personality. His contemporaries can be amusing and entertaining, but Felix is the only one that lives and breathes (and dies). And none of the endearing characters in cartoon history that came after can deny they took a page out of the feline’s book.

Oh, and enjoy the Official Films soundtrack too!

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I don’t like the artwork of Paul Murry (an artist associated with primarily the Mickey Mouse comic books). For me, it’s one of the nadirs of Disney comic books in general (along with Tony Strobl). His work just screams the inability to capture appeal, structure, or even a facial expression. The second I’d see his mushy style in one of the old Dells or Gladstones, I would always skip past it. That’s why it pains me to find out that the guy who usually drew things like this:

Was actually capable of things like this:

Sad, ain’t it?