What About Thad?

I posted the funniest of the Goofy “How to” ripoffs featuring Terrytoons’ Dimwit, How to Relax, ages ago, so here is the third and final of them: Daddy’s Little Darling. (Obviously a riff of those George Geef ‘father and son’ pictures by Jack Kinney.)

This short joins the immortal Cat Happy as one that also features an incredibly insanely animated sneeze by Jim Tyer. (I’m sure Tyer used some footage of somebody snorting cocaine as reference for this scene.)

The ‘treasures’ are never-ending in the wonderful library of Columbia cartoons.

This particular 1942 Al Geiss directed short features the distinctive work of Emery Hawkins and Ray Patterson, both of whom Frank Tashlin pulled out of the picket line at Disney’s to work for him at Columbia. What makes this short most interesting is that all of the earmarks (namely extra hair and pursed lips) of Patterson’s animation at MGM are already here in this short. He was ready to start animating Tom and Jerry whether he knew it or not!

A constant recurrence in the studio’s cartoons is how there seems to be no voice direction whatsoever, and the vocals veer quite often into the ‘obnoxious’ category. (This cat is no exception.) No actor was an exception to this rule, and Columbia regularly used people like Mel Blanc, Frank Graham, John McLeish, and Stan Freberg. I have no idea who voices the cat(s) – it sounds like the same guy who voiced the mustachioed Puzzlewitz (WTFdom’s all-time greatest star) at Columbia.

Columbia gags can come bland and offbeat in the same film. We’ve seen the “cat’s nine lives help cat win” scenario in several 1930s cartoons, but how many times do you see that end as “cat’s nine lives beat the crap out of cat”? It may be prudent to assume, as a general rule, that if the other studios didn’t do something, Columbia just might have done it!

When I made the decision to move my blog to a new server, I had to purge a lot of my online archives in the process. A lot of stuff is lost to cyberspace forever, but I can still salvage the most important things. One item that I regret got purged was the Emery Hawkins interview that was exclusive to this site. I’ve put it back up online again, and you can view it at this link.

This post has no meaning other than to get that repulsive DVD cover out of sight.

Above and below are some beautiful illustrations by Bob McKimson (backgrounds by Richard Thomas) for the 1948 Capitol Record Bugs Bunny and the Tortoise. They really need to get a CD collection of those kiddie records out. Along with the beautiful illustrations by McKimson and others, they’re a riot to see and hear how they tried to make the gritty Warner stable of characters more ’suitable’ for children, long before the age of ‘imitable behavior’. (As in Elmer and Sam can’t shoot bullets – just gumdrops.)

If you want your DVD to bomb in sales, a sure-fire way is to give it a cover like this.

They can’t be serious about releasing this, can they? Really?

Bobe Cannon was one of the all-time great animators from the Golden Age. He did excellent and unique work for Tex Avery, Bob Clampett, John Hubley, and Chuck Jones; not too many other animators can boast a resume like that. For some reason, I rarely see him mentioned by anyone. It probably had to do with his death in 1964 than anything else.

That he kept his unique style in drawing, posing, and timing under such individualistic directors is even more amazing. I’ve long thought that that fact alone sort of exposed the misconception [lie] that all the Jones animators did was in-between his poses. Cannon’s animation of Daffy Duck for both Jones and Clampett gives the character a bit of naive mischievousness – the pigeon-toed walks really help put this across.

In the Jones cartoons, Cannon didn’t really have much of a grasp on ‘normal’ lip sync. This isn’t a dig, it’s just really obvious compared to the animation of Ken Harris or Ben Washam, who paid extreme attention to every tooth shown and every tongue flap. Cannon seemed more interested in how many ways he could get animate dialog without doing this.

I don’t think it’d be wise to attribute ’smear’ animation solely to Cannon unless there are some on-record statements stating something to that effect from some of the other animators; several of them picked up on the technique during that time period (Harris, Virgil Ross, and Rod Scribner in particular). Given Cannon’s stylized approach to his work, it could be possible though.

This 17-minute reel is made up of his work from the 1930s and 1940s at Schlesinger’s/Warners, MGM, and UPA, following the trials and tribulations of mid-20th century superstars Bugs, Daffy, and Porky (and lesser-lights like Droopy, Spike, and the Fox and Crow).

Cannon had a fairly successful career directing shorts at UPA, the most popular of them being Gerald McBoing Boing. His shorts primarily had children as the central theme and characters, and they ranged from great (Wonder Gloves, Willie the Kid) to not-so-great (Christopher Crumpet, Madeline). Michael Sporn has shared some wonderful work of Cannon’s from Hubley’s Moonbird and I hope he has more to share from that period.

Clips taken from:
Hold the Lion Please (1942), Porky and Daffy (1938), The Magic Fluke (1949), Tom Turk and Daffy (1944), Rover’s Rival (1937), Out-Foxed (1949), Porky in Wackyland (1938), Hare Tonic (1945), The Dover Boys (1942), Senor Droopy (1949), The Daffy Doc (1938), Hare Conditioned (1945), Robin Hoodlum (1948), Super-Rabbit (1943), To Duck or Not to Duck (1943), Doggone Tired (1949), Odor-Able Kitty (1945), Wags to Riches (1949), Coming Home (1945)

… because it’s impossible to get a good transfer out of it. Believe me, I tried. What follows is the third attempt made at transferring my fairly ancient 16mm print of Doggone Cats, and it’s the best looking. It actually looks much nicer (and less blue) projected. The only cartoons that usually turn up on blue-track Cinecolor stock in 16mm are Iwerks and Van Beuren shorts from the mid-1930s. Finding a late 1940s Warner title is considerably harder.

By the way, in case you’re not a longtime reader of this blog, Doggone Cats is, irrefutably, the greatest Warner cartoon ever made.

Kevin posted Fuddy Duddy Buddy, arguably the best of the Mister Magoo cartoons. I posted a clip from another great one, Spellbound Hound, a few years ago, but this is the first time I’m aware of the whole cartoon being available online. I really wish I had a better copy to share, but this is the only one I have ever seen.

Magoo was actually a really funny character in the UPA studio’s golden years (1948-53); not the lovable, bland old coot of later years, but a real grouch that has gone (at least in this short) senile. When I posted the clip, it was of my favorite scene – where Magoo mistakes the phonograph for his motor. He knows something is wrong from the start, but still goes with it anyway. Not to mention the ‘breeze’ he receives while remaining stationary, and then mistaking what he thought was the motor a few seconds earlier for the anchor. It’s a well-acted piece of animation, and I wish I knew who did it.

Two other great Magoos all should seek out are Ragtime Bear and Trouble Indemnity. Isn’t it about time that at least the really great UPA cartoons were put out on DVD?