Some Cartoons for Saturday Morning #284

 Hello my friends and happy Saturday morning. Once again, it is time for more classic cartoons. 

Today's cartoon selection begins with the Terry Toons short, Paint Pot Symphony (1949). The three main characters here previously appeared in the Terry Toons cartoon, A Truckload of Trouble (1949)

Now for the Scrappy cartoon, Scrappy's Toy Shop (1934). About working at the Mintz Studio (which made this film) animator Dick Huemer stated, "There was no such thing as a director per se at the Mintz studio ... not like at the Disney studio, that is. When I came to the Disney foundry, I found a whole new setup prevailing. There, a director was a director - and nothing else. He (and I, when I later became one) had an assistant director even. And two layout men. And a private secretary. What luxury! And, oh yes, a director never touched pencil to animation paper. The stories were concocted by the story department, which never did anything else but that. How different at Mintz's. Me and [Sid] Marcus and [Art] Davis were all of the above - plus being the head animators. Each of us was our own director, once the storyline had been roughly agreed upon. Gags were added as we animated. Only thing we didn't do was paint the backgrounds. It never occurred to any of us to claim the title of Herr Director - at least not in my time there. The same went for Manny Gould and Ben Harrison on Krazy Kat." These short films are much less polished than what was being made at the Disney studio but the feeling of making it up as the filmmakers went along only added to the charm.  

Next is Herman and Katnip in Mice Capades (1952). This was the first cartoon of Herman and Katnip's own cartoon series. However, the two had appeared in the Noveltoons series before this. 

Next comes  one of the most atmospheric Mickey Mouse cartoons, The Mad Doctor (1933). Differing from earlier Mickey cartoons, this film is not a pure comedy. Rather this cartoon mixes in elements of horror and suspense. The horror elements were too present for some. Because it was deemed too scary, it was actually banned from some theatres and completely banned in the UK. Much of this sense of atmosphere comes from the wonderful background art by Mique Nelson. Nelson was a brilliant background artist, who worked on many of the best Silly Symphonies as well as such Disney features as Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937) and Pinocchio (1940). The director of this cartoon was Dave Hand. Dave Hand directed such classic Disney cartoons as Building a Building (1933), The Flying Mouse (1934), Who Killed Cock Robin (1935), Pluto's Judgement Day (1935), Mickey's Polo Team (1936), Thru the Mirror (1936), The Country Cousin (1936) and Magician Mickey (1937). He also served as the supervising director on two of the Disney studios most popular animated features, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs and Bambi (1942). A working title for this film was The Mysterious Castle. This cartoon reached movie theaters on January 20, 1933. At the same time this film was in theaters, Mickey Mouse was having another adventure in a spooky castle. The Mickey Mouse daily newspaper comic strip was currently running a storyline entitled Blaggard Castle. Blaggard Castle is often considered by Disney fans to be one of the best storylines of the comic strip. This cartoon's spooky themed storyline revolves around a recent popularity of horror films. A couple years earlier Universal released Dracula (1931) and Frankenstein (1931). This caused a while slew of horror movies to hit theaters including Paramount's Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1931), Warner Brothers' Doctor X (1932), MGM's Freaks (1932) and many more as well as all the Universal monster films to follow. As such this Mickey Mouse cartoon was simply inspired by a trend of the time.  Shockingly this cartoon's copyright was never renewed and actually fell into the public domain. This film along with The Sprit of '43 (1943) and Minnie's Yoo Hoo (1930) is one of the very few Disney shorts (not including the Alice Comedies) to fall into public domain. Video game fans will be familiar with elements of this cartoon. The second level of the game Mickey Mania: The Timeless Adventures of Mickey Mouse was based off this cartoon, and the Mad Doctor himself became a major character in both Epic Mickey games. The following is a review from Motion Picture Review (which was published by The Women's University Club of Los Angles), "Mickey is not to be outdone by the present rage for horror films - and goes to the rescue of his dog in the clutches of a 'mad doctor' in heroic and sensational fashion. It is perhaps too nightmarish for children; the fad for thrills goes to great lengths even in cartoons." 

Now it is time for a commercial break. 

 Next we join Sylvester and Tweety in Tweet Zoo (1957). Director Friz Freleng once said about Tweety, "I made him look more like a charming baby, with a bigger head and big blue eyes. He's a canary because we say he's a canary … He doesn't look like a canary. We didn't have time to develop characters. When you see Yosemite Sam, you know he's a villain, when you see Tweety, the audience is sympathetic." 

Now for the Walter Lantz produced cartoon, Nellie, The Indian Chief's Daughter (1938). This is part of a brief running series of Nellie cartoons made by the Lantz studio. 

Now for the Terry Toons short, The Kitten Sitter (1947).

Let us close with a song. 

Thank you for joining me. Come back next week for more animated treasures. Until then may all your tunes be looney and your melodies merry. 

Resources Used

Walt Disney's Mickey Mouse: The Ultimate History by J.B. Kaufman and David Gerstein. 

I Tawt I Taw a Puddy Tat: Fifty Years of Sylvester and Tweety by Jerry Beck.

Of Mice and Magic: A History of American Animated Cartoons by Leonard Maltin

https://cartoonresearch.com/index.php/terrytoons-paint-pot-symphony-1949-and-the-new-decade/

 

Movie Review: Disclosure Day

 

Michael's Movie Grade: A-

Steven Speilberg fully in his element. ''

Spielberg returns to one of his most successful themes here, that of humans meeting extra-terrestrials. It may be hard to think of how in today's day and age, anyone (even Spielberg) could create something new or original out of such a premise but Spielberg and screenwriter David Koepp (writer on the Spielberg films, Jurassic Park (1993), The Lost World: Jurassic Park (1997), War of the Worlds (2005) and Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (2008)) do just that. Instead of focusing on the aliens themselves, this film is more concerned with the humans. In fact, we only see the aliens briefly here and mostly in "archival footage," rather than the present day. What this movie really looks into is how people would react if conclusive proof that aliens were rea suddenly came to light. With so many conspiracy theories of the government hiding information about aliens from us, this is a fascinating concept to truly explore. It raises truly great and thought-provoking questions as to how such information would affect our entire understanding of the world. I especially loved how this movie looked at whether or not people's belief in God would be challenged by such a discovery. Taking a look at human nature, this film avoids the pure pessimism that would overtake the movie in the hands of many filmmakers. Rather this is a movie that is willing to see both the good and bad in people. The movie also explores the idea of whether the truth should be told regardless of possible consequences, a question that has no easy answer.

Being directed by Spielberg this movie also of course features top-notch filmmaking throughout. The action scenes are truly wonderful here, full of the great excitement and fun that only the director of the Indiana Jones movies could bring us. The larger-than-life scenes of fantasy storytelling are also incredible here. They capture some of the same sense of joy, wonder and awe that we had when we first watched E.T. Even with some obvious and unconvincing CGI, these scenes feel like a return to the Spielberg that helped so many of us fall in love with movies. Of course, John Williams' (who has worked on most of the great director's masterpieces) musical score helps bring this sense of magic as well. 

The characters may not always be incredibly complex, but they do their jobs quite well. The main characters are not only likable, but they are also relatable to the point where we find ourselves very this sci-fi fantasy through their eyes, making it all the more real. Great performances by Emily Blunt and Josh O'Connor help a great deal in this department.  

A must see for fans of classic Spielberg.      

Movie Trailer: Gatto

 

Movie Trailer: Heart of the Beast

 

Movie Trailer: Moana

 

Movie Review: Power Ballad

 

Michael's Movie Grade: B

A pretty good dramedy. 

In this movie, a former boy band member who is struggling to create a solo career (Nick Jonas) spends a night jamming with a wedding band singer (Paul Rudd). The wedding band singer sings a chorus of a song that he wrote himself. Months later, the former boyband singer records that song and doesn't give any songwriting credit to the wedding singer. When the song becomes a massive hit, it causes the wedding singer to go on a downward spiral. 

With a movie about songwriting, naturally the songs are very important to if the movie works. While the songs here may not be as incredible as they are sometimes treated, they are quite good. They are very nice and pleasant to listen to and while the lyrics may lack much depth, they aren't bad. I can picture How to Write a Song Without You becoming a hit song and people singing along to it. Though I actually admit I prefer the other songs the former boy band singer wrote himself (and which didn't become hits). However, I often find my favorite songs on albums to be the album tracks, so this probably says more about me. The songs themselves are co-written by Gary Clark and the film's director (and co-writer) John Carney. The duo had previously written songs for Carney's previous film, Sing Street (2016). Incidentally, Clark had been a member of the 1980's pop band, Danny Wilson, and Danny Wilson is the name of the boyband singer here. 

The movie does a great job of exploring the two main male characters. There is quite a bit of depth to them, and Paul Rudd and Nick Jonas give truly great performances. Though these characters often do the wrong thing, we relate to them and understand what makes them do it. This keeps a strong emotional connection to these characters throughout the film. 

Unfortunately, the other characters are very underdeveloped. We know pretty much nothing about the other members of the wedding band or the wedding band singer's wife and daughter. This becomes a major problem as the film goes on. It becomes clear that much of the heart of this movie is supposed to come from the love he has for his daughter. Unfortunately, his daughter receives little screen time and in the screen time she has we barely learn anything about her. Because of this, the emotion that is supposed to comes from the scenes revolving around this relationship often simply isn't felt by the audience.   

For a dramedy, this movie also is never that funny. Some of the humor made me smile or chuckle but I never once really laughed, while watching this. 

While I won't give anything away, the ending is fantastic, hitting all the right emotional notes. 

Movie Review: Scary Movie

 

Movie Review: B-

While it may not fully live up to the hilarity of the first Scary Movie (which is still a wonderful comedy), this is still a very enjoyable comedy.

With this sixth entry into this franchise (just one behind Scream, which the first movie was a parody of), the Wayans Brothers, who starred in and wrote the first two films, return here as both stars and writers. 

This film is just what you have come to expect from this franchise. There is simply one joke after another with no time to rest between them. These jokes are dumb, crude, violent and self-referential. With the sheer number of jokes from start to finish, it is only natural that not every joke hits. However more of them hit then don't. There are many moments here that made me laugh out loud. Some of the horror movie parodies are truly hilarious. The Weapons parody was especially hilarious. There is also some very funny slapstick humor here. All the scenes in the hospital are top notch slapstick. However, there are still gags that simply fall flat. Some of these gags go on for much too long. The church scene starts off kind of funny but loses steam as it goes on along. By the end, what started off as a funny scene simply stops being funny long before it ends. There are also times when this movie tries too hard to be politically incorrect or offensive. These gags are rarely funny and simply seem to be just there for shock value (the ICE gag is admittedly funny though, as is one "offensive" murder scene). Considering this franchise was always more concerned with making fun of horror movie tropes and being quite crude rather than actually being offensive, this feels especially unnecessary. 

The ending really didn't work for me here. It is not only not funny, but it seems simply like the Wayans Brothers venting, making it too bitter and mean spirited for this type of comedy. The storyline can also be a bit of mess (some scenes really make no sense in hindsight), but no one is watching this for the story, so that is a minor flaw. 

The first entry is still the best film in the franchise (I am also a fan of the second and third entries) but even if it can't fully live up to that movie, this is still a fun comedy.