Some Cartoons For Saturday Morning #10

Happy Saturday morning again my friends, it is time once again to enjoy some classic cartoons. 

Let us begin with some of those great bumpers for The Yogi Bear Show (1961-1962). Yogi had originally started as a segment on The Huckleberry Hound Show (1958-1962) and was eventually spun off into his own series. Like The Huckleberry Hound Show, an episode of The Yogi Bear Show featured three short cartoons. Each one would star a different character. One would star Yogi, one would star Snagglepuss and one would star Yakky Doodle. Also like Huck's show, this series would feature little mini cartoons or "bumpers" between the three cartoons. Here are some of those.

  
 

Here is one of my favorite Terry Toon cartoons, The Power of Thought (1948). This cartoon stars two of Terry Toons most famous and most entertaining characters, Heckle and Jeckle. This cartoon is one of the most clever of the duo's cartoons having the very fact that they are animated characters be the premise of the story. 

Next up is the first of the Fleischer Brothers' great series of Superman cartoons, titled Superman (1941) though sometimes referred to as The Mad Scientist. Paramount (the distributors of the Fleischer cartoons) brought the screen rights to the famous superhero in 1940, and gave it to the Fleischers to make a cartoon series out of. The studio was not quite sure about this venture after all animated cartoons had not yet done anything similar to a pure action film. They tried to dissuade Paramount by asking for four times the usual budget for one of the studio's cartoon shorts ($100,000) thinking Paramount would refuse. Shockingly they accepted and the series began production. Voicing Superman himself was Bud Collyer, who was already the character's voice on radio. The famous lines "Look up in the sky- it's a bird - no, its a plane - no its superman" made their first appearance in Superman lore with this cartoon. This cartoon was nominated for an Oscar but did not win. This cartoon also received the 33rd spot in Jerry Beck's excellent book, The 50 Greatest Cartoons.

       

Now for one of Chuck Jones' great Bugs Bunny cartoons, Wackiki Wabbit (1943). The two castaways who try to eat Bugs in this cartoon, were caricatured to look like and were voiced by Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies writers, Michael Maltese and Tedd Pierce. Many of Chuck's cartoons of this time had great experimentation with background art, and that is certainly true here. The background art is delightfully abstract, in a way that works perfectly. The background art is credited to Bernyce Polifka, though it has been debated whether or not John McGrew had anything to do with the backgrounds here considering he left the studio during the making of the film.




Now to end with one of Walt Disney's great silent Alice Comedies, Alice the Whaler (1927). This is a later entry in the series and by this time Alice herself was playing a much smaller role. There is no longer the live action wrap around scenes and the live action Alice only makes a brief obligatory appearance. This cartoon also features what has to be one of the earliest anvil gags in cartoon history. Also doesn't the mouse pealing potatoes make you think of Steamboat Willie (1928)?

  
Stay tooned next week for more cartoon greats. Until then peace love and cartoons.

-Michael J. Ruhland