In the late 1930’s and early 40’s, Porky Pig was the star of Looney Tunes. It became a rule that Porky had to appear in every Looney Tunes cartoon while the same would not be true of the sister series Merrie Melodies. Because of this oftentimes in these Looney Tunes Porky would just make a brief cameo appearance. Case in point, A Coy Decoy (1941) which stars Daffy Duck and Porky only makes a brief appearance singing the great cowboy song Ride Tenderfoot Ride and delivering the final line. The song Ride Tenderfoot Ride was written by Johnny Mercer and Richard A. Whiting. Johnny Mercer also wrote another one of the best cowboy songs ever with I'm an Old Cowhand. Richard Whiting was a writer for two songs ever Looney Tunes fan will know, Hooray For Hollywood and Ain't We Got Fun.
Now for an episode of The New Three Stooges (1965-1966) featuring the voices of the real Stooges who also appear in the opening and closing live action segments. These live action segments would often be repeated even when the cartoon was new. Curly Joe DeRita felt that this hurt the show. He thought that people would see a live action segment they had seen before and assume the show was a rerun, and change the channel not knowing the cartoon was new.
I love Walt Disney's incredible Silly Symphony cartoons. To say this is one of the greatest cartoon series ever made is an understatement. There are so many great films from this series but if I had to pick my favorite, I'd probably pick Toby Tortoise Returns (1936). This cartoon was a sequel to one of the most famous Silly Symphonies ever, The Tortoise and the Hare (1934). This cartoon also stands as one of the series' best ventures into pure cartoony slapstick comedy. Appropriately this cartoon was written by Ward Kimball, who would become one of the studio's most cartoony directors. This was the only cartoon he wrote for, though he would be a writer for the live action Disney feature, Babes in Toyland (1960). Ward also worked as an animator on this film (animating the referee introducing the fight and Toby's daydream about being at a harem full of Jenny Wrens).Also animating on this film was Jack Hannah, who would go on to direct some of the studio's most cartoony short cartoons. Here he animated Max being flown into the ambulance. The audience for the fight is made up of characters from previous Silly Symphonies, so keep a sharp eye out and enjoy the cartoon.
Let us now watch one of Walt Disney's classic silent Alice Comedies, Alice's Tin Pony (1925).
One of the most overlooked cartoon studios of the 1930's is the Van Beuren studio. This is not fair as many of their cartoons are still quite fun today. One of the best is Opening Night (1932). This cartoon introduced a new character, Cubby Bear. This is one of the many Mickey Mouse lookalikes that populated American cartoons of the 1930's. Almost every studio was guilty of having Mickey Mouse clones at this time, since Mickey had become such a sensation. In fact the Van Beuren Studio once took this too far, when they made some cartoons featuring Mice that looked just like Mickey and Minnie in 1931. Walt would sue the studio over those cartoons. This cartoon is also a rather historically interesting film for another reason. It was made for the opening of the RKO Roxy Theatre. It is not subtle about this either. Since the theatre opened in late December, the film begins with Santa Claus riding his sleigh and takes out of his bag various stars which form the words "RKO ROXY." The meaning is simple to decipher, the theatre was a Christmas gift to movie fans.
Stay tooned, next week for more cartoon treasures until then peace, love and cartoons.
-Michael J. Ruhland
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