Some Cartoons For Saturday Morning #32

Hello my friends and happy Saturday Morning. Once again it is time for some classic cartoons. 

We start our cartoons off with a Hokey Wolf cartoon from The Huckleberry Hound Show (1958-1961). This one is called Lamb-Basted Wolf .



Next comes one of the all time classic Merrie Melodies cartoons, A Corny Concerto (1943). This cartoon is very much a parody of Disney's recent animated feature, Fantasia (1940) with the unrefined Elmer Fudd taking over the Deems Taylor role. Earlier the same year this cartoon was released another Merrie Melody parodied Fantasia with an unrefined wolf doing the Deem Taylor role. That cartoon was called Pigs in a Polka (1943). A Corny Concerto was directed by Bob Clampett and written by Frank Tashlin. It is odd to have Tashlin write a Warners cartoon he didn't direct. Tashlin had in fact just returned to Warners after a stint at Disney, making him a perfect candidate to write this Disney parody. This film features another rarity for a Warners cartoon. That is the fact the Bugs Bunny and Porky Pig share the screen. It has been debated weather or not the Duck that appears in the second part of this cartoon is or isn't Daffy. I like to think of him as Daffy, myself. Also notice that Bugs makes Porky and his dog into a couple of boobs.




Up next comes another Warners cartoon from 1943. This one stars Daffy Duck and Elmer Fudd and is entitled To Duck or Not To Duck. This cartoon is directed by Chuck Jones. Up until this time Chuck's cartoons had been slower paced and less comedy oriented, than the other Looney Tunes directors' films. While this cartoon is no where near as fast paced as Chuck's later films, it definitely moves faster and has more comedy compared to what he did in the past. Elmer's dog Larimore gets some of the best laughs in the film. It is also worth noting that Daffy had not become a born loser at this time yet. We will not see Elmer shooting Daffy's bill off in this cartoon. Instead Daffy can and does outsmart Elmer.




I am personally a big fan of the underrated Little King cartoons the Van Beuren studio did. I love their gentle pantomime and slapstick, as well as the great imagination in these films. So enjoy A Royal Good Time (1934).

For the most part in the 1930's Disney's Mickey Mouse cartoons starred reoccurring characters, while the Silly Symphonies starred one-shot characters. It was rare for a character from the Mickey series to star in a Symphony. However Pluto did this twice. These cartoons were Just Dogs (1932) and Mother Pluto (1936). Our last cartoon is the first one, Just Dogs. In this film Pluto is teamed with a little pup. While this pup would not appear in any more animated Disney cartoons, he would become a reoccurring character in Floyd Gottfredson's Mickey Mouse newspaper comic strip. One of Pluto's animators in this film was Norm Ferguson, who would help define the character's personality with his animation for Playful Pluto (1934). Burt Gillett the director of this film would soon direct the most famous Silly Symphony, The Three Little Pigs (1933). One of the working titles for Just Dogs was the rather on the nose The Dog Symphony.



For an extra treat to read a 1963 article from Boxoffice magazine about Walter Lantz cartoons plus an advertisement for Terrytoons from the same year click here.

Thanks for joining me. Come back next week for more animated treasures. Until then Peace, Love and Cartoons.

-Michael J. Ruhland