Some Cartoons For Saturday Morning #43

Hello my friends and welcome back for some more classic cartoons.

The character of Swee'pea was introduced in the Thimble Theatre comic strip in 1933, but would not be introduced in the animated Popeye cartoons until 1936 with our following film, Little Swee'pea. In the comic strip Popeye finds the infink on his doorstep and adopts him. In the films whose child is Swee'pea is much less clear. In fact many cartoons ignore his existence completely. This is completely fitting in with the main difference between the strip and the films. The strip had a sense of continuity that is completely absent in the cartoon shorts. Swee'pea himself would later be phased out of these cartoons seemingly in favor of Popeye's nephews, Pipieye, Peepeye, Poopeye and Pupeye (who were not characters from the comic strip). At this early stage Mae Questel (the voice of Olive Oyl) voiced the infink.

 

Before Mighty Mouse and Heckle and Jeckle, the re-occurring characters in Terrytoons would mean little to any non-film buff. Kiko the Kangaroo is typical of these characters. He doesn't have much in the way of personality but his cartoons are often fast and enjoyable. Here is a typical Kiko cartoon, A Battle Royal (1936).




Next is a classic Looney Tune starring the one and only Foghorn Leghorn. All the Foghorn films were directed by the one and only Robert McKimson and many cartoon fans consider these films his finest work. It is easy to see why, these are fantastic cartoon that play perfectly to McKimson's strengths as a director. This cartoon introduces a new character to the Foghorn cartoons, a wacky weasel. This character only appeared in two more Foghorn cartoons after this (Weasel Stop (1956) and Weasel While You Work (1958)), however he definitely left an impression. So enjoy Plop Goes the Weasel (1953).




Next comes an excellent Tex Avery spot gag cartoon for Warner Brothers A Day at the Zoo (1939). Typical of Tex Avery's color Merrie Melodies much of the humor comes from the corniest and silliest puns imaginable. A exhibitors review from the Motion Picture Herald stated "A very clever colored cartoon with a new idea." The following is a review from Boxoffice Magazine, "A clever and witty parody on what goes on at a zoo. It's one of the funniest cartoons to make an appearance this year and is chockful of laughs. Departing from the conventional humor treatment, the situations are handled in a delightfully wacky manner. There is nothing dull about it. When seen at the Strand, New York, the audience guffawed appreciatively at most of the gags. Which is the tip-off."  This cartoon was reissued to theatres in 1952.

Abbott and Costello were popular in nearly every medium, including movies, TV, radio, comic books and vaudeville. With this in mind it should come as no surprise that the duo also made their mark on animated cartoons. Since the early 1940's caricatures of the comedy duo appeared in many cartoons. It was in 1967 that Hanna-Barbera created a whole animated TV series around these two. What makes these cartoons especially important to Abbott and Costello fans (like myself) is that Bud Abbott was in fact voicing himself. Lou Costello was unfortunately unable to do the same for his character, because he had the disadvantage of being dead. Lou was instead voiced by Stan Irwin, who did a good job even if he couldn't capture the magic of Lou. So enjoy this episode Pigskin Pickle. The idea of a waterboy getting into the actual football game may remind comedy fans of the famous Harold Lloyd movie The Freshman (1925), or the much later Adam Sandler movie The Waterboy (1998).




Thanks for joining me. Come back next week for more cartoon goodies.

-Michael J. Ruhland