Some Cartoons For Saturday Morning #146

 Hello my friends and happy Saturday morning, once again it time for some classic cartoons. 

Today's cartoon selection begins with our good friend The Pink Panther in Pink Pranks (1971). While not a remake, this film seems to have borrowed a little bit from Chuck Jones' Bugs Bunny cartoon, Frigid Hare (1949), including the idea of the Pink Panther arriving in the wrong place during a vacation and helping a cute animal against a hunter, the basic setting and a gag where the cute animal cries ice cubes. 

Most Casper the Friendly Ghost cartoons follow the same basic formula and therefore feel very repetitive. Boo Moon (1954) is a delightful exception and my favorite Casper cartoon. This short film features our hero heading to the moon and meeting and befriending a bunch of tiny men and even becoming their protector. If this sounds like Gulliver's Travels to you, then the similarities were certainly not lost on the filmmakers either. This film uses similar designs (and even reuses some) to the  Lilliputians from the Fleischer Brothers' animated feature length movie version of Gulliver's Travels (1939). This was also the first and only Casper cartoon to be released in 3-D, however most of us today know it much better in 2-D.

Motion Picture Herald, 1953

Next up comes one of my favorite cartoons from the silent era. The film is Reunion (1922) from the Out of the Inkwell series. Though many today assume that the combination of live action and animation is a relatively recent development, it has existed since the silent era and in fact there were whole series of short films that revolved  around this combination. Out of the Inkwell was one of these series and in it an animated Koko the Clown would have a battle of wits with his creator, played in live action by Max Fleischer, who also produced these films. Though after the silent era, Koko the clown would no longer star in his own theatrical series, he would still work as a supporting player in Betty Boop cartoons.

Chuck Jones would state that he would rely less on pop culture references and celebrity caricatures then other Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies directors and while for the most part this was true, there were rare times when entire Chuck Jones cartoons could revolve around pop culture references. Quentin Quail (1946) is one of these. The character of Toots in this film was based off of Baby Snooks, a character that comedian Fanny Brice played on the radio. The ending is another delightful pop culture reference. 



  

Now it is time for a commercial break.

Next comes the 7th Dogfather film, Delived Yeggs (1974).  While by the 1970's most studios were no longer making cartoons for movie theaters, DePatie-Freleng was helping keep the animated short film alive with multiple series. One of these series were the Dogfather cartoons for the mid-1970's. These shorts were a take-off of Francis Ford Coppola's The Godfather (1972) with the titular character even sounding like Marlin Brando. 17 theatrical cartoon shorts were made of this series. This cartoon is a remake of the Sylvester and Tweety short, Satan's Waitin' (1954). 

Up next is the Mickey Mouse cartoon, The Castaway (1931). This was the first cartoon to be directed by Wilfred Jackson who would direct some of the best Disney cartoons of the 1930's. Jackson had become a director hugely through a misunderstanding. He wanted to animate a whole short by himself and he asked Walt if he "could handle a picture" himself. Instead of animating a cartoon by himself he would up directing The Castaway. According to Jackson, "we never did get this misunderstanding cleared up." Walt ended up very unhappy with the finished film and Jackson remembered overhearing Walt and Roy Disney having a conversation about it. Roy said, "But Walt, it doesn't look like a Disney picture. I don't know if we ought to release it." Walt replied, We've got to release it to meet our schedule Roy." Despite this the cartoon is actually pretty good and should delight Disney and movie fans of all ages. This movie also marked the first time Frank Churchill would do a musical score for a Disney film. He would later score music for such Disney features as Snow White (1937), Dumbo (1941) and Bambi (1942). 

Now let us close by singing one you all know. 

Thanks 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

Working With Walt: Interviews With Disney Artists by Don Peri

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