Some Cartoons For Saturday Morning #161

Happy Saturday morning my friends and welcome back for another selection of classic cartoons.

Today's cartoon selection begins with the bridging sequences from The Bugs Bunny Show episode, Bad Time Story (1961). For those of you unfamiliar with this show, it featured new animated sequences with Bugs Bunny hosting where he would introduce various theatrical Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies shorts. This episode featured the shorts, Bewitched Bunny (1954, directed by Chuck Jones), Robin Hood Daffy (1958, directed by Chuck Jones) and Tweety and the Beanstalk (1957, directed by Friz Freleng). The bridging sequences were directed by Chuck Jones and Friz Freleng. This episode marked the first episode of the second and final season and was the first episode to have a title. 



 

(

Next up comes Swing Social (1940). This was the second cartoon for MGM that William Hanna and Joseph Barbera directed, the first being Puss Gets the Boot (1940), which debuted the characters of Tom and Jerry. According to Joe Barbera's autobiography, My Life in Toons, despite Puss Gets the Boot getting nominated for an Oscar after that short, producer Fred Quimby told Bill and Joe, "I don't want you to make any more pictures with that cat and mouse." He added, "We don't want to put all our eggs in one basket." Joe talked about this movie in particular in My Life in Toons, "But with that remark, we were sent off to work on a variety of totally unpromising characters around whom we made a couple of terrible cartoons. The first of which, called 'Swing Social,' featured a cast of catfish in blackface doing black songs. Now like all cows and at least most birds, fish don't work in cartoons, zero exclamation point. They float suspended in space, which makes for singularly boring animation, they are ugly, and you wouldn't think of cuddling up to one. Even worse is what we tried to do with the black dialect in this picture. There was an all black musical in town - with a terrific cast - whom we hired to do the voices. Unfortunately, Bill wrote the black dialect in the way a white man thinks a black man talks and the actors strained to read and sing the lines in that stilted Stepin Fetchit manner." Considering all the years that had passed and the many cultural changes from 1940 to 1994 (when Joe's book was released) it is no surprise that he looked back on the racial stereotypes in a cartoon he worked on before with disdain. It certainly differs from the less stereotypical roles black characters would have in later Hanna-Barbera TV productions by quite a bit. His disdain for fish characters though is interesting since in 1992 the Hanna-Barbera TV studio would produce a short-lived adult cartoon series called Fish Police which starred (you guessed it) fish. Joe's opinion of this movie differs from that of a review in a 1940 issue of the Motion Picture Herald which stated, "'Swing Social' is one of the liveliest, funniest and most completely entertaining color cartoons to appear this season." The following are two exhibitor's reviews from the Motion Picture Herald, "Swing Social: Cartoons - Very good cartoon. I hope Harmon and Ising will get back in the stride of two years ago an imitate more colored characters as they are entertaining and help the colored houses. - John W. Warner, Plaza Theatre, Greenville, N.C. Colored Patronage." "Swing Social: Cartoons - This is an excellently excuted color cartoon but it proved boring to a group of college students. They are more apt to be intrested in swing then anyone else around here, and, if they didn't like it, I don't know who would. It is very difficult to understand the talk in it. - W. Varick, Nevins, III, Alfred Co-op Theatre, Alfred, N.Y. Small college town and rural patronage."

Next we join Flip the Frog in Fire Fire (1932). 

Up next is the final film Chuck Jones directed with his classic characters, the coyote and the roadrunner, Chariots of Fur (1994). While many of Chuck's cartoons of this era can feel a little underwhelming next to his earlier work, this movie feels completely like classic era Chuck Jones and stands up extremely well. This movie played in theaters before the feature film, Richie Rich (1994). 

Now it is time for a commerical break. 

Next comes a real classic, Toot, Whistle, Plunk and Boom (1953). Though this is a Disney cartoon, it does not visual resemble what one excepts from a Disney film. This short has a stylized look that was clearly inspired by what the UPA (Mr. Magoo, Gerald McBoing Boing) was doing at the time. This movie was very much legendary Disney animator (and one of the infamous Nine Old Men ), Ward Kimball's brainchild. Though C. August Nichols receives a co-director, he soon had little to do with this movie leaving all the creative decisions to Ward. Ward later remarked, "I was the one who did that picture all the way." As well as the high stylized look this short also uses limited animation. This is not limited animation used for budgetary reasons (like so many Saturday Morning Cartoons) but an artistic choice. Ward later commented on this decision stating, "you have to hold drawings. Watch and you'll see that sometimes the mouth just moves or an eye blinks. That is the difference between full animation and limited animation." Some at the Disney studio did not approve of the look or movement in this cartoon, with Ward even stating that for some it was "regarded as sacrilegious for Disney at the time." Iwao Takamoto for instance would state, "I believe that Ward in a sense took advantage of Walt's growing interest in live action during the early 1950's and that Walt was away from the studio more than he had been previous. This is how [Ward] was able to produce things that Walt would have never been in favor of, such as 'Toot Whistle, Plunk and Boom' which … was drawn in that stark, modern UPA style that Walt tended to disparage."  However some were inspired by the short. Director Jack Hannah would even use similarly flat stylized designs in a few of his future cartoons. As this movie was almost finished. Walt Disney got a call from Darryl Zanuck (head of 20th Century Fox) who asked if they had any cartoons to go with his Cinemascope features. Walt said, "Well, I'll look around." Walt approached Ward Kimball about releasing this film in Cinemascope to which Ward replied, "We're almost finished with it but ok I'll go back and redesign some of the gags for the bigger screen." It turned out to be a much more complex and daunting task than this though. Kimball would state about these changes that they "would have to change the size of the celluloid sheet on which we make our drawings and paintings - from 12 1/2 by 15 1/2 inches to 12 1/2 by 31 inches." He also learned the difference between making a cartoon for Cinemascope. He would later state, "In Cinemascope cartoon characters move not the backgrounds. Because there is more space, the characters could move about without getting outside the visual angle … characters could no longer perform in one spot against a moving background but are moved through the scenes." Still Ward was able to meet the deadline. The movie was a huge success winning the Acedmy Award for Best Animated Short Subject. However since a live action Disney nature documentary short was also nominated for an award that night, Walt came up and accidentally thanked the "Naturalist photographers who have played such a great part in making the nature films." This movie receives the number 29 spot in Jerry Beck's book, The 50 Greatest Cartoons. 

Next comes one of Hanna-Barbera and Larry Harmon's Laurel and Hardy TV cartoons, Boot Hill Bill (1967). The idea for this series originated with Larry Harmon (Bozo the Clown). He had this idea set in motion years before the show actually aired as evidenced by the following article from Box Office (dated May 29, 1961).

“New York- Although Oliver Hardy is dead, the team of Laurel and Hardy will be revived in the form of animated cartoon characters to be produced by Larry Harmon, who created the character of Bozo the Clown. Harmon, who owns more than half of the California studios in Hollywood, acquired the rights to produce the Laurel and Hardy cartoons from the Hardy estate and from Stan Laurel. Harmon said in New York last week that he planned a series of two-reelers and then would switch to full length features. Initially, however, he will make a series of half-hour Laurel and Hardy programs for television starting in the fall. 'The team of Laurel and Hardy is famous throughout the world’, Harmon said, citing statistics to prove that the pair has played to more people than any other motion picture characters on Earth. When the news first came out that he had acquired the rights to the team for animated cartoons, he received phone calls from every country, asking for distribution and exhibition rights. As an example of their popularity, he said, ‘a maharaja in India has figures of famous persons carved in stone. Laurel and Hardy are among them.’ Harmon said he had no set distribution deal for the theatrical release of the pictures but that Jayark Films Corp. would handle the television sales. The theatrical stories will be new and written especially for the medium. They will not be remakes of their past successes. All of them will be in Eastman color.”

 The theatrical animated shorts and features never happened. However much later Harmon would co-direct and co-produce the live action feature, The All New Adventures of Laurel & Hardy in For Love or Mummy (1999). Larry Harmon would voice Stan Laurel in these cartoons, while Jim McGeorge voiced Oliver Hardy. Interestingly Jim MacGeorge played Stan Laurel in the Get Smart episode, House of Max (1970).

Up next is a classic silent era, Out of the Inkwell film, The Cartoon Factory (1924)

Now let's close with a song.

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

Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies: A Complete Illustrated Guide to the Warner Bros. Cartoons by Jerry Beck Will Friedwald. 

The 50 Greatest Cartoons Edited by Jerry Beck

The Life and Times of Ward Kimball: Maverick of Disney Animation by Todd James Pierce. 

My Life in 'Toons: From Flatbush to Bedrock in Under a Century by Joseph Barbera

https://mediahistoryproject.org/