Hello my friends and happy Saturday morning. Once again it is time for some classic cartoons.
Today's cartoon selection begins with Sylvester and Hector the bulldog (named Butch in this cartoon) in Pappy's Puppy (1955). If the storyline of this movie seems very familiar that is because it is quite similar to much more often seen Tom and Jerry cartoon, That's My Pup (1953). However, to the credit of this short it never copies or steals gags from the aforementioned Tom and Jerry cartoon. Considering how many cartoon shorts there were from all the American cartoon studios being released to movie theaters at this time, it is quite possible that the similarities are coincidental. Strangely enough this movie actually features less dialogue than the Tom and Jerry film.
When disccussing the Disney shorts, No Sail (1945) seems to be hardly ever mentioned. However if we are to judge a cartoon purely on the amount of laughs it brings than this is clearly one of the finest shorts to ever come out of the Disney studio. This movie is directed by Jack Hannah, one of Donald's main directors. Though at this time he was rather new to directing (this is only his third movie), he had been a writer on many Donald Duck cartoons before becoming a director. This is probably why he shows such a clear understanding of Donald's character in this film. Donald starts off the cartoon with childlike excitement and then the second things go wrong this excitement turns into despair, when Goofy keeps his easy going happy go lucky attitude regardless of all that is going wrong, Donald's emotions quickly turn to rage. This is not just simply a duck with anger issues but a childlike character who can change his emotions at a drop of a hat and this is always the best way to handle a character like Donald. I must also say that out of all the shorts that team Donald and Goofy this movie gets the chemistry between these two the best.
Home Movies. 1945
Next we join Barney Bear in The Unwelcome Guest (1946). The following is a review from The Showmen's Trade Review, "One of the most delightful characters that ever graced the imagination of a cartoonist's pen is delineated in this Technicolor short in the form of a playful skunk who threatens the life of placid berry picking Barney Bear. For children this should prove to be a barrel of fun; for the elders it might bring them back to a world less strewn with sorrow." Notice that Barney is reading a book entitled, Red Hot Riding Hood. This is also the name of another MGM cartoon. The book appears to be as racy as the cartoon.
Up next is an early Looney Tunes cartoon, Bosko the Lumberjack (1932). Watching this movie, you will probably feel that it more closely resembles an early Disney cartoon than a later Looney Tune and that was true of all the Warner Brothers cartoons of this era. In his landmark book Of Mice and Magic: A History of the American Animated Cartoon, film historian Leonard Maltin quotes animator Jack Zander, "We were doing something and Hugh Harman [who co-directed the early Warner Brothers cartoons with Rudolf Ising] said 'You remember that scene in the Disney picture where Mickey Mouse did do-and-so?' I said 'You want me to do almost the same thing?' and he said 'No I want you to do exactly the same thing.'"
Now it is time for a commercial break.
Next we join the Pink Panther in Cat and the Pinkstalk (1978).
The famous cat and mouse duo were not the first cartoon characters to be named Tom and Jerry. In the 1930's the Van Beuren Studio made a series of cartoons starring two human characters named Tom and Jerry. For understandable reasons for later TV showings of these cartoons the characters were renamed Dick and Larry. Though these characters are forgotten by the average cartoon fan today, their films still hold up quite well in my opinion. They have a strange surreal feel to them that I simply love. You may wonder if William Hanna and Joseph Barbera ever commented on these characters. Well Joseph Barbera commented on this in his autobiography My Life in Toons: From Flatbush to Bedrock in Under a Century. There he wrote, "Historians of animation might point out that one of Van Beuren's justly forgotten series featured a pair of characters named Tom and Jerry. This was the era of rubber-limed animation - when as far as movement was concerned arms and legs might as well have been worms - and Van Beuren's Tom and Jerry, humanoid if not precisely human, bore a far closer resemblance to the funny papers' Mutt and Jeff than to the cat and mouse Bill Hanna and I would invent in 1940."
Let us close by singing one altogether.
Thanks for joining me, come back next week for more animated treasures. Until then may all your tunes be looney and your all melodies merry.
Resources Used
Of Mice and Magic: A History of the American Animated Cartoon by Leonard Maltin
My Life in Toons: From Flatbush to Bedrock in Under a Century by Joseph Barbera
https://mediahistoryproject.org/
No comments:
Post a Comment