Hello my friends and happy Saturday morning. Once again it is time for some classic cartoons.
Today's cartoon selection begins with the first of Chuck Jones' cartoons featuring Charlie Dog, Little Orphan Airedale (1947). Despite this being the first Charlie Dog cartoon, the template for these films was clearly set up by the Bob Clampett cartoon, Porky's Pooch (1941). This film is pretty much a remake of that earlier film. This cartoon also has one of my favorite Chuck Jones jokes in it, where Charlie tells us why he "shouldn't be roughly handled."
Curse of the Pink Panther (1983) is by far my least favorite of all the feature length Pink Panther movies. This was the first of The Pink Panther features (with the exception of Inspesctor Clouseau (1968)) to not feature Peter Sellers as Inspector Clouseau. Instead of recasting the character for a whole movie, it was decided that this film would star a new character, Sgt. Clifton Sleigh, who would be played by Ted Wass. Ted Wass stated in a studio publicity release, "Blake Edwards says that if Clouseau was Charlie Chaplin then Sleigh is Harold Lloyd." If only the character was anywhere near as funny as Harold Lloyd. Unfortunately this has the biggest fault any Pink Panther movie can have and that is that there are very few laughs. The only good thing about this movie is the animated opening credits. Like Trail of the Pink Panther this sequence would be directed by the always wonderful Art Leonardi, who was a veteran of Warner Brothers and DePatie-Freleng (which did the opening titles for most of the previous Pink Panther feature films) and was produced by Marvel Productions (DePatie-Freleng's successor). The title sequences for this film and Trail of the Pink Panther were produced back to back, much like how the live action majority of both movies were filmed simultaneously. This sequence is a delight and should have been part of a much better film.
Now we join our good friend Gandy Goose in The Frame-up (1938).
Next we join Goofy in The Olympic Champ (1942). As I have stated many times on this blog, the Goofy cartoons, Jack Kinney directed for Disney are some of my favorite cartoons of all time. This short perfectly shows why, it is a fast moving and very funny example of slapstick humor at its best. To me Jack Kinney was a master of pure cartoon slapstick and deserves to be mentioned in the same breath as the likes of Tex Avery or Chuck Jones. This short film made its TV debut on the episode of the Disneyland TV show, The Goofy Sports Story (1956). It would appear again on the episode of Walt Disney's Wonderful World of Color, In Shape with Von Drake (1964).
Now it is time for a commercial break.
Now for something completely different here is a completely serious cartoon short of the 1950's, The Tell-Tale Heart (1953). This film is not surprisingly from the UPA studio. The UPA studio at this time sought to move away from the violent slapstick of Warner Brothers or MGM cartoons, or the more realistic "illusion of life" featured in many Disney cartoons. They often experimented with what could be done with the color and design in animated films. These films often experimented with flat backgrounds, purposely limited animation and abstract color schemes that reflect the emotion of a scene rather than what something would really look like. As is true of all cartoon studios that do a lot of experimenting, sometimes it worked and sometimes it didn't. Tell-Tale Heart is one of the most successful and one of the most extreme experiments. Most American audiences at this time had never seen an animated short quite like this and many would never see something like this again. When a 1954 article in Home Movies talking about the Cannes Film Festival got to Disney's Toot, Whistle, Plunk and Boom (1953) winning a prize, the writer had this to say, "It is unpardonable however that Disney should so openly and fully steal the style of the cartoon developed by the most excellent groups of artists, Steven Bosustow's UPA. It was no secret this was the case among those as the festival as UPA is well known and well respected in France. It is a shame that UPA recent and excellent 3D cartoon, The Tell-Tale Heart could not be shown at the festival, for it most certainly won the prize awarded to Disney." This cartoon is placed at 24 in Jerry Beck's book, The 50 Greatest Cartoons.
Next enjoy one of the Fleischer Studio's early Talkartoons, Wise Flies (1930).
Next comes the Coyote and Roadrunner in Rushing Roulette (1965). This film was made after Chuck Jones had left the Warner Brothers cartoon studio and therefore unlike the earlier Roadrunner films, this one was not directed by Chuck Jones. Instead this cartoon was directed by Robert McKimson.
Today's cartoon selection ends with one of the Simpsons shorts for The Tracey Ullman Show, Zoo Story (1988).
Thanks for joining me. Come back next week for another selection of animated gems until then may all your tunes be looney and your melodies merry.
Resources Used
The 50 Greatest Cartoons edited by Jerry Beck
Pink Panther: The Ultimate Guide to the Coolest Cat in Town! by Jerry Beck
Of Mice and Magic: A History of the American Animated Cartoon by Leonard Maltin.
https://disney.fandom.com/wiki/The_Disney_Wiki
https://mediahistoryproject.org/
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