Hello my friends and happy Saturday morning. Once again it is time for some classic cartoons.
Today’s cartoon selection begins with the most talked about cartoon on the internet right now, Steamboat Willie (1928). Though this film going into public domain has its dark side, it is still wonderful to see such an old film get so much attention. While contrary to popular belief this was not the first sound cartoon, there is no doubt that no cartoon before had used sound as well as this film did. This was the short that opened up the door for what sound cartoons could be and its effect could soon be felt on almost every sound cartoon being made. Though this was not the first Mickey cartoon made either (Plane Crazy and The Galloping Gaucho were both made before it), this was the film that made Mickey a true movie star. In fact, after the success of Steamboat Willie the two earlier Mickeys were given synchronized soundtracks because of Willie's success as a talkie. Willie brought about the idea that unlike early live action talkies (which often sparsely used music outside of musical numbers), sound cartoons would use music as just as important a part of the storytelling as the visuals. Even when studios like the Fleischer studio and Warner Brothers would make cartoons in their own style, this principal was largely employed. Walt would later recall "When the picture was half finished, we had a showing with sound. A couple of my boys could read music and one of them [Wilfred Jackson] could play a mouth organ. We put them in a room where they could not see the screen and arranged to pipe their sound into the room where our wives and friends were going to see the picture. The boys worked from a music and sound effects score. After several false starts sound and action got off with the gun. The mouth organist played the tune and the rest of us in the sound department bammed tin pans and blew side whistles on the beat. The synchronization was pretty close. The effect on our little audience was nothing less than electric. They responded almost instinctively to this union of sound and motion. I though they were kidding me. So they put me in the audience and ran the action again. It was terrible but it was wonderful! And it was something new." The reaction from audiences when the film hit theatres was if anything even greater. It is hard to overstate just how incredible the reaction to this cartoon was when released. While this cartoon can not have the feeling of newness or startling innovation it once had, it still works today wholly on an entertainment level. The truth is that this cartoon is still a lot of fun, and the gags remain charming and clever over 90 years later. The film received the #13 spot in Jerry Beck's book, The 50 Greatest Cartoons. November 18, 1928, marked Steamboat Willie's debut at New York's Colony Theater and that date is now widely considered to be Mickey's birthday.
Up next is Triple Trouble (1941) starring Sneak, Snoop and Snitch. These characters were created for the Fleischer feature film, Gulliver’s Travels (1939) and and were spun off into their own short lived series of shorts.
Last week I mentioned that in the 1960’s there were actually a series of TV cartoons based off of the Fleischer silent-era Out of the Inkwell shorts. Here is another one, Mean Moe Tells William Tell (1963).Now it is time for a commercial break.
Next is a silent Aesop's Film Fables cartoon, The Walrus Hunters (1923).
Next comes a real classic, Falling Hare (1943). This cartoon features one of the few characters to get the upper hand of Bugs, the gremlin. Despite only appearing in this one short, the character has proven quite popular and has appeared in quite a few Looney Tunes spin offs. The original title for this movie was going to be Bugs Bunny and the Gremlin. However, since Disney was working on an animated feature film about Gremlins (a movie that would never be finished), the studio took the word Gremlin out of the title of this cartoon to appease the Disney studio. The following is a review from The Film Daily, "Literally and figuratively, Bugs Bunny, already a prime favorite among current cartoon characters, gets off to a flying start in the distribution season just started. The buck-toothed, long-eared clown meets up with a gremlin and both find themselves aloft in an airplane, with Bugs or what's left of him being darn glad to get back to earth. There are plenty of laughs throughout. The tough Bunny, if this initial '43-'44 offering of his producer Leon Schlesinger, is any criterion, is in for a further rise in popularity among fans who like humor. Of course, the reel is in Technicolor. It was supervised by Robert Clampett and animated by Roderick Scribner. Warner Foster wrote the story and Carl W. Stalling handled the musical direction." This movie amounts to one of my favorite Bugs Bunny cartoons and it is appropriately in Jerry Beck's book, The 100 Greatest Looney Tunes.
Today's cartoon selection ends with The Simpsons in The Art Museum (1988). This is one of the short Simpsons cartoons for The Tracey Ullman Show, before the cartoon family got their own TV show.
Thanks for joining me. Come back next week for another selection of animated treasures. Until then may all your tunes be looney and your melodies merry.
Resources Used
100 Greatest Looney Tunes edited by Jerry Beck.
https://mediahistoryproject.org/
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