Hello, my friends and happy Saturday morning. Once again, it is time for some classic cartoons.
Today's cartoon selection begins with Felix the Cat in Bold King Cole (1936). The Van Beuren cartoon studio never enjoyed the success of Disney, Warner Brothers, Walter Lantz or the Fleischer Brothers. One of the main reasons for this was that they lacked strong starring characters that would stay in the minds of movie goers. To try to get some of the success other cartoon studios had, studio boss Amadee J. Van Bueren in 1934 decided to hire Burt Gillett away from Disney and have Gillett supervise all the studio's output. Gillett had been the director of Disney's The Three Little Pigs (1933), the most popular cartoon of the era. Gillett clashed with many of the old hand, who felt a certain amount of resentment towards him. In 1936 Gillett decided to purchase the rights to two popular properties in order to give the studio stronger starring characters (something they were still lacking). One of these was Fontaine Fox's comic strip Toonerville Trolly and the other was Felix the Cat, who had been a major animated cartoon star during the silent era. Three new cartoons were made with Felix, of which I feel Bold King Cole is the strongest. This film has a wonderful sense of atmosphere and a delightfully clever story. However, purchasing these properties all proved to be for naught. The Disney studio left their previous distributor United Artists and found a new distributor in RKO. Unfortunately for Van Beuren RKO was also the distributor of the Van Beuren cartoons. With the Disney cartoons RKO had no further use for the Van Beuren ones and this would mark the end of the Van Beuren studio.
Next comes the Terry Toons short, Pick-necking (1933).
Now for the Mickey Mouse Works cartoon, Mickey's Mix-Up (2000). This cartoon would later air as part of the House of Mouse episode, The Mouse Who Came to Dinner (2001). The short really benefits from a very strong ending gag.
Next is the Terry Toons short, Swooning the Swooners (1945). This film was written by John Foster. As well as writing plenty of Terry Toons cartoons, Foster also directed plenty of them. Studio head
Paul Terry would sate about John Foster, "John Foster was the best, the most brilliant. They say if you can take a little out of this and a little out of that it's called research. But if you take a big bite out of one thing, that's plagiarism and you're a thief. So, we used to have a saying, John Foster and I, 'Never steal more than you can carry.'" Director Connie Rasinski began working on Terry Toons shorts in the 1930's and would continue to do so through the 1960's. About Rasinski Terry stated, "He came to work when it was Terry, Moser and Coffman. An old friend of mine named Litchfeild, who was a painter, passed away, and his wife sent this kid over to get a job, and I gave him a job. And that's Connie. Connie, who came to work for me as a kid, developed rapidly and he was with me for practically all his life. He was fat and everything he drew was chubby and round and well fed."
Now it is time for a commercial break.
Now for an old Stop Motion short that is not creepy at all, Dolly Daisy in Hearts and Flowers (1930). Also, the poor kid who just gets run over by two cars. There are no words that can describe just what you are about to watch here.
Next comes Porky Pig in Porky's Prize Pony (1941). In this cartoon, Porky sings We're in The Money with modified lyrics. This song was written by Al Dublin and Harry Warren for the movie, Gold Diggers of 1933 (1933). Since that was a Warner Brothers movie, this song appears in many classic Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies shorts.
Now for the Walter Lantz produced Oswald the Lucky Rabbit cartoon, Kings Up (1934). One of the animators on this film is future legendary cartoon director, Tex Avery (credited as Fred Avery). Tex Avery later remembered how he came to work at Walter Lantz studio and found himself as an animator. "I met a fella who knew a girl who was head of the inking and painting at Walter Lantz's, so I inked and painted for a while. . .. Then I worked up into inbetweens, then about that time Disney raided the whole West Coast for talent. And the three quarters of us who were left knew nothing of animation. We had just been inbetweening." Taking this into account, despite the flaws, it is impressive how much of the animation actually works.
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 more animated treasures. Until then may all your tunes be looney and your melodies merry.
Resources Used
Of Mice and Magic: A History of the American Animated Cartoon by Leonard Maltin.
https://disney.fandom.com/wiki/Mickey%27s_Mix-Up
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