Hello my friends and happy Saturday morning. Once again, it is time for some classic cartoons.
Today's cartoon selection starts with the Noveltoons short, The Old Shell Game (1948). This is the first solo cartoon for the character Wolfie, who had previously only worked with Blackie Sheep. He proves to be just as inept at catching turtles as he is at catching sheep.
Next comes Donald Duck in Officer Duck (1939). This is the first time that Donald went up against Mickey Mouse's nemesis Pete in one of the duck's solo cartoons. It was far from the last as during World War 2, the two would be paired together in a series of shorts with Pete as Donald's long-suffering sergeant in the army. A good portion of animation for the character Pete was done by Norm Ferguson and John Lounsberry. Released to theaters on October 11, 1939, this was the last Donald Duck cartoon of the 1930's.
Now for Bugs Bunny in Bushy Hare (1950).
Anyone familiar with the Columbia Krazy Kat cartoons knows they bear little to no rebalance to the George Herriman comic strip on which they were supposedly based. Krazy was turned into a Mickey Mouse clone and the supporting characters disappeared completely. There was however one exception to this and that was the cartoon, Lil' Ainjil (1936). This film does a surprisingly good job at capturing the feel of the classic comic strip. This is especially true of the background art, which had the same distinct look that appeared in the comic strip. The cartoon also features other characters from the strip including Ignatz Mouse, Offissa Pup and Mrs. Kwack. Much of the story also revolves around the idea of Krazy enjoying Ignatz hitting him/her with bricks. Cartoon buffs may recognize Offissa Pup's voice as that of Billy Costello, the first voice of Popeye. Interestingly with how this cartoon was so different from any other in the Columbia cartoon series a review in The Film Daily called it "The usual troubles of Officer Pup while trying to keep Ignatz Mouse from socking Krazy Kat with bricks." The same review called this film "Just fair." This is not a perfect cartoon, but it is quite fun to see how this series could have been had it been more faithful to the strip.
Now it is time for a commercial break.
Next is the Fleischer Stone Age cartoon, The Fulla Bluff Man (1940).
Now for one of my favorite early Mickey Mouse cartoons, The Karnival Kid (1929). This movie is famous for featuring Mickey Mouse's first spoken words. Though Mickey's earlier shorts had been sound pictures, they mostly revolved around music instead of dialogue. Though Walt Disney was excited about moving in this direction, his distributor, Pat Powers was not. Powers felt that an English-speaking mouse would have less appeal in countries where English is not the common language. To be fair the mouse does not receive a great deal of dialogue in this movie. His first words are the immortal, "Hot Dogs! Hot Dogs!" (in a scene animated by future Donald Duck director, Jack King). The voice is not the familiar high pitch falsetto, but a plainer undistinguished voice. I do not know who provided this voice. Carl Stalling speak about the early voices of the mouse in a 1969 interview, “all the animators were taking a shot at it, those who wanted to.” Of course, later on Walt himself would become the voice of Mickey. The cartoon features some men who would soon have a great input on Disney's animated films. Ben Sharpsteen (supervising director on the Disney features Pinocchio (1940) and Dumbo (1941)) animates the opening shots of the fairgrounds, the monkey playing all the instruments and the barker (a fore-runner of Kat-Nip from the Mickey Mouse comic strip) pulling Mickey's nose. Burt Gillet (who would direct the most popular Silly Symphony, Three Little Pigs (1933)) animates the scene with the merry-go-round, Mickey playing the hot dogs like musical instruments, the emergence of Minnie and Mickey tipping his ears to her ("The Big Mooseketeer" Roy Williams stated that this scene inspired the Mickey Mouse ears that all of TV's The Mickey Mouse Club wore). Les Clark (one of Walt's nine old men and one of the greatest Mickey Mouse animators) receives very little footage in the cartoon. He animates Mickey catching a runaway hot dog and giving it a spanking, Mickey briefly strumming the guitar and the final shot of the movie. Les Clark's ending was originally going to be longer with Mickey riding the bed like a horse. The legendary Ub Iwerks (who co-created Mickey with Walt) animates the two cats' duet. Despite the forward-looking ideas in this cartoon borrowed a major gag from a previous Disney short. Mickey chasing and spanking the hot dog was originally done by Oswald the Lucky Rabbit in All Wet (1927).
Up next is the Noveltoons cartoon, Space Kid (1966).
Now let us 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
Walt Disney's Mickey Mouse: The Ultimate History by J.B. Kaufman and David Gerstein
https://cartoonresearch.com/index.php/mickey-mouse-in-the-karnival-kid-1928/
https://mediahistoryproject.org/
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