Hello my friends and happy Saturday morning. Once again it is time for some classic cartoons.
Today's cartoon selection begins with Donald Duck in Bee at the Beach (1950). This short film pits Donald Duck against Spike the bee. Though Spike is a rather forgotten Disney character, this film is not the only time him and Donald went up against each other. Staring with Inferior Decorator (1948) and ending with Let's Stick Together (1952), the two made a series of 7 shorts centered around the two fighting. Bee at the Beach would make its TV debut on the Walt Disney Presents episode, This is Your Life, Donald Duck (1960).
Next comes Sylvester and Tweety in Catty Cornered (1953). In this cartoon Tweety is kidnapped by gangster Rocky. Rocky was a character who was only used by director Friz Freleng. He had earlier been the villain in the Daffy Duck cartoon, Golden Yeggs (1950). Most cartoon fans associate Rocky with his dumb partner in crime Mugsy. However this cartoon was made before the character was created. Mugsy first appeared in the Bugs Bunny short, Bugs and Thugs (1954). This short would later be edited into the feature-length compilation film, The Looney Looney Looney Bugs Bunny Movie (1981).
Next comes the 6th Hoot Kloot film, Stirrups and Hiccups (1973). This short film is a play on the story of Dr. Jeckel and Mr. Hyde.
Next is Willie Whopper in Insultin' the Sultan (1934). Willie Whopper was the second starring character to come out of Ub Iwerks' own cartoon studio. The first character is Flip the Frog, who did not prove to be that popular and had to be replaced. Unfortunately, Willie did not catch on with audiences either and his movie career only lasted 13 short films. Before leaving to make cartoons for his own studio, Ub had worked at Disney playing an incredibly important role in the Disney shorts of the 1920's and early 30's. He even played a large role in the creation of Mickey Mouse. After his own studio work did not pan out, he returned to Disney where he would do special effects work on many of the Disney's best feature films. The following is an exhibitor's review from the Motion Picture Herald, "Insultin' the Sultan: Willie Whopper - This is a good cartoon comedy that pleased all who saw it. Willie is not so popular here, but with better story material he will improve and the patrons will be pleased. Running Time, 9 minutes. - J.J. Medford, Orpheum Theatre, Oxford, N.C. General Patronage."
It is time for a commercial break.
Next is Cubby Bear in The Nut Factory (1933). This is one of my favorite Cubby Bear films.
Now for the second Casper the Friendly Ghost cartoon, There's Good Boos To-night (1948). Though many of the Casper cartoons aimed for sentiment, few of them were as effective as this short film. The film's ending is surprisingly quite touching.
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After the success of The Pink Panther (1964) and A Shot in the Dark (1964), Mirisch Films was interested in a third Inspector Clouseau movie. Unfortunately, director Blake Edwards and star Peter Sellers both declined. The studio still wished to make another film and cast Alan Arkin as Inspector Clouseau and put Bud Yorkin in the director's chair. The result was Inspector Clouseau (1968) and was definitely one of the weakest Pink Panther feature films. One of the few highlights was the opening credits sequence, which was as with the previous movies is essentially a cartoon short. This sequence featured The Inspector. This character starred in a wonderful series of theatrical cartoon shorts from 1965 to 1969 for the DePatie-Freleng studio and was based off of the character of Clouseau. The DePatie-Freleng studio (which had also done the opening credits sequences for the previous two Inspector Clouseau films) is credited with creating and designing this sequence, while TVC London is credited with animating it. Fortunately for fans of these movies, Blake Edwards and Peter Sellers would later return to the Pink Panther franchise with The Return of the Pink Panther (1975).
Today's cartoon selection ends with one of the best post golden age Looney Tunes cartoons, Little Go Beep (2000).
Resources Used
Of Mice and Magic: A History of American Animated Cartoons by Leonard Maltin.
I Tawt I Taw a Puddy Tat: Fifty Years of Sylvester and Tweety by Jerry Beck.
Hello my friends and happy Saturday morning once again it is time for some classic cartoons.
Today's cartoon selection starts with a delightful early Mickey Mouse movie, The Gorilla Mystery (1930). This short film was somewhat spoofing the 1925 play The Gorilla which also involved a dark house and a sinister gorilla. This play had been made into a silent feature film, The Gorilla (1927). The same year as this cartoon was released a talkie remake, The Gorilla (1930). A more comedic approach to this story was the later Ritz Brothers feature, The Gorilla (1939). The gorilla used in this Mickey cartoon (according to studio documentation) is the same one who would appear in the future Mickey Mouse shorts, Mickey's Mechanical Man (1933) and The Pet Store (1933). This movie benefits from some great atmospheric touches that show just how advanced the Disney studio was even at this point. Those of you who have seen the Mickey Mouse short film, Get a Horse (2013), should note that that Mickey's shout of "Minnie" in this cartoon was reused in that film. Mickey's cry of "Bring her back Mr. Ingagi" is a reference to the movie, Ingagi (1930), which also featured an evil gorilla.
Next we join Sylvester and Hippety Hopper in Lighthouse Mouse (1955). This duo had made a series of Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies cartoons, all featuring the same basic plot where Sylvester would mistake baby kangaroo Hippety for a giant mouse. Each cartoon in this series would be directed by Robert McKimson. McKimson had directed the second most classic cartoons with Sylvester (with Friz Freleng directing the most).
Next comes one of my favorite Terrytoons made during the era when Gene Deitch was heading the studio, The Juggler of Our Lady (1958). Gene Deitch was not someone who one would except to ever head the Terrytoons Studio. For one, he had a completely different style of filmmaking. Secondly, he was not a fan of Terrytoons. Even today the studio is known for creating cheap and quickly made films. While some of them are quite entertaining, none of them ever desired to be art. Deitch took advantage of now being in charge of this studio by getting rid of nearly all the characters the studio had created (most famously Mighty Mouse and Heckle and Jeckle) and making the type of films he wanted to make. About taking over the studio Deitch stated, "It was the dream challenge of every red-blooded American boy animator, a chance to remake the world's worst cartoon studio into the best." For this movie Deitch wanted to make a film based off of R. O. Blechman's story, The Juggler of Our Lady. It took a while for Blechman to agree to this movie being made. Deitch later remembered, "I was literally on the phone with Bob every night for nearly a year before he finally relented. I assured him over and over again, that we would be absolutely true to his story and faithful to his graphic style. My ace card was Al Kouzel, one of the finest artists who ever worked with me. I knew that I could rely on Al to perfectly get Bob Blechman's images unscathed onto the big screen." Al Kouzel would be the only animator as well as the director of this movie.
Van Beuren's Rainbow Parade cartoon like Disney's Silly Symphonies rarely had reoccurring characters. However also like the Silly Symphonies there were a few exceptions one of these was the character of Molly Moo Cow. When Joseph Barbera later wrote about his time at Van Beuren, he would have little nice to say about this character. "With a staff of about 150, the organizational chaos at Van Bueren was a serious problem, but the worse fault was exemplified by the very idea of Molly Moo Cow herself. This was the best character they could come up with? I mean what can you do with a cow? It isn't intelligent. It certainly isn't beautiful - except to a farmer or a bull. It is sedentary rather than lively and even with rubber legs it doesn't move in interesting ways or in a way that allows much range or variety of action. As animated characters go, cows do not work." I may not be a farmer or a bull but I think cows can be really beautiful.
Now it is time for a commercial break.
Next is the last black and white Silly Symphony, Bugs in Love (1932). This is a rather typical Silly Symphony of its time, following the well-established formula of animated characters having a grand time to music until the villain of the piece appears and tries to wreck their fun. As you can guess by the title this film's story involves various bugs. Bugs were a common site in the early Silly Symphonies and the newspaper comic strip. In fact, the newspaper comic strip featured a complete remake of this cartoon. The Silly Symphonies were a series that at this time was constantly improving and audiences and exhibitors quickly took note of this improvement. For evidence here is an exhibitors review from 1934 (two years after the film's original release), "BUGS IN LOVE: Silly Symphonies—An old Silly Symphony. Not as good as the new ones. Running time, one reel.—A. B. Jefferis, New Piedmont Theatre, Piedmont, Mo. Small Town Patronage." Of course the Silly Symphonies were quite appropriately one of the most popular cartoon series of the time. The following is an exhibitors review from The Motion Picture Herald, "BUGS IN LOVE: Another great Silly Symphony. Give it extra billing.—Charles Niles, Niles Theatre, Anamosa, Iowa." Not everybody was so impressed with the series though as shown through the following exhibitors review from The Motion Picture Herald, "BUGS IN LOVE: Silly Symphony—This is just an- other Walt Disney cartoon comedy. Nothing good about it; just ordinary and is only fair entertainment. We have only played one good comedy of this series and every time we hope the next one will be better. Disappointed in these. Running time, nine minutes. - J. J. Medford, Orpheum Theatre, Oxford, N.C., General Patronage."
Up next is The Inspector in Bear De Guerre (1968). This film is a rare time, when we see the Inspector when he is not on duty. Here he is simply taking a hunting trip. Unfortunately for him he seems to be just as incompetent at hunting as he is at his police work.
Today's cartoon selection ends with Betty Boop in A Language All My Own (1935). While this may not be as wild and crazy as many other Betty Boop cartoons, it has a certain sweet charm that I find irresistible. Though there still are a few surreal gags that you except from these films (I especially love the on involving the statue of liberty). By the way Betty is singing actual Japanese in this movie.
Motion Picture Herald, 1932
Resources Used
Cartoon Modern: Style and Design in 1950s Animation by Amid Amidi
My Life in Toons: From Flatbush to Bedrock in Under a Century by Joseph Barbera
I Tawt I Taw a Puddy Tat: Fifty Years of Sylvester and Tweety by Jerry Beck.
Walt Disney's Silly Symphonies: A Companion to the Classic Cartoon Series by Russell Merritt and J.B. Kaufman
Walt Disney's Mickey Mouse: The Ultimate History by J.B. Kaufman and David Gerstein.
Hello my friends and happy Saturday morning. Once again it is time for some classic cartoons.
Today's selection begins with The Grocery Boy (1932) starring Mickey Mouse. This is a sweet simple little cartoon of the type that the Disney studio excelled at. The movie is helped by some truly excellent character animation and a great cast of animators. David Hand (who would be the supervising director for Snow White (1937) and Bambi) animates the film's opening. Tom Palmer animates Mickey and Minnie on the phone, a long sequence that begins with Mickey and Pluto entering the house and ends with Minnie kissing a bump on Mickey's head and the closing moment. Ben Sharpsteen (who would be the supervising director for Pinocchio (1940) and Fantasia (1940)) animates Pluto pulling at the table as well as the statue falling on Mickey. Rudy Zamora animates Mickey and Pluto running to Minnie's house. Future Donald Duck director, Jack King animates Minnie stirring and Mickey shelling the peas. Les Clark (one of Walt's Nine Old Men and one of the studio's top Mickey animators) animates Mickey getting the stuffing out of the turkey. A review in Variety stated, "Nothing outstanding in this one, but a good example of the Disney product." The climatic ending of this cartoon would later be adapted for the Mickey Mouse newspaper comic strip.
Next comes Porky Pig in Meet John Doughboy (1941). This is very much a movie of its time. At this time the U.S.A. had yet to enter World War 2, yet it was very much excepted that we would join. Because of this a peace time draft was initiated. American films (often very patriotic) dealing with the draft became increasingly popular. Though this is technically a Porky Pig cartoon, Porky has little to do and simply serves to introduce the picture. This was something that director Bob Clampett was doing often around this point. Porky was still very much the star of Looney Tunes but Bob seemed disinterested in making cartoons revolving around the character at this time instead wanting to focus on other characters or make spot gag cartoons. Therefore using Porky in tiny inconsequential roles was the ideal way to make the cartoons he wanted while still using the series' star character.
While I personally strongly dislike many of the Filmation Studio's comedy cartoons (what they did to Tom and Jerry and Droopy is incredibly awful), I really like their superhero cartoons. True they are corny as all get out, but I have a special fondness for really corny superhero stories. Here is the first episode of the studio's TV cartoons starring The Flash, The Chemo-Creature (1967). Worried about bad guys taking over. Don't worry The Flash will be there in a flash.
Stephan Bosustow, cartoon producer and one of the founders of the UPA studio (home of Mr. Magoo and Gerald McBoing Boing) had a strong interest in creating an animated feature film based on the work of writer James Thurber. However he could not get the funding for this, so he asked UPA director William T. Hurtz to adapt one of Thurber's stories as an animated short film. Hurtz took this idea very seriously and studied nearly every drawing Thurber made. The result was A Unicorn in the Garden (1953). Bosustow was reportedly disappointed with the end result. Because of this he refused to submit the movie for consideration for an Academy Award and changed plans for the studio's first feature to one starring Mr. Magoo. Cartoon fans certainly aren't disappointed by the result. This movie is not only beloved by cartoon fans but received the 48th spot in Jerry Beck's book, The 50 Greatest Cartoons.
Now it is time for a commercial break.
Next comes a great Fleischer Brother's Talkartoon, The Grand Uproar (1930). This movie has everything you could want out of a Fleischer cartoon, lots of weird bizarre gags that are filled with the creativity that makes their Betty Boop and Popeye cartoons so beloved. If the mice characters look a bit like Mickey and Minnie, it should be noted that nearly every studio was doing this at this time.
Next comes The Inspector in Cock-A-Doodle Deux Deux (1966).
Hello my friends and happy Saturday morning. Once again it is time for some classic cartoons.
One thing I have always loved about DePatie-Freleng Inspector cartoons is the wide variety of strange and creative villains, our hero finds himself up against. One time villains in this series prove to be just as memorable as the regular characters. Case in point here is Canadian Can-Can (1967).
Chess-Nuts (1932) has everything I love about the early Betty Boop cartoons. In other words it is absolutely insane. In the style of the Fleischer Studio's earlier Out of the Inkwell shorts, this film starts off in live action before our cartoon heroes take over. In typical Fleischer fashion this is done to surreal and very funny effect. As the movie goes along, it only gets more surreal and funnier. This cartoon was made during the pre-code era and the short could not make this more obvious (if you don't know what pre-code means click here). Betty's dress comes off multiple times and it is obvious that the evil king is only interested in one thing. The following is an exhibitor's review (for Betty Boop cartoons as a whole) from the Motion Picture Herald. "Betty Boop Cartoons: I believe these cartoons are getting better all the time. My Patrons like them better than Mickey Mouse and I am running them both. The sound on these cartoons is wonderful and the cartoon is original and clever. Get the Betty Boop and Bimbo buttons and give them to the kids. The Bimbo and Betty Boop dolls are clever and worth the price for advertising. -S.H. Rich, Rich Theatre, Montpelier, Idaho. Town and rural Patronage."
Motion Picture Herald, 1934
Some of Disney's best and funniest cartoon shorts are those that teamed Mickey, Donald and Goofy as a comedy trio. Next up I have the second of these cartoons and the first one in color, Mickey's Fire Brigade (1935). This movie opens with the title card burning away in flames, a creative touch by effects animator Cy Young. In this short Mickey is the fire chief, a role he had played earlier in The Fire Fighters (1930). Two of the animators on this film are Bill Tytla (possibly my favorite Disney animator) and Grim Natwick, both of whom had joined the studio in 1934. They animate the majority of the scenes with Clarabella Cow. The scene where Goofy tries to take a coffee break is animated by Wolfgang “Woolie” Reitherman, who would later become a specialist at animating the character. Jack Kinney, who would go on to direct some of the funniest cartoons to ever come out of the Disney studio, animated Donald's struggles with flypaper and pails of water. It is common for cartoon fans to think of the old Disney shorts as being slow moving and sentimental, however that is not the case here at all. This is a fast moving and very funny film that puts a smile on my face every time. The following is from an issue of The film Daily (dated Sept. 5, 1935), " 'Mickey's Fire Brigade,' is to have its premiere in the New York theatrical sector this evening when it opens at the Rivoli Theater with the new Samuel Goldwyn production, 'The Dark Angel.'" A review in National Board of Review Magazine stated, "Noisier and less clever than most of this series but still better than most of its kind." A review in The Film Daily states, "This is one of the liveliest and funniest of the Walt Disney cartoon creations." The following is an exhibitor's review from The Motion Picture Herald, "MICKEY'S FIRE BRIGADE: Mickey Mouse—One of the best of the Mickey Mouse series. Running time, eight minutes.—M. H. Harrington, Avalon Theatre, Clatskanie, Ore. Small Town and Rural Patronage."
Not long ago I shared the post-golden age Looney Tune, Little Go Beep (2000). Here is another very good later Looney Tune effort, Blooper Bunny (1991). This short was directed by Greg Ford and Terry Lennon, who also brought us the feature length, Daffy Duck's Quackbusters (1988).
Now to go to a much earlier Looney Tune, up next is Bosko's Store (1932). Bosko was the first major Looney Tune character and he was created by Hugh Harman and Rudolf Ising. Learning for their former boss Walt Disney not owning the rights to Oswald the Lucky Rabbit, they kept the rights to Bosko. So when in 1933, they left the Warner Brothers Studio, Bosko no longer could appear in the Looney Tunes cartoons. Harman and Ising would make a few more Bosko cartoons for MGM though. Despite this Bosko would later make apperances in Looney Tunes media with the TV show, Tiny Tunes Adventures and the feature length Space Jam (1996). The following is a review from The Film Daily, "A thoroughly entertaining animated cartoon number. Shows Bosko at work in a grocery store, where he performs various amusing antics in slicing boloney and doing other chores around the shop. Lively and tuneful."
Next comes a delightful Terry-Toon, A Hare-Breadth Finish (1957). This short is a take-off on the story of the tortoise and the hare, but more than that it bares a quite close resemblance to Warner Brothers' Bugs vs. Cecil Turtle cartoons. Some of these jokes are very similar to those used in the pre-mentioned Warners cartoons, especially the last two jokes. The hare's personality here is also quite similar to that of Bugs Bunny in those cartoons. One of the best bits of animation here is the tortoise in Hawaiian get-up, this gag was animated hilariously by Jim Tyler. In my opinion this is one of the best Terry-Toons from this time period.
One of my favorite parts of the Garfield and Friends TV show is the Garfield quickies. These short skits were taken directly from Jim Davis' newspaper comic strip.
Today's cartoon selection ends with a classic Pink Panther, In the Pink of the Night (1969). The title is a take off of the then recent movie, In the Heat of the Night (1967).
Thanks for joining me come back next week for more animated treasures. Until then may all your tunes be looney and your melodies merry.
Hello my friends and happy Saturday Morning. Once again it is time for more classic cartoons.
Today cartoon selection starts off with a real treat. Here are some commercials created for TV's The Bugs Bunny Show. The following is from a 1960 issue of TV Radio Mirror. "Behind the scenes at ABC there is ecstasy, over of all things, the new Bugs Bunny Show, which premieres October 11th at 7:30pm. 'The Bugs Bunny series' whispered one confidante, looks like the best of all the new stuff.' Doing all the voices is one comedy genius named Mel Blanc, who has long been doing Bugs and a million other voices and making about a million at it too. He says, 'The easiest money was maybe the $800 I got paid for doing a cats Hiccough for the picture 'Pinocchio.'" Mel even makes that horrible sound which represents Jack Benny's old Maxwell. During this season Mel will also be heard weekly as Barney Rubble on The Flintstones and as usual will make frequent appearances with Jack Benny in character parts. He says 'People don't believe who I am so I have to run around saying, 'What's Up Doc?' But the most gratifying thing happened to me last season when I played a drunk on Benny's show and got laughs without making a sound.'"
Just as The Pink Panther cartoons came out of the animated opening credits for Blake Edwards' feature length movie, The Pink Panther (1963), The Inspector cartoons came out of the opening credits for its sequel A Shot in the Dark (1964). As that movie no longer featured The Pink Panther diamond, an animated cartoon opening based around an animated inspector (since the series starred an inept police inspector) was created. Though that animated version of the inspector looked a bit different there is no doubt that he is the same inspector we see in the cartoon series. Also as The Pink Panther cartoons used the theme music from the first movie so did The Inspector cartoons use the theme music from A Shot in the Dark (both themes were composed by Henry Mancini). Though all of Blake Edwards further feature length movies of the series used the Pink Panther for their opening credits, The Inspector would appear in the opening credits of director Bud Yorkin's feature length take on the series, Inspector Clouseau (1968) and there he was very much the way we see him in the short cartoons. What is interesting about the Inspector shorts is that while they are somewhat based on the character of Clouseau from the Blake Edwards movies, the two characters are not the same and it never feels like the makers of these shorts were ever trying to copy the features in any way. The Inspector series was an excellent cartoon series and unlike many other series of theatrical shorts, these cartoons went out on a high note. The final Inspector cartoon was the excellent Carte Blanched (1969).
Now we come to a short starring the first star of the Looney Tunes cartoons, Bosko. This movie, Bosko's Holiday (1931), was the first to feature Bosko's name in the title and all the following (with the exception of The Tree's Knee's (1931)), all the Looney Tunes starring Bosko would follow suit. 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.'"
Motion Picture Herald 1931
Now comes a Terrytoon starring everybody's favorite Dinky Duck, Dinky Finds a Home (1946). A review in Showman's Trade Review referred to this cartoon as "a nice Technicolor subject and especially good for the children." Despite Dinky being a boy a review in Motion Picture Daily refers to Dinky as female stating, "The little black duckling and her adventures in a hen house provide the plot for this Terrytoon." Reviews in Showman's Trade Review and Motion Picture Herald got Dinky's gender right however.
Motion Picture Herald, 1933
Up next comes The Pink Panther in Pink-A-Rella (1969). This is one of my favorite Pink Panther cartoons.
Up next is the first Mickey Mouse cartoon made, Plane Crazy (1928). This was back in the days when Mickey was still a simple country mouse who went around barefoot and didn't wear gloves. These early Mickey cartoons have a genuine rural feel to them (partly because Walt always considered himself a farm boy at heart) that I personally find irresistible and definitely prefer over the later and bland suburban settings featured in his later cartoons. In this movie Mickey dreams of being a pilot and makes himself a homemade plane that would make the Our Gang kids jealous. This is because aviation was a popular topic around this time due to the fame of Charles Lindbergh (briefly caricatured in this movie) after his New York to Paris flight of 1927. Walt had already had his earlier star, Oswald the Lucky Rabbit in an aviation themed cartoon with The Ocean Hop (1927). This cartoon began production in March, 1928. The production of this cartoon was done in secret due to the fact that Walt was still under contract to make Oswald cartoons for Universal. Animator Ub Iwerks (who animated the film by himself) was separated from the artists working on the Oswald shorts so that he could not be seen by them. Hugh Harman later described this saying, "They curtained off part of the studio with a great black drop, black skirm of some kind, so that I and a few others who were leaving couldn't see the great secret that was going on." Ub Iwerks was one of the fastest animators of the time and finished this cartoon in only a matter of weeks. It has been said that he made as many as 700 drawings in one day. This movie was originally made as a silent film, yet you will notice the opening title card says "Sound Cartoon." The reason for this is that after the success of Steamboat Willie (1928) with sound, a soundtrack was added to this cartoon.
The Film Daily, 1929
Before Pluto received his own cartoon series he made a couple short films without Mickey that were released as Silly Symphonies. These were Just Dogs (1932) and Mother Pluto (1936). Up next is the first of these, Just Dogs. In this movie, the animation of Pluto is mostly split between two animators, Norm Ferguson and Tom Palmer. However Les Clark animates a brief scene were Pluto and the little pup hide in a barrel and Dick Lundy animates them digging up the bone. The pup Pluto costars with did not appear in any other animated cartoons, but Floyd Gottfredson would use him in the Mickey Mouse newspaper comic strip. A song used early on in this movie is Guy Massey's The Prisoners' Song. This song was prominently used in the Mickey Mouse cartoon, The Chain Gang (1930), which many people believe is the first appearance of Pluto. A review in Motion Picture Reviews stated, "Amusing for Children but not up to the usual Disney standard." A review in The Film Daily disagreed stating, "Right up to the standard of the Walt Disney shops [sic]" The following are two exhibitor's reviews from The Motion Picture Herald, "JUST DOGS: Silly Symphony—This is a fairly s:ood cartoon comedy but still no better than some of the others. United Artists should produce better cartoons or cut the price of these cartoons. Here's hoping to get better cartoons in the future from United Artists. Running time 9 minutes. -J.J. Medford, Orpheum Theatre, N.C. General Patronage." " JUST DOGS: Silly Symphony—Didn't think that this was any too good. - Mayme P. Musselman, Princess Theatre, Lincoln, Kansas, Small Town Patronage." Working titles for this movie were The Dog Pound and The Dog Symphony.
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 Walt Disney's Silly Symphonies: A Companion to the Classic Cartoon Series by Russell Merritt and J.B. Kaufman Of Mice and Magic: A History of the American Animated Cartoon by Leonard Maltin Hollywood Cartoons: American Animation in its Golden Age by Michael Barrier
Happy Saturday Morning my friends. You guessed it, now is the time for more classic cartoons.
We begin with an excellent Popeye cartoon from the Fleischer era. This cartoon is another one the deviates from the story of Popeye and Bluto fighting over Olive. However this cartoon still features Popeye and Bluto fighting. This cartoon features one of those great 3d backgrounds that appear in multiple Fleischer shorts of this era. For those of you unaware of how this was done model sets were built and the animation cels were placed inside. The look is amazing and is something no one has ever quite captured before or since the Fleischer cartoons. It is also important to remember in these Fleischer shorts Dave Fleischer is credited with directing, he was really more of a supervisor. What most people would consider directing was done by the first credited animator, which in this case is Seymour Kneitel. According to Jerry Beck's audio commentary for this film, future Looney Tunes writers, Warner Foster and Tedd Pierce worked on this cartoon.
Next up comes the last Looney Tunes cartoon made in black and white. By this time there had already been color Looney Tunes. The first color one, The Hep Cat (1942) came out a year earlier. Both cartoons show a change that had recently taken place in the Looney Tunes series and that was to feature non-reoccurring characters. It used to be that Looney Tunes always had reoccurring characters while its sister series Merrie Melodies did not. This cartoon would later be remade as the Sylvester and Tweety cartoon, I Taw a Putty Tat (1948), which even kept the same house address. So enjoy, Puss Gets the Booty (1943).
Just as The Pink Panther character first appeared in the animated opening credits to the live action feature film, The Pink Panther (1964), the Inspector first appeared in the opening credits for that movie's sequel, A Shot in the Dark (1964). The character was somewhat based off of the main character of both movies, Inspector Clouseau. Other characters from the cartoon series would be based off of characters from the live action film series. The Inspector's assistant Deux-Deux would be based off of Clouseau's assistant Hercule, from A Shot in the Dark while his name would come from a murder victim from that movie. The Inspector's boss would be based off of Clouseau's boss Inspector Dreyfus. The highlight of many Inspector cartoons was the villain. These were very imaginative and fun villains and this cartoon offers an especially good one. So enjoy The Shooting of Caribou Lou (1967).
Last up comes the classic Goofy cartoon, How to Be a Detective (1952). This cartoon was directed by Jack Kinney, one of Disney's wackiest and cartooniest short directors. His films were always full of wild and crazy cartoon humor and this cartoon is no exception providing many great laughs and a perfect ending.
