Velma's Scottish friend, Aggie McDuff is having ghost trouble. She is letting tourists into her old ancestral home and a ghost is scaring all the tourists away. Naturally she calls her friend Velma and the Mystery Inc. gang is soon on the case.
This episode benefits from a wonderful sense of atmosphere. Though the gang has been in old castles quite a few times by this point, the Scottish flair gives this episode a bit of a unique feel. It also allows the backround artists to add some nice Scottish touches. As well as these little touches, this episode also has all the great spooky castle atmosphere that was already present in the previous spooky castle episodes. I especially love the use of the Lochness Monster and kilt wearing skeleton. The sense of atmosphere is even seen before the gang enters the castle with the gang driving through the Scotland fog and seeing the lakes of Lochness. Once again the background art is simply wonderful to look at. This episode also has a lot of slapstick gags involving Shaggy in Scooby. While this may not be laugh out loud funny they did make me chuckle and smile quite a few times.
The problem with this episode is the ghost himself. With the amount of ghosts the gang has met, there is little to make this one stand out. He is neither creepier nor more intimidating than the many other ghosts, the gang has met. Because of this he simply comes off as another ghost, but this time with a kilt, making him rather forgettable.
Despite a weaker villain, this is still a delightful episode with a lot of fun to be found.
Hello my friends and happy Saturday morning. Once again it is time for some classic cartoons.
Today's cartoon selection begins with a classic Looney Tunes short, Eatin' on the Cuff or The Moth Who Came to Dinner (1942). This cartoon was included in Jerry Beck's book, The 100 Greatest Looney Tunes and has become a favorite of some cartoon buffs. The oddball nature of this short becomes obvious from the very opening in which a live action piano player begins to tell us the story. The actor used here is silent era veteran Leo White, who will be familiar to a lot of my fellow Charlie Chaplin fans. However, the voice we hear is not that of Leo but rather of Mel Blanc, who voiced countless characters in the Looney Tunes shorts. It is easy to see why Looney Tunes fans love this short so much. It is a fast paced and crazy short with a wild anything for a laugh attitude. It should come as no surprise that the film was directed by Bob Clampett, whose work was often wild and energetic even by Looney Tunes standards. It also features some excellent animation such as Virgil Ross' scene of the bee and the spider's duel and Rod Scribner's animation of the spider's huge nose emerging from her wig (a dirty joke that would have only been attempted in a Clampett cartoon). A reviewer for The Film Daily stated, " This cartoon is interesting chiefly because it veers away from the usual formula for this type of short."
Now we join our good friend Dinky Duck in Wise Quacks (1953).
Up next comes The Queen of Hearts (1934). This film is from Ub Iwerks' series of ComiColor cartoons. These were a series of 25 color short films that featured one-off characters in plays on classic fairy tales and other stories. The series ran in movie theaters from 1933 to 1936. While the series has been written off as one of the many copies of Disney's Silly Symphonies, it has a strange, bizarre quality that heavily differentiates itself from that series.
Next we join our good friend Cubby Bear in Sinister Stuff (1934). This short film is a delightful take off of old melodramas. These types of parodies were very popular in cartoons at this time and parodies of melodramas would remain a mainstay of cartoons for quite a while. Think of Mighty Mouse and even Dudley Do-Right.
Now it is time for a commercial break.
Ted Eshbaugh is an animation director with a cult following among film buffs. Watching his films, it is easy to see why. His cartoons often have an irresistibly bizarre sense of imagination. To anyone who likes their cartoons more than a little off the beaten path, these films fit that bill perfectly. Up next is one of my favorites of his films, The Snowman (1932). This cartoon also benefits from a musical score by Carl Stalling, who did music for many of the best Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies as well as Disney's earliest sound films.
It is now silent movie time, so enjoy Ko-Ko the Barber (1925).
Up next is Tweety's first appearance in a cartoon, A Tale of Two Kitties (1942). Sharp eyed viewers may notice that Tweety is not yellow in this film, but pink. Since he was a newborn baby bird, it made sense for him not to have feathers. According to director Bob Clampett, he based the character off of a nude baby photo of himself. Tweety already has his famous line, "I Tawt I Taw a Puddy Tat." According to animation historian Jerry Beck's book, I Tawt I Taw a Puddy Tat: Fifty Years of Sylvester and Tweety, This line also originated with Bob Clampett when in the mid-1930's he wrote a letter to a friend on MGM stationary. Next to Leo the MGM lion, Clampett drew a small bird with a word balloon with "I think I taw a titty-tat." Instead of Sylvester Tweety is here pitted against two cats named Babbit and Catstello. As should be obvious by the names, these cats were a take-off on the infamous comedy team Abbott and Costello, who had just made their movie debut just a couple years earlier in One Night in the Tropics (1940). The voice of Catstello was provided by the man of a thousand voices, Mel Blanc (who also voiced Tweety) and Babbitt was voiced by writer Tedd Pierce. A reviewer in Showman's Trade Review was very impressed with these voices stating, "Either the famous comedy pair furnished the accompanying dialogue themselves or the impersonators are the last word in perfection." Though they would not catch on the way Tweety did, these characters would reappear in other cartoons. Some of these cartoons would even feature the duo as mice instead of cats. They would appear with Tweety much later in a 1998 episode of the TV show, Sylvester and Tweety Mysteries. This cartoon was reissued to theaters in 1948, the year Abbott and Costello made their most popular movie, Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein (1948).
What better way to end our cartoon selection than with a Jack Kinney directed Goofy cartoon. So enjoy How to Play Football (1944).
Thanks for joining me. Come back next week for another selection of animated treasures. May all your tunes be looney and your melodies merry.
Resources Used
100 Greatest Looney Tunes edited by Jerry Beck
Walt Disney's Ultimate Inventor: The Genius of Ub Iwerks by Don Iwerks
I Tawt I Taw a Puddy Tat: Fifty Years of Sylvester and Tweety by Jerry Beck
In this episode the gang go to visit their friend Dr. Brixton. Dr. Brixton is an archeologist who has just discovered a city that has been buried for thousands of years. However a fabled tar monster tries to scare everyone away from this spot.
There is a whole lot to enjoy about this episode. An underground city is a wonderful location for a Scooby mystery and it is used to great effect here. It is a very atmospheric setting and has the right mix of creepiness and fun. Once again this setting allows for some truly wonderful background art that is a joy to look at and with this unique location truly makes this episode stand out. There is also so much detail and work put into these backgrounds that don't need to be there but enhance the episode a lot. While the tar monster may not be the most memorable Scooby-Doo villain, he has a good design that again combines creepy and fun pretty well. The humor in this episode is quite good. There are some really good gags here. Not only do Scooby and Shaggy get some good slapstick, but even a nameless spider gets a pretty good gag.
The main problem with this episode is that there are too few suspects and because of this the mystery is often much too easy to solve.
This movie tells the story of Gao Shi, a Chinese poet from the Tang Dynasty. I admit I came into this movie knowing very little about Gao Shi, but this did not ever hinder my enjoyment of this film. While there is a lot here aimed at a Chinese audience who would be more familiar with the people mentioned in this film, however it is still very accessible to those who have no familiarity. This movie is first and foremost an emotional journey and secondly a history lesson. It does not take long to become emotional connected to this story and the characters. They do not feel like historical figures at all but rather like regular normal people. This is the secret to this film. It makes people who seem like something we may read about in a history book into something much more real and tangible. At the same time the film does not talk down to its audience but instead treats them in a very intelligent and respectful manner. In fact, much of this script is very smart and takes a very intelligent look at the age-old dilemma of looking for your place in this world. Though this film is a realistic (and true) story, it still uses animation perfectly to its advantage. There is an especially wonderful fantasy sequence where one character reads one of his poems that is simply wonderful.
However I will admit that this film could have definitely used some trimming as it is much longer than it needs to be. The various attempts to add a little humor also often fall flat.
A truly excellent film and a treat for animation fans.
On Halloween night the gang travels to Salem to visit an old friend, Arlene Wilcox. When they arrive in Salem they are told to stay away because a witch has possessed Arlene. When they get to Arlene's house, she tells them that one of the townsfolks claims to have seen a witch, who over 200 years ago was burned at the stake, raise from the grave and that the witch looked like Arlene.
This is a wonderful episode. It benefits from a strong spooky atmosphere. The idea of have a Scooby-Doo! mystery take place in Salem on Halloween night is brilliant. There is already a spookiness to this setting that is in place even before anything even happens. This is only enhanced by the wonderful artwork. Having the episode take place only at night and being in a town that looks quite old-fashioned leads to some very atmospheric background that makes this episode feel like an old monster movie in all the best ways. This is especially true of the scenes that take place in a graveyard. As creepy as it is this artwork is also beautiful to look at (I really would love a book made entirely of Scooby-Doo! background art). This would be a terrifying situation and the use of it here makes this episode have a great amount of suspense and a greater sense of danger than most Scooby mysteries of this time. Adding to the creepy atmosphere is the angry mob hunting after Arlene believing she is a witch. The witch is also a truly wonderful villain, with a creepy design and voice that simply makes her perfect for such an atmospheric episode. The slapstick with Scooby and Shaggy is also great here with the scenes with the two trick or treating and a nice twist on the old mirror gag being definite comedic highlights. The mystery is also really good here and this is one of the few Scooby mysteries of the 1970's where the reveal actually took me by surprise. Yet the clues where there and when they were pointed out they made perfect sense.
I am not a fan of director/co-writer Gareth Edwards' previous movies (Rouge One: A Star Wars Story (2016), Godzilla (2014)), which may have had promise but ultimately left me cold. The Creator may be his best movie, but he still has a long way to go until he makes a truly great film. Still there is nothing here to make it worth a watch. Visually this film is simply beautiful and simply a joy to look at. This film does such a great job of creating a visually captivating world that draws you in. The action scenes here are also quite well done and fun to watch. The two main characters are (while not exactly deep) likable enough for us to care about. Not only that but the relationship between the two characters is very well defined and leads to some surprisingly heartfelt moments.
However, this film also has quite a bit of faults. One is that the movie seems so desperate to say something or make some sort of commentary that it ultimately doesn't say much. The only message one can get from this film is a clumsy allegory about racism, but even that is so surface level and basic that it won't give anybody real food for thought. While the two amin characters may be likable, every other character is completely forgettable. Like all Gareth Edwards movies thus far the humor is truly awful and never even made me smile. There are also so many clichés throughout the movie that it can feel overly familiar.
All in all, this is not a great film by any means, but it is a step in the right direction for Gareth Edwards as it is actually a decent movie.
This film has a very simple premise. Two young Canadian women find themselves working and living in a pub in a small mining town in Australia. However, from this simple premise comes a brilliant thriller. This movie starts off on a more lighthearted and sometimes even comedic note. However, as time progresses the film becomes more and more intense. This happens until by the movie becomes more intense than a typical horror film all while remaining grounded in reality. In fact, in some ways this can be considered scarier than a horror movie. This is because the danger does not come from a ghost, demon, monster or serial killer but instead comes from the person who may have had a bit too much to drink. Characters who seem to be harmless at first can turn dangerous at any single moment. What makes the movie so intense is that it takes its time building the suspense. When this movie reaches the point where it is full blown thriller, it not only feels completely earned, but it is more effective because of this. At a certain point, this film becomes like a ticking time bomb, which you are never sure when it is going to go off. Because of this at many times the buildup to the big suspense scene towards the end are just as intense. Sometimes just a customer acting a little too drunk at the bar can make one uneasy. This is a thriller where you never do know what is going to happen next, and the film constantly plays with your expectations until you never know when something is going to happen. The suspense also masterfully comes from how the film makes it so we see and experience everything from the eyes of one of the two young women. This movie does this so masterfully that we don't even realize that the film is shifting our focus to this one character until we are already experiencing things from her point of view. However even with all the suspense, one of the most interesting parts of this film is the relationship between the two young women. We see the way they react to their situation is so fundamentally different that it causes a major rift between the two. The way we see this beautiful friendship start to deteriorate feels completely natural and believable. At times this part of the film can truly break our hearts. Throughout all of this the film takes a very intelligent look at alcoholism, sexism and sexual harassment. More impressively than that though is that the film gets across its messages without even once feeling preachy or didactic. Instead everything feels in service to the story and characters.
The only real problem I have with this movie is that the ending feels abrupt and too coinvent for a film like this.
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