Category Archives: animated shorts

Pioneers of Animation: Bray Productions

Posted on by under animated shorts, animation, pioneers of animation, saturday morning cartoons

We’ve talked previously on this blog about the influence of cartoonist/animation pioneer Winsor McCay, but I’m going to mention it again (and again and again and again), as it would be nearly impossible to overstate his importance in promoting animation as a viable artistic medium. Films like Little Nemo (1911) and Gertie the Dinosaur (1914) directly inspired countless young artists and cartoonists to try their hand at making their static pictures “move” onscreen. An entire industry was born off the scaly back of McCay prehistoric creation–an industry that, much to McCay’s chagrin, quickly became a highly commercialized one, one that remains to this day a huge moneymaker, inviting both inventive creations and hasty, ill-conceived attempts to capitalize on children’s short attention spans and rake in the dough.

jr bray

Even in its infancy, animation lured those with dollar signs in their eyes, men who perhaps cared less about making an artistic statement and more about churning out multiple reels of crude entertainment every week. John Randolph Bray, a contemporary of McCay’s, has such a reputation in the annals of animation history. The man who has been referred to as the “Henry Ford of animation” was instrumental in forming the production model that still serves as the basis for the industry today. But for all his undeniably important contributions to the growth of animation as a cinematic form, Bray also demonstrated a famously litigious nature (he was almost Thomas Edison-like in his attempts to corner patents for the animation process) and a sometimes heavy-handed rule of the animation studio that bore his name. The result is a series of conflicting portraits of Bray, ranging from the reverent to the disdainful, depending upon the source.

Like McCay, Bray started out in journalism and eventually created his own weekly comic strip, Little Johnny and His Teddy Bears, which capitalized on the fervor for the stuffed toy in the wake of Theodore Roosevelt’s presidency. The strip debuted in 1907, and several years later, Bray was inspired to try his hand at animating Teddy Bears. He was likely inspired by a similar short, the 1907 Edwin S. Porter release The “Teddy” Bears, which largely used puppetry to portray a satirical animated recreation of Goldilocks and the Three Bears. But Bray, unfamiliar with the process involved in transferring action to the screen, was unhappy with his own results and scrapped the project.

By 1913, in the wake of McCay’s success with Little Nemo and another short, How a Mosquito Operates, Bray was ready to give animation another try. Building off McCay’s model, Bray produced The Artist’s Dream, a live-action/animation combo in which Bray stars with a ravenous animated dachshund.

This relatively simple short led Bray to develop several innovations that would greatly impact the work of future animators. When Bray signed a deal with Pathé to distribute The Artist’s Dream, the company expressed an interest in distributing even more animated shorts. An eager Bray set to work figuring out a way in which he could meet the demand without collapsing from sheer exhaustion. Up until this point in time, animators typically would complete their shorts entirely by hand (sometimes with assistance, sometimes without), drawing and redrawing each individual frame, a process that added up to hundreds upon hundreds of drawings. Bray soon realized that by delegating work to other artists–essentially dividing the production of each cartoon into several different units who could work concurrently on multiple shorts–he could greatly streamline production, saving time and money.

His most important innovation, however, was born out of Bray’s decision to print the backgrounds as opposed to animating them by hand on each frame. Originally, Bray had the backgrounds–which were little more than simple zinc drawings–printed onto many individual sheets of paper with a blank space remaining in which the animated action would then be depicted. This allowed for a certain uniformity from shot to shot as opposed to the sometimes wavy or fuzzy backgrounds in earlier cartoons. In later years, when Bray began working with fellow animator Earl Hurd, the two of them collaborated on the creation of the cel animation process, which took Bray’s initial idea a step further by having the backgrounds reproduced on celluloid, which then allowed images to be layered over the background images, creating a more seamless sense of movement in a solid setting. Bray and Hurd patented their process in 1915, and it remained the standard for hand-drawn animation for decades.

john r bray

In 1914, Bray founded and incorporated one of the first full-fledged animation studios in Hollywood, Bray Productions. As the studio grew, Bray stopped animating and took on the responsibilities of running the studio full-time, adeptly managing promotions, marketing, and distribution of his shorts. By some accounts, Bray ruled with the proverbial iron fist, reportedly taking credit for work that his employees actually completed and even attempting to patent ideas that were not his own. [In fact, Bray attempted to patent practically every aspect of the animation process, even techniques that his predecessors like McCay had utilized for years before Bray ever animated his first frame. He sued anyone he thought had violated his patents--including McCay--until the patents expired in 1932.] Bray was largely responsible for animation becoming a formalized industry, and he played the part of big businessman well, separating himself physically and mentally from his employees and creating a stratification that separated the workers from the “front office.” He was, by some accounts, standoffish and cold, with a highly superior demeanor that was rather off-putting to some in his employ.

Bray’s wife, Margaret Till Bray–a successful businesswoman in her own right who also managed her own real-estate company while working alongside her husband–was instrumental in helping Bray run the new studio. She was given the title of production manager, which in actuality meant that she was little more than a glorified babysitter at times, as it was her responsibility to corral the animators on staff and ensure that they were meeting deadlines. She was well-suited to the position; like her husband, Margaret Bray was a no-nonsense type of personality who frowned upon wastefulness. When she realized that the animators would leave the studio on Friday, paychecks in hand, and spend the weekend blowing their money on booze and women before stumbling back to work late the next week, she changed payday to Monday to facilitate more productivity. She was also one of the strictest enforcers of Bray’s animation patents, encouraging him to pursue any perceived violation without delay.

heeza liar

In the studio’s heyday–from the mid-1910s through the early 1920s–Bray Productions released hundreds of animated shorts, and brought a number of popular series to theaters. The first series released under the new Bray Productions banner was Colonel Heeza Liar, who initially debuted in the 1913 cartoon Colonel Heeza Liar in Africa. The Heeza Liar shorts are notable for being the first animated series starring a recurring character, the titular big-game hunter/boastful Teddy Roosevelt caricature. The first cartoon was intended to be a parody of Paul J. Rainey’s African Hunt, a hugely popular 1912 documentary-type film that followed the titular hunter on safari, as he spent time with some native tribes and slaughtered more than his fair share of exotic creatures. The animated short’s success led to a series of nearly five dozen Heeza Liar cartoons, which followed the Colonel’s “daredevil” adventures around the world.

In 1915, Hurd began animating the studio’s second recurring character, a mischievous young boy named Bobby Bumps (some modern-day animation scholars refer to Bobby as the “Bart Simpson” of the 1910s). Young Bobby was not an entirely new creation–he was based, in part, on a character Hurd had created for another comic strip earlier in the decade. The Bobby Bumps shorts were the first to be wholly created using Bray and Hurd’s patented cel process. The series was popular from the start, and remained one of Bray Production’s biggest draws from his debut until 1919, when Hurd left Bray’s employ. Afterwards, Hurd animated only a couple of Bobby’s adventures each year (for other distributors) before the series came to a close in 1925.

When William Randolph Heart’s animation studio, International Film Service (founded the year after Bray’s studio), folded in 1918, its many popular series like Krazy Kat and Jerry on the Job were left virtually homeless. A year later, Hearst allowed Bray to license certain IFS properties to be released under the Bray Productions banner. In the process, Bray inherited Gregory La Cava, who had directed many of the cartoons for Hearst’s company; La Cava, who would later become an influential, Oscar-nominated film director in the 1930s, continued to direct some animated shorts for Bray for a couple of years before leaving animation altogether.

Bray may not have been an ideal boss, but he was singularly proficient in drawing talented artists into his crew. Bray’s studio, at one point or another, hired some of the most famous names in classic animation, many of whom got their start there: Walter Lantz (creator of Woody Woodpecker), Paul Terry (of “Terrytoons” fame), Max and Dave Fleischer (Betty Boop, Popeye, Superman), Grim Natwick (the “father” of Ms. Boop), and early Disney animator Burt Gillett, among others. Some of these artists even created their own indelible characters while under the auspices of Bray Productions–for instance, the Fleischers’ innovative Out of the Inkwell series, which ultimately ran for more than a decade, spent its first two years as a Bray production before the Fleischers opened their own studio, and Terry’s Farmer Al Falfa was created during the brief period in which the animator worked under Bray (Terry, unhappy working for the studio, barely lasted a year before striking off on his own. He and Bray subsequently spent years in court, as Bray alleged that Terry’s own studio, Fables Pictures, regularly violated Bray’s cel patent).

Conflicting accounts of Bray’s life and career indicate that the idea of Bray as the prototypical soulless businessman may or may not have been blown out of proportion over the years. History is subjective, dependent on memory, and Bray is remembered almost equally as a gallant pioneer of a new industry and a tyrant who stifled artistic intent. Still, there is little doubt that Bray began his career as a creative artist in his own right (if his early cartoons are any indication) and came to know his craft well. Nor is there any question that Bray was intent on improving upon the creative process so as to bring animation–and lots of it–to the masses. In many ways, it seems Bray set the stage for Walt Disney’s ascension and eventual stranglehold on the animation business in subsequent decades; at the very least, like Bray, Disney’s personal reputation is a veritable grab bag of both good and bad recollections, told by friends and foes, supporters and detractors alike. In the end, though, perceptions of his behavior and business practices are extraneous–what’s important is that animation, as it exists to this day on screens both big and small, owes an immeasurable debt to the work of John Randolph Bray.

 

Selected sources:
Bachman, Gregg and Thomas J. Slater, eds. American Silent Film: Discovering Marginalized Voices. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 2002.
Crafton, Donald. Before Mickey: The Animated Film, 1898-1928. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1982.
Sito, Tom. Drawing the Line: The Untold Story of the Animation Unions from Bosko to Bart Simpson. Lexington: The University Press of Kentucky, 2006.
Stathes, Thomas J. The Bray Animation Project. 1 June 2011. Web.

 

The early days of animation at Paramount, courtesy of the Fleischer brothers.

Posted on by under animated shorts, animation, blogathon, classic cartoons, hahas, lit adaptations, pioneers of animation

By 1927, Adolph Zukor, the Hollywood mogul behind the rapidly-expanding Paramount-Famous Lasky Corporation, had built a veritable entertainment empire. The studio had moved into a new, multimillion-dollar twenty-six acre lot off Melrose Avenue. They had amassed a chain of nearly two thousand theaters across the country, called Publix Theatres, in which to screen their many productions. Paramount was the home of some of the most popular films and biggest stars of the silent era–Mary Pickford, Douglas Fairbanks, Rudolph Valentino (before his unfortunate early death in 1926), Clara Bow (star of 1927′s Wings, the first film to win the Academy Award for Best Picture), and Gloria Swanson among them. By the end of 1928, Paramount would move forward technologically with the release of their first all-talking film, Interference, starring William Powell. It was a time of success and unchecked progress, but Zukor wasn’t through expanding his empire. His ambitions soon led him to the one area Paramount had yet to conquer: animation.

Meanwhile, in New York, the Fleischer brothers, Max and Dave, had themselves built an animation studio that garnered much acclaim for their wildly inventive cartoons. In 1914, Max invented the rotoscope, which allows an artist to trace over live-action footage to create realistic-looking animated movement. Dave would don a clown costume, and Max would trace over his movements to produce the antics of a character they christened “Koko the Clown.” This gave rise to a series of animated vignettes called Out of the Inkwell, which depicted the adventures of Koko and his companion, a dog named Fitz. The Inkwell shorts were not just animated, however; they typically began with live-action footage of Max Fleischer interacting with his characters, much in the way Winsor McCay had done with his legendary dinosaur, Gertie, in 1914. The Inkwell cartoons were initially distributed through Bray Productions, a studio that focused singularly on producing animated content, and were included regularly in Bray’s newsreel features for Paramount. By 1921, the Fleischers (along with their brother, Lou) took control of production and formed the Fleischer Studios. The move was a prolific one for the brothers, as they produced more than sixty animated Inkwell shorts between 1921 and 1926, which were distributed by several studios, including Warner Bros.

But the Fleischers’ output didn’t stop there; in addition to the Inkwell cartoons, Max had begun to dabble in combining sound and animation in a series of shorts called Song Car-Tunes, beginning in 1924. While Walt Disney’s 1928 classic Steamboat Willie is generally recognized as the first cartoon to feature synchronized sound and music (even though Paul Terry’s Dinner Time technically premiered–and failed at the box office–more than a month before Willie), it’s important to note that the Fleischers were experimenting with the combination of animation and sound years before Mickey Mouse was created. The Car-Tunes soon employed a new gimmick created by either Dave or Max (there’s some dispute as to who actually came up with the idea)–the “follow the bouncing ball” routine. As the lyrics to a popular song appeared on the screen, the ball would bounce across the words to indicate the proper rhythm and cadence of the song, so viewers could follow and belt out the tune along with the rest of the audience. The first short to utilize the technique was the 1925 entry My Bonnie Lies Over the Sea, featuring the Scottish tune of the same name.

In 1927, Paramount made a deal with Fleischer Studios to distribute their cartoons. It would be a lucrative partnership. Out of the Inkwell became Inkwell Imps, producing over four dozen more Koko-starring shorts before being discontinued in 1929. Song Car-Tunes (which ended its run by the end of 1927) was then reborn as Screen Songs in 1929, and featured appearances by Paramount-contracted entertainers like Rudy Vallee, Cab Calloway (who also appeared in several other cartoons for the studio), and Ethel Merman. At the same time, Max and Dave collaborated on a new series of shorts called Talkartoons, in which Koko’s sidekick, Fitz (now rechristened Bimbo) became a star. Max’s preferred method of rotoscoping was eventually phased out in favor of more ambitious, stylized animation, led by the talented, young animators who flocked to the Fleischer studio, allowing Paramount to compete on the same level as animation giant Disney. And one of those fresh new cartoonists–Grim Natwick–produced Paramount’s first bona fide animated star in 1930, when Bimbo was given a girlfriend named Betty Boop.

Betty Boop wasn’t just popular; she was a phenomenon. Originally starting out as a canine companion to Bimbo, in 1932, Betty was made over into a human character, a flapper girl with naughty hemlines and a heart of gold. She sang and simpered her way through dozens of adventures–usually involving a lecherous threat to her treasured “boop-oop-a-doop.” By 1932, Talkartoons ceased to exist, and Betty was given her own series, with Bimbo and Koko as her frequent companions. She remained a popular figure and sex symbol until 1934; when strict enforcement of the Production Code took effect in July of that year, Betty’s hemlines were lowered, her overt sexuality was greatly tamped down, and the endearing naughtiness that made her cartoons so appealing was essentially gone. The Fleischers continued to produce Betty Boop cartoons through 1939, but the character never regained the same wild level of popularity that she had enjoyed in the early 1930s, and the series was finally discontinued.

In 1933, a Betty Boop short was used as a platform for the animated debut of a popular comic strip character, Popeye the Sailor. The comic strip depicted the love triangle between Popeye, his “goil” Olive Oyl (originally voiced by Mae Questel, who also voiced Betty Boop), and his rival, Bluto, a buff bully. The character immediately took off, and the Fleischers gave Popeye his own series two months later. As Betty Boop’s popularity waned, Popeye’s grew exponentially, and within three years, he was Paramount’s number-one animated star, even rivaling Mickey Mouse at one point as the most popular animated character in the world. Popeye was also notable for being one of the few cartoon characters to have his own theme song, which has remained a well-known tune since its introduction in the first Popeye short, I Yam What I Yam. More than one hundred black-and-white Popeye shorts were released between 1933 and 1939; between 1936 and 1939, the series also featured three double-length color features, which inserted the Popeye characters into the Arabian Nights tales.

Max Fleischer had long sought to secure funding from Paramount to create a feature-length animated film. But it was not until the groundbreaking success of Disney’s Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs that Zukor and company agreed to give the animator free reign to complete his dream project: an animated film based on Jonathan Swift’s 1726 novel Gulliver’s Travels (but only the first part–the most famous part, featuring the tale of Gulliver’s encounter with the tiny Lilliputians). The catch? Fleischer’s film would have to be ready in time to be released at Christmas in 1939, and, more importantly, he would have to sign over the Fleischer Studios’ assets to Paramount in order to secure the loan–a move that eventually came back to haunt Max.

Paramount built a new animation studio for the Fleischers in Miami, and in 1938, they left New York and took up residence in Florida to complete the work on Gulliver’s Travels. In order to complete the film by Paramount’s imposed deadline, Fleischer Studios welcomed an influx of new artistic talent, and poached animators from Disney and other animation studios. The new team faced many issues, not the least of which was rivalry between different factions of animators within the studio, creating an air of discord throughout the film’s production. Still, despite these issues, Gulliver’s Travels was indeed completed on time and released by Paramount on Christmas Day, 1939. Though it was successful at the box office, however, it did not reach the same heights as its Disney-produced predecessor, and it did not quite recoup the costs of its production. The Fleischer studio had to swallow the loss.

In 1941, Fleischer Studios tackled another comic character, Superman, in a series of gorgeously-animated shorts. The Superman comic books were immensely popular, and Paramount salivated over the idea of cashing in on the superhero phenomenon. But the Fleischers were reluctant. The infighting among the animators had spread to Max and Dave; neither could stand to be in the same room with the other. On top of that, Paramount essentially owned the studio by this point, having called in its loans. And on top of that, they were finishing the production of their second animated feature, Mr. Bug Goes to Town. The brothers decided the best course of action would be to overestimate the necessary budget for adapting the comic book, but Paramount agreed to their terms and they were forced to undertake the series anyway. The first cartoon in the new series, simply titled Superman, debuted in September of that year, and was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Animated Short.

Mr. Bug Goes to Town had the great, unforeseen misfortune of being released in theaters two days before the bombing of Pearl Harbor. This essentially killed its chances at the box office; the film was an unmitigated flop. And it spelled the end for Fleischer Studios–Dave left to take control of Columbia’s animation division, Screen Gems, which put him in violation of the brothers’ contract with Paramount, and in return, Paramount forced the brothers out of their own studio and took full control. Fleischer Studios was renamed Famous Studios (in honor of Paramount’s origins), production was moved from Miami back to New York, and Max Fleischer joined the animation arm of the Jam Handy Corporation, producing military training films and eventually overseeing the 1944 animated version of the tale of Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer (which was re-released in 1948 with the addition of the popular Johnny Marks-penned song of the same name).

Without the Fleischer brothers, Paramount was unable to attain the same level of animated success. Famous Studios continued producing Fleischer creations Popeye, Screen Songs, and Superman, but the heyday of those series were soon behind them. Newly introduced characters such as Casper the Friendly Ghost and Baby Huey (whose adventures comprised a new series of cartoons under the heading of Noveltoons) were no match for Disney stars like Donald Duck and Goofy, or Warner Bros. stalwarts like Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck. In the mid-1950s, Paramount sold most of its pre-1950 animated library, excluding Popeye (which had been sold to Associated Artists) and Superman (for which Paramount’s rights had expired); many of those cartoons have been severely edited in the ensuing years, and most are now in the public domain in one butchered form or another. By the late 1950s, Famous Studios had been downsized into a smaller unit called Paramount Cartoon Studios, and the quality of production dropped steeply.

In 1967, a year after Gulf+Western acquired Paramount, the studio’s animation department was shuttered completely. By then, it was a pale ghost of what it had been under the Fleischers. But once upon a time, Paramount was a leader in the animation business, and the only serious challenger to the Disney conglomerate in the 1930s. Five Paramount-distributed Fleischer shorts appear on animation scholar Jerry Beck’s seminal 50 Greatest Cartoons list–Popeye the Sailor Meets Sinbad the Sailor (#17, 1936); Snow White (#19, 1933); Minnie the Moocher (#20, 1932); Superman (#33, 1941); and Bimbo’s Initiation (#37, 1931). It’s undeniable that, at the height of the Golden Age of Hollywood animation, Zukor’s studio empire presented moviegoers with some seriously entertaining, beautifully-drawn, and thought-provoking cartoons–animated gems that are, to this day, recognized and celebrated for their intelligent composition and artistic value.

 

This post is our contribution to the Paramount Centennial Blogathon, hosted this week by The Hollywood Revue. There have been some great contributions in the past two days, so head on over there and check them out!

Celebrating 100 Years of Chuck Jones: From A to Z-Z-Z-Z (1953)

Posted on by under animated shorts, animation, brandie's faves, classic cartoons, hahas, kiddie faves, saturday morning cartoons

Ralph Phillips is bored, bored, bored. While his schoolmates mindlessly chant their math lesson (“Two and two is four. Four and four is eight …”), Ralph stares dreamily out the classroom window, imagining himself as a bird, flipping and flying freely through the sky–until his reverie is rudely interrupted by his teacher. She, for some inexplicable reason, expects Ralph to pay attention to his lessons, but how can he concentrate when there’s a whole new world to be explored through his oh-so-vivid daydreams …?

From A to Z-Z-Z-Z was released in 1953, at the height of Chuck Jones’ career with Warner Bros., and introduces a brand-new character to the studio’s animated roster. Ralph Phillips is an amalgamation of practically every child–male or female–to suffer through an endless school day. More than that, he is a childish take on the Walter Mitty archetype: an inconsequential dreamer who escapes reality through his imagination. In many ways, Ralph’s adventures are reminiscent of the adventures of another imaginative, Mitty-esque Ralph–Ralphie Parker, the child at the center of the seminal holiday classic A Christmas Story (1983): both characters engage in daydreaming to escape their boredom in school; both imagine themselves as brave conquerors of that which troubles them; both of them are in danger of “shooting their eyes out” (one from a series of makeshift, though imaginary, weapons; one, of course, from the infamous Red Ryder BB Gun).

The animation is this cartoon is utterly fantastic, as Ralph moves from scenario to scenario in his imagination. He floats through the sky with an impish grin; his chalk outline does battle with the day’s math lesson; an array of colorful arrows fly at him as he races across the desert to deliver a letter for the “Pony Express”; he single-handedly fights a “saber-toothed tiger shark” and raises a sunken Navy sub back to the surface; he enters the “boxing ring” and takes down a man four times his size with nary a bead of sweat. The backgrounds of the imaginative vignettes are beautifully detailed and appropriately exotic for each new scenario, contrasting with the bland, institutional design of the classroom scenes. The underwater scenes are particularly incredible (and strangely familiar–in some ways, they remind me of the backgrounds of the Nickelodeon cartoon Spongebob Squarepants).

It’s also worth mentioning that the majority of the voice work in this cartoon was not done by Warner Bros. stalwart Mel Blanc: the teacher is voiced by Bea Benaderet (the original voice of Granny before June Foray took over in 1955), and Ralph is voiced by Dick Beals. This was Beals’ first role as a cartoon voice-over artist, and his knack for capturing children’s voices (due in large part to a glandular problem) turned into a lucrative career (he would later go on to voice other memorable characters, including Davey in the Davey and Goliath series in the 1960s). Blanc, for his part, voiced the incidental characters in the cartoon, making the noises for the numbers, the Indians (a part of the cartoon, incidentally, that is still sometimes censored in broadcast airings, due to its perceived insensitivity toward Native Americans as well as the violence involved), and Ralph’s “fellow” Navy men.

This cartoon was always one of my favorites as a child, if only for that scene in which a chalk-outlined Ralph attacks the daunting math problem on the blackboard–literally, it turns out, as the problem-solving turns into a physical jousting match with a very determined number “5.” It’s a gentle yet effective poke at the struggle some of us have with math (it was always my worst subject, anyway), and Ralph’s “victory” over his numerical foes is nothing less than satisfying to watch, especially since he uses letters to ultimately conquer them (writer Michael Maltese was obviously a fellow word nerd. Die, numbers, DIE!).

From A to Z-Z-Z-Z was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film; in fact, it was the first nomination for the Warner Bros. studio in four years, since the Chuck Jones-directed For Scent-imental Reasons won the prize in 1949 (still, it lost to the Walt Disney educational cartoon Toot, Whistle, Plunk, and Boom). Jones and Maltese brought Ralph back once more in the 1957 short Boyhood Daze, in which the character again indulges in multiple flights of fancy after being sent to his room as punishment. Additionally, around the same time as that second childhood appearance, a grown-up Ralph starred in two recruitment films that Jones directed for the Army–90 Day Wondering (1956–voiced by Blanc) and Drafty, Isn’t It? (1957–voiced by Daws Butler, the “Mel Blanc” of Hanna-Barbera). And in 1970, Ralph even had a vocal cameo in Jones’ theatrical adaptation of The Phantom Tollbooth (this time around, however, he was voiced by Foray). While Ralph may not be nearly as memorable a creation as many of his Warner Bros. brethren, From A to Z-Z-Z-Z remains an indelible portrait of the power of a young child’s imagination–and a very entertaining one, at that.

 

 

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Celebrating 100 Years of Chuck Jones: The Dot and the Line (1965)

Posted on by under animated shorts, animation, classic cartoons, kiddie faves, lit adaptations, saturday morning cartoons

After Warner Bros. terminated his long-term contract in 1962, Chuck Jones moved on to MGM, producing a series of cartoons featuring that studio’s famed pair, Tom and Jerry. Jones’ time wasn’t completely consumed by the antics of the cat and mouse, however; the animator/director worked on several other projects for the studio, one of which–The Dot and the Line: A Romance in Lower Mathematics (1965)–won Jones his only competitive Academy Award as a producer.

The Dot and the Line, as its full title indicates, tells of the romance between a dilettante dot and the straight line that loves her. While the dot is initially enamored of a “wild and unkempt squiggle” (whose wildness is underscored by a clamorous rock-and-roll tune that sounds every time it is onscreen), the “stiff as a board” straight line tries to adapt himself into something else in order to entice the dot back to his side. After struggling a long time, the line finally learns to form himself into an angle, which then allows him to form an unending series of increasingly complex shapes that, in the end, are much more appealing to the dot than the “chaos” presented by the squiggle. The cartoon concludes with the tongue-in-cheek moral: “To the vector belong the spoils.”

Norton Juster, the author of the book on which the short is based, also wrote the screenplay for the cartoon. The short is narrated by English actor Robert Morley (whom some might best remember as Katharine Hepburn’s ill-fated brother in 1951′s The African Queen), who gives an appropriately lively voice-over performance. It’s somewhat lengthy for a cartoon short–at ten minutes long, it’s about three minutes longer than the typical Jones cartoon–but the cartoon hardly drags, for the animation, marked by a multitude of colors, shapes, and intriguing visuals, is simply too engaging.

The cartoon is somewhat similar to the Walt Disney production Donald in Mathmagic Land (1959) in that it attempts to present mathematics–specifically the art of shapes–in an interesting and entertaining way, and indeed, The Dot and the Line accomplishes this handily (and in much less time than its Disney counterpart–although, granted, Donald’s journey into mathematics is much more detailed than that of the latter cartoon). But The Dot and the Line is also more than a “math cartoon”: it’s also a grand vocabulary lesson. For example, after his success, the narrator tells us, the line becomes “dazzling, clever, mysterious, versatile, erudite, eloquent, profound, enigmatic, complex, and compelling”–and when’s the last time you heard some of those words used in a children’s cartoon?

The language and wordplay in The Dot and the Line owes something of a debt to the playful sing-song rhythms of Dr. Seuss. And there’s no shortage of puns in the cartoon; for instance, when the line becomes despondent at having been ignored by the dot, his friends, worried about “how thin and drawn” he is, try to lighten the mood, proclaiming, “She lacks depth!” This type of math-related humor is far from heavy-handed, however; it’s supplemented by topical humor, particularly one gag that is my favorite moment in the cartoon: the morning after the line has finally discovered the trick to forming into an angle, he’s bent himself in such a fervor of movement that he has the nerd equivalent of a hangover. “Freedom,” the line admits, “is not a license for chaos.”

Though the language and the concepts may be a little “above” younger viewers, The Dot and the Line succeeds in making a sometimes unpopular subject (ugh, math, yuck!) a rather absorbing one. Incidentally, this would not be the only collaboration between Jones and Juster–five years later, Jones adapted Juster’s popular children’s novel, The Phantom Tollbooth, into a live-action/animated film for MGM. That movie would mark the final production of the studio, as MGM shuttered its animation unit soon after. Jones went on to found an independent production company, Chuck Jones Productions, and continued creating for another thirty years until he passed away in 2002. Still, his subsequent work never quite reached the peaks he had ascended during his days with Warner Bros. and MGM. With both of those studios’ animation divisions closed by 1970, it truly marked the end of an era in Hollywood animation.

 

Today is the last day to enter our drawing for two Looney Tunes compilations on DVD! Leave a comment on this post (or any of our Chuck Jones posts from the past week) to be automatically entered for a chance to win!

Celebrating 100 Years of Chuck Jones: The “Hunting” Trilogy

Posted on by under animated shorts, animation, brandie's faves, classic cartoons, hahas, kiddie faves

“Oh, I dream about being Bugs Bunny, but when I wake up, I’m Daffy Duck.” –Chuck Jones

In Chuck Jones’ hands, the Daffy Duck of the 1930s and 40s–loopy, zany, whooping loudly, flipping out–went through a bit of a personality overhaul in the 50s. The zaniness was still there, to be sure, but this Daffy was much more calculating and jealous, more prone to fits of rage than crazed lunacy. The change wasn’t completely out of the ether, as there had been indications of this aspect of the character in previous incarnations–for example, in the 1940 black-and-white live-action/animated short You Ought to Be in Pictures, Daffy schemes to get resident star of the time Porky Pig off the studio lot so he can take his place as the headliner for Warner Bros. [Incidentally, this cartoon features a brief on-camera appearance by Chuck Jones, as well as fellow Warner director Bob Clampett and Jones' longtime writing partner Michael Maltese. Definitely a curiosity, definitely worth viewing!] But most animation directors at the studio tended to focus on Daffy’s … well, daffier qualities over his more ambitious traits.

Starting in the late 1940s, Jones took that somewhat repressed ambitious side of Daffy and brought it to the forefront, engaging the character in an outright rivalry with Warner’s tried-and-true superstar, Bugs Bunny. To Jones, though, it wasn’t just about turning Daffy into an adversarial character; as he recounts in Chuck Amuck: The Life and Times of an Animated Cartoonist (1999), he always viewed Daffy more as a “self-preservationist” than a truly selfish character. Jones’ philosophy regarding Daffy was that the character’s avarice and self-absorbed nature are universal traits that everyone who watches his cartoons will recognize–and one that he saw even within himself: “Daffy gallantly and publicly represents all the character traits that the rest of us try to keep subdued. A social amenity to Daffy Duck is simply an unfair block to his desires. To desire, in Daffy’s rationale, is to need–as it was to me at six; to need is to acquire, and acquisition is the essence of living. To achieve his ends, he cheerfully and always rationally chews up moral codes by the yard.” And yet Daffy’s self-important self-service is never off-putting, in part because we, the viewers, are so easily able to relate to him, at least on some level.

It’s a delicate balance to maintain, but Jones and crew adeptly portray their Daffy as both frustrating and endearing, “dethpicable” and lovable all at the same time. Jones’ version of the character really lets loose in three popular and ultimately influential cartoons (all written by Maltese) that are familiarly known as the “Hunting Trilogy”–Rabbit Fire (1951), Rabbit Seasoning (1952), and Duck! Rabbit, Duck! (1953). These shorts feature Bugs and Daffy squaring off with Elmer Fudd, who is determined to shoot one or both of them–if he can only figure out which “hunting season” it really is. Daffy continually tries to throw Bugs into harm’s way–whether to protect himself (because it’s really duck season) or to cause trouble for his rival in the midst of rabbit season. Bugs, for his part, manages to skirt out of that trouble at every turn, usually at Daffy’s expense, while Elmer essentially stands around waiting for his cue to fire. The result of all of this madness is a trio of witty, entertaining cartoons that set up a winning dynamic of co-mingled friendship and rivalry between Bugs and Daffy that remains a vital ingredient of their animated relationship to this day.

[FYI: Videos of the cartoons discussed below are hyperlinked in the title of each section, so you can re-watch each one and enjoy them for yourself!]

Rabbit Fire

The first cartoon of the trio begins as previous Bugs-and-Elmer cartoons have begun: Elmer creeps through the forest with his rifle, pausing to shush the audience with his familiar catchphrase, “Shh! Be vewwy, vewwy quiet. I’m hunting wabbits. Hahahahaha.” There is a brief flash to a shot of Bugs’ feet leaving tracks on the forest floor, which Elmer quickly discovers, and we soon discover that “Bugs” is actually Daffy, wearing a pair of bunny slippers (so to speak) to draw the hunter to Bugs’ hole. Daffy’s reasoning behind his deviousness? “Survival of the fittest,” he snickers, adding with a couple of his trademark hoots, “And besides, it’s fun!” But Daffy’s shenanigans are turned around on him when Bugs catches on to his scheme and neatly turns it around on his feathered nemesis.

Rabbit Fire (like its two successors) is somewhat unique for Warner Bros. in that it relies heavily on the wordplay and dialogue (the infamous “rabbit season”/”duck season” exchanges) between the characters instead of the wild action associated with most of the studio’s shorts. As the first cartoon to feature both Bugs and Daffy in starring roles, it might be expected that one or both characters would be short-changed in some way to make room for the other; instead, they are given equal stature–though to me, at least, Daffy is the true focus of these shorts (if anyone comes off as a third wheel here, it’s Elmer, whose only function is to provide the catalyst for Daffy’s punishment). The formula for the characters’ future encounters is pretty much set: Bugs is the wiseacre winner, and Daffy is the defiant loser.

Indeed, Daffy really can’t win. Even when he tries to flip the script, disguising himself as Bugs, his rival outwits him by dressing as Daffy, and the “real” Daffy takes another bullet to the face. His moral outrage in the wake of that incident is marked by a side-splitting stream of ranting dialogue as Daffy verbally lambasts Bugs:

“Yes, you’re dethpicable! And … and … and picable! And … and … you’re–you’re very definitely dethpicable! How–how a person can get so … so dethpicable in one lifetime is … is beyond me! It isn’t as though I–I haven’t met a lot of people! Goodness knows, it isn’t that! It isn’t that–that! Goodness knows! It isn’t … it’s … dethpicable …”

The scene is marked by a brilliant delivery by voice actor Mel Blanc that fully demonstrates the depth of Daffy’s frustration. This is a duck that is ready to snap (which he does, eventually, by the time the third installment in the series rolls around).

It’s important to note that Bugs and Daffy aren’t entirely antagonistic toward one another in this short; when the opportunity arises to have some fun with Elmer, the two team up as a comely female hunter (because, seriously–does Bugs ever pass up the chance to dress in drag?) and her “naughty bow wow.” But even then, as the plan fails and their disguises fall apart, they immediately slip back into rivalry … until the absolutely perfect denouement, when they team up once more to partake in “Elmer Season.”

[Before I move on, I have to mention one of my favorite moments of this cartoon: when Bugs retrieves a book of recipes from his hole, called "1000 Ways to Cook a Duck," and starts reciting them in an effort to entice Elmer. Not to be outmatched, Daffy reaches into Bugs' home ... and inexplicably pulls out a book called "1000 Ways to Cook a Rabbit." As a kid, I always wondered why Bugs owned a cookbook devoted to cooking rabbits--it really made me wonder about him for just a minute ...!]

Rabbit Seasoning

The second cartoon of the trilogy is my personal favorite (as it appeals to the grammar nerd in me). It opens with a multitude of signs pointing the way to Bugs’ rabbit hole. Daffy appears, once again forging rabbit tracks in the ground to entice Elmer further. His motive this time is similar to the previous cartoon: “Awfully unsporting of me, I know, but what the hay–I gotta have SOME fun! … And besides, it’s REALLY duck season!” Once again, however, Daffy’s grand scheme falls apart as Bugs escapes danger and Daffy endures a series of indignities. The cross-dressing trope reappears–this time without Daffy’s involvement in the charade–and, as in Rabbit Fire, this one has a great ending.

The focus of the cartoon is once more on wordplay, and features a delicious exchange in which Daffy finds himself in a bit of “pronoun trouble”:

Bugs: “It’s true, Doc. I’m a rabbit, alright. Would you like to shoot me now or wait ’til you get home?”
Daffy: “Shoot him now! Shoot him now!”
Bugs: “You keep out of this! He doesn’t have to shoot you now!”
Daffy: “He does so have to shoot me now! [to Elmer] I demand that you shoot me now!”

When Elmer–after a brief, quizzical glance at the audience–acquiesces to Daffy’s demand and shoots him in the head, an infuriated yet strangely calm Daffy returns to Bugs and demands that they repeat the scene, which they do rather matter-of-factly:

Daffy: “Let’s run through that again.”
Bugs: “Okay. Would you like to shoot me now or wait ’til you get home.”
Daffy: “Shoot him now, shoot him now.”
Bugs: “You keep outta this, he doesn’t have to shoot you now.”
Daffy: “Ha! That’s it! Hold it right there! [turns to audience] Pronoun trouble. [turns back to Bugs] It’s not, ‘He doesn’t have to shoot you now.’ It’s, ‘He doesn’t have to shoot me now.’ Well, I say he does have to shoot me now! [turns to Elmer] So shoot me now!”

And bang.

Rabbit Seasoning demonstrates the tenaciousness of Daffy’s 50s persona–even when he knows that he’s in too deep (exclaiming, “Not again!” when he realizes he’s about to be shot once more)–he cannot let it go and move on. He is forever trying to win, and forever losing to someone cleverer than he, and the frustrating cycle just goes on and on with little relief. It’s somewhat reminiscent of the situation with the (non)performing frog in Jones’ masterpiece One Froggy Evening (1955), in that Daffy’s constant striving reflects an inescapable sense of futility from which he cannot extricate himself–and in the end, it’s yet another way in which the character is made more relatable to the audience, because who hasn’t been there? In many ways, it’s the very nature of human existence, encapsulated in a six-and-a-half minute cartoon.

Incidentally, Rabbit Seasoning is the only one of the “Hunting Trilogy” to have been voted onto the list of the 50 Greatest Cartoons–it ranks at number thirty (it’s worth noting, however, that its predecessor was given an honorable mention on the list).

Duck! Rabbit, Duck!

The conclusion of the trilogy changes the scene to the midst of winter, but otherwise follows the same formula as the first two: it’s the middle of duck season, Daffy is “a duck bent on self-preservation-um,” and thus he tries in vain to convince Elmer that it’s actually rabbit season, with old pal Bugs as the target. But this time, when Bugs turns the table on him, both Daffy and Elmer eventually lose their ever-loving minds.

The reliance on wordplay is again intact: for instance, in a winking nod to the “pronoun trouble” in the previous entry of the trilogy, Daffy demonstrates his lack of spelling prowess when asking Bugs to spell “fricasseeing rabbit.” Instead, Bugs spells out “fricasseeing DUCK,” which results in Daffy getting shot once again. But the best gag in the cartoon involves a series of signs designating different hunting “seasons.” Every time Daffy inadvertently likens himself to an animal, Bugs holds up a sign saying it’s that animal’s “season,” and Elmer takes aim on the hapless duck:

Daffy: “You’re a dirty dog.”
Bugs: “And you are a dirty skunk.”
Daffy: “I’m a dirty skunk? I’m a dirty skunk?”

Bugs immediately holds up a sign reading, “Dirty Skunk Season,” and Elmer fires.

The ending of Duck! Rabbit, Duck! employs some seriously dark humor, as the other two characters crack under the pressure of dealing with the unconquerable Bugs. First, Daffy loses his marbles–understandable considering he’s been shot in the head multiple times and lived to tell about it (kids, don’t try this at home)–and demands that Elmer shoot him again and again and again: “Shoot me again! I enjoy it! I love the smell of burnt feathers and gunpowder and cordite!” Soon after Daffy’s breakdown, a frustrated Elmer also succumbs to the madness after three years’ worth of go-rounds with the zany pair. When a disguised Bugs informs Elmer that it’s actually BASEBALL season, something snaps in the hunter, and he sets off chasing a baseball over the snowy hills, shooting it gleefully as he runs. And even after Elmer runs off and Daffy comes back to reality, Bugs still manages to get in one last shot (literally) at Daffy. The rabbit’s victory is nothing short of complete.

Together, the three cartoons that make up Chuck Jones’ “Hunting Trilogy” are undeniable classics of the animation genre. Not only are these shorts absolutely hilarious, but they are intelligently composed, with an attention to dialogue and detail that was far from the norm at a time when action shots and slapstick gags reigned supreme. And while these cartoons feature their fair share of physical humor, it’s the verbal interactions between the characters that really drive the action and make these such memorable entries not only in the career of Jones, but in the history of animation itself.

 

*Want to enter our contest to win two Looney Tunes compilations on DVD? Leave a comment on this post to be automatically entered into the drawing at the end of the week!*

Celebrating 100 Years of Chuck Jones: Rabbit of Seville (1950)

Posted on by under animated shorts, animation, brandie's faves, classic cartoons, hahas, kiddie faves

Seven years before Bugs Bunny and Elmer Fudd dueled their way through a hilarious take on the music of Wagner in What’s Opera, Doc?, the duo tackled Italian composer Rossini in 1950′s Rabbit of Seville. 

Rabbit of Seville is the brainchild of director Chuck Jones, writer Michael Maltese, and frequent Warner Bros. composer Carl Stalling. Stalling was, on occasion, criticized by some (including Jones) for his habit of quoting modern or popular melodies in his scores, and it is true that his scores featured repeated use of certain musical cues for similar situations from cartoon to cartoon–for instance, the recurrence of Rossini’s William Tell overture in chase scenes (particularly those in Western-themed cartoons), or the use of “We’re in the Money” (from Gold Diggers of 1933) in scenes featuring the sudden acquirement of wealth. Stalling’s penchant for musical puns aside, he was nonetheless an incredibly talented musician, and the Stalling scores are among the most memorable in the Warner Bros. animated canon (for a pitch-perfect example of Stalling’s unparalleled talent, see 1943′s A Corny Concerto, directed by Bob Clampett, which Stalling completed with his eventual successor, Milt Franklyn).

In Seville, Jones takes full advantage of Stalling’s musical abilities, as the composer manages to incorporate a slightly abridged version of the overture to Rossini’s opera The Barber of Seville at an accelerated tempo that still manages to capture the essence of the original tune. Additionally, he works in a bit of the “Wedding March” from German composer Mendelssohn. Maltese composed new lyrics to accompany the sped-up tune, and aside from Bugs’ final line, the song lyrics are the only dialogue to accompany the cartoon–and really, no dialogue is needed when the lyrics include such brilliant lines as, “There, you’re nice and clean … although your face looks like it might have gone through a machine!”

There are little touches throughout this cartoon that heighten the humor: a sign in the opening scene advertises a “Summer Opera” performance of The Barber of Seville starring “Eduardo Selzeri” (producer Eddie Selzer), “Michele Maltese” (writer Maltese), and “Carlo Jonzi” (director Jones); the stage is set for a scene at a barber’s shop, yet in Rossini’s opera, there is no such scene (despite the character Figaro’s titular position); Bugs (naturally) gets the chance to don drag, as Elmer’s alluring “little senorit-er”; Elmer deals with multiple indignities in Bugs’ Sweeney Todd-esque barber chair o’ horrors, not the least of which is having a hair tonic treatment that results in a patch of red flowers sprouting on his otherwise bald noggin; to bring an end to the madness, Bugs proposes marriage, and Elmer zips offstage briefly and reemerges in a white wedding gown; Bugs’ final, mischievous nod to the audience. The result is a sort of insane mash-up of so-called high and low culture, audaciously combining cartoonish antics and high-brow musical accompaniment in a way that, by all logic, should not work … and yet totally and completely does.

Is Rabbit of Seville as effective a cartoony operetta as What’s Opera, Doc? In truth, not quite–though both cartoons have their strengths, the more satirical bent of the latter cartoon trumps the relentlessly slapsticky nature of Seville. Opera functions as both a parody of its musical source material and an incisive comedic homage to it, while Seville concentrates more on just generally garnering laughs. Not to say that there’s anything wrong with that, for Rabbit of Seville is truly hilarious, and undoubtedly its success enabled Jones, Maltese, and crew to embark on the much more ambitious (and much more expensive) Opera in later years. And its influence has not gone unnoticed; Rabbit of Seville is, like its operatic cartoon brother, on the list of the 50 best cartoons of all time, placing at number twelve, and it remains one of the most popular ‘toons to emerge from the Golden Age of animation. Perhaps most importantly, this cartoon is among a number of memorable Warner Bros. shorts that helped introduce new generations to classical music in a fun, engaging way that, if it didn’t exactly foster new fans of the genre, at least created a lingering awareness of the great compositions of those grand old masters.

*Want to enter our contest to win two Looney Tunes compilations on DVD? Leave a comment on this post to be automatically entered into the drawing at the end of the week!*

Celebrating 100 Years of Chuck Jones: Feed the Kitty (1952)

Posted on by under animated shorts, animation, brandie's faves, classic cartoons, hahas, kiddie faves

The 1950s were arguably the most prolific decade, artistically speaking, of animator/director Chuck Jones’ career. It was the decade that saw Jones take the stock Warner Bros. characters to new heights: he took Daffy Duck and made him an open antagonist to Bugs Bunny (and vice versa, at least in the uproarious Duck Amuck); he directed Bugs to the pinnacle of his success with a pair of duels with longtime foe Elmer Fudd, Rabbit of Seville and What’s Opera, Doc?; he presented the Roadrunner and Wile E. Coyote repeatedly matching wits in an endless series of painful, Acme-enabled gags. But one of the best Jones-helmed cartoons to come out of that decade featured two original characters–an ageless and deceptively simple cat-and-dog pair–that were not of the typical Warner milieu. They didn’t crack wise and trade insults, nor did they chase one another around a la the typical cat-dog dynamic. Instead, through beautifully expressive animation and an endearing storyline that stops just short of sentimentality, Marc Anthony and Pussyfoot, the stars of 1952′s Feed the Kitty, carved a place for themselves among the best of the best that the Golden Age of animation had to offer.

Feed the Kitty was the result of the longtime collaboration between Jones and screenwriter Michael Maltese. Maltese created the stories for some of the most memorable cartoons to emerge from the Warner Bros. studio, among them the aforementioned What’s Opera, Doc?, Duck Amuck, and Rabbit of Seville, as well as Duck Dodgers, Rabbit Seasoning, Rabbit Fire, From A to Z-Z-Z-Z, and many, many more. Maltese’s stories tend to share common elements of cheeky humor, biting dialogue, a “slapsticky” physicality, and a touch of sheer irreverence. And while, at first glance, something like Feed the Kitty, with its relatively simple premise, may seem somewhat pedestrian compared to those other cartoon masterpieces, there is an interesting, slightly subversive element at play here.

It’s found in the relationship between Marc Anthony and Pussyfoot (who was not named in the original cartoon). He’s a dog–a big dog; she’s a cat–a very tiny cat. Put them together, and it’s a dynamic filled with absurdities; after all, if “history” has taught us anything, it’s that cats and dogs just flat-out loathe one another (obviously, you people have never met MY cat, who thinks he IS a dog). Initially, the relationship between these two characters is a parental one, with Marc Anthony taking on a maternal-type role and essentially “adopting” the kitten as his own. He laughs indulgently and cannot bring himself to punish or chastise her (she’s just too cute for words, you know). He does everything he can to protect her; having been told not to bring “another thing” into the house, he hides the little kitten in increasingly creative and frantic ways. When the situation is finally revealed to his owner and he’s told he can keep his new friend, the joy is palpable–even when the dog realizes just how much responsibility he’s taken on (like any horrified, exhausted new parent).

But there’s another level to the relationship between these two that is far from parental. Marc Anthony is the prototypical tough guy bowled over by sheer cuteness, who willingly emasculates himself in the interests of his adorable little foundling. The relationship is not entirely “motherly” on his part; as Jones himself once reportedly said, the interaction between the dog and cat in this cartoon is like an encapsulated version of an entire male-female (human) relationship: the early infatuation, the “settling down” period, the little irritations and troubles that crop up, and the (hopefully) happy denouement. In other words, the dog falls in love with the kitten, and acts not only out of a “motherly” instinct, but a romantic one (shades of Daddy Long Legs …?). And what’s more subversive than inter-species love, I ask you?

Like One Froggy Evening, which would debut three years later, Feed the Kitty largely relies on pantomime to tell the story. There is a speaking character (Marc Anthony’s owner), but this cartoon works much like some of the MGM Tom and Jerry shorts, in that the human characters are the only ones who speak. The stars of the cartoon are, with the exception of occasional purrs, groans, and dismayed noises, virtually silent, conveying everything we need to know through facial expression and movement. This short shows just how far animation had come in two short decades, ever since Disney animators first revealed the potential for animated expression with the character Pluto’s battle with some flypaper in 1934 (for more details about that, see our detailed post on Pluto from earlier this year).

The most expressive moments belong to Marc Anthony. His facial expressions are over-exaggerated; his movements unrestrained by logic or reason. He walks on his hind legs, dancing across the floor waving the kitten as a powder puff to distract his owner. He nails the wide-eyed innocent look. When he thinks Pussyfoot is being baked into cookies, he peers through the window and, in a series of pantomimes worthy of a silent-film comedian, rolls his eyes skyward and slides into a dead faint, not once, but three times. When he believes the kitten has been placed in the oven, he rolls onto his back, grabs his hind legs, and rocks back and forth, howling in a display of pure, unadulterated grief.

All of this results in the absolutely brilliant moment when his owner hands Marc Anthony a kitten-shaped cookie and, tears still welling in his bloodshot eyes, he gently places the cookie on his back and walks away. It’s utterly ridiculous and hilarious all at the same time–a difficult balance to maintain, to the say the least, but it works beautifully here. Because we know Pussyfoot is fine, we can laugh at the otherwise disturbing implications behind this scene. This brief moment of black humor is a perfect example of how sophisticated Jones’ cartoons really were under the surface.

Marc Anthony and Pussyfoot only appeared in five cartoons together, and are not well-remembered today (although Pussyfoot has had a resurgence as a marketing tool in recent years). But there’s no denying that Feed the Kitty is an influential piece of short animation. It’s been recognized as such by Jones’ peers in the animation field: this cartoon was one of ten Jones shorts voted onto the list of the fifty greatest cartoons (it placed thirty-sixth). And if you need further proof of its influence, just check out the hilarious homage to Feed the Kitty in the 2001 Pixar film Monsters, Inc., in which the character Sulley believes his little human friend, Boo, has been processed in the garbage compactor. Sulley’s facial expressions (especially the trembling lips) and theatrical fainting fits perfectly mirror Marc Anthony’s horror at Pussyfoot’s “demise by cookie” in the earlier cartoon. If anything, this moment is a fitting tribute to a cartoon that shares the movie’s theme of an unconventional and ultimately fulfilling relationship.

After all (to borrow a phrase I’ve borrowed before): if a dog and a kitten can find love in this crazy, mixed-up world, there’s just that much hope for the rest of us, right?

 

*Want to enter our contest to win two Looney Tunes compilations on DVD? Leave a comment on this post to be automatically entered into the drawing at the end of the week!*

Hello! ma baby, hello! my honey …

Posted on by under animated shorts, animation, announcements, blogathon, brandie's faves, classic cartoons, contributed post, hahas, kiddie faves, pioneers of animation

The ongoing Comedy Countdown at Wonders in the Dark is in full swing, and my second contribution to the event is now up on the site!

By sheer coincidence, number 69 on the countdown is the 1955 animated short One Froggy Evening, directed by none other than the subject of our week-long animation celebration, Chuck Jones!

Head on over to Wonders in the Dark to check out my thoughts on this classic cartoon! The comments section over there can get quite animated (see what I did there?), so please feel free to add your two cents to the conversation!

*Want to enter our drawing for two Looney Tunes compilations on DVD? Leave a comment on this post!*