Category Archives: classic cartoons

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!*

Chuck Jones: An Animated Life

Posted on by under animated shorts, animation, classic cartoons, pioneers of animation

It’s been said that artists, like all creative people, draw from what they know in creating their artistic visions. This is particularly true for animator Charles “Chuck” M. Jones, who parlayed his experiences growing up with a quixotic father and an indulgent, supportive mother into a career that is virtually unparalleled for its influence and noteworthy output.

Like many animators who emerged during the “Golden Age” of Hollywood animation, Jones was influenced by the work of pioneering cartoonist Winsor McCay. When McCay’s groundbreaking effort Gertie the Dinosaur premiered, Jones was two years old, soon to move from Washington to Los Angeles with his family as his father sought better business opportunities. As recounted in the documentary Chuck Jones: Memories of Childhood (2009), Jones’ father founded–and lost–several businesses during Jones’ childhood, and with each closure, the Jones children were given massive amounts of company letterhead and pencils to use as they pleased. The children drew hundreds upon thousands of pictures over the years, an exercise that greatly prepared Jones for his later career. In the documentary, Jones also gives much credit for his creative development to his mother, a creative woman in her own right whom he says “would never criticize a drawing” and was endlessly encouraging of his abilities.

Jones eventually attended and graduated from Chouinard Art Institute–a school that also saw such notable students as Mary Blair, Ollie Johnston, Bill Melendez, and Hollywood costume designer Edith Head (among many, many others) pass through its doors over the years. His ascent through the ranks of the animation elite started slowly, as he worked his way up from the bottom, one job at a time. After a brief stint as a commercial artist, Jones’ first “real” animation job, in 1931, was as a cel washer for recent Disney escapee Ub Iwerks, and he soon became the assistant animator for Grim Natwick (best known as the creator of Betty Boop for the Fleischer studio).

In 1933, Jones moved on to Leon Schlesinger Productions, which produced cartoons under the Warner Bros. banner. It was the most important step he would take toward cementing his status as an animation pioneer in his own right. In 1935, a brash new arrival to the studio, Frederick “Tex” Avery, convinced Schlesinger to give him a shot as a director. Avery did not have all that much experience, and he was a bit of a renegade, but Schlesinger believed that this was the man who would finally help his studio compete with the big boys (i.e. Disney). He “gave” Avery some animators–Jones, Bob Clampett, Virgil Ross, and Sid Sutherland–and assigned the group to a small, bug-infested building on the Warner Bros. backlot, which the crew affectionately nicknamed “Termite Terrace.”

The Termite Terrace crew in 1935 (from left): Ross, Sutherland, Avery, Jones, Clampett.

Soon, this small band of eager young animators began producing a popular series of shorts for the Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies imprints, and in the process, redefined the rules of animation. Avery did not ascribe to the belief that animation should strictly reflect reality; instead, he believed in the zany promises of freedom that animation offered. Though Jones would never fully give himself over to the anarchy that reigned in much of Avery’s work–Jones was a proponent of believability with his animation, if not strict “realism”–he was nonetheless greatly influenced by Avery’s insistence upon the limitless possibilities allowed by the form. As Hugh Kenner explains in Chuck Jones: A Flurry of Drawings (1994): ”What Tex Avery did establish–though for Chuck Jones the lesson took time to stick–was simply the autonomy of the Director’s created world. The world of the transcendent Jones cartoons–think One Froggy Evening or What’s Opera, Doc?–has no firm connections with any world outside itself … It doesn’t seem too much to say that Tex Avery’s presence … underlaid the great period when Warner cartoons … paced the cartoon industry, and also fostered Chuck Jones. Jones needed Avery’s example.”

It’s true that Jones’ best work took time to develop. His cartoons throughout the remainder of the 1930s and the early 40s are not particularly memorable, and not particularly funny. What could be called the Chuck Jones “ethos”–a mixture of energetic action, brilliant animation, and unexpected humor–first emerged in 1942′s The Dover Boys at Pimento University, a rowdy, satirical take on the popular Rover Boys series of children’s books. The unique animation style of this short–which is so vastly different from the typical Warner Bros. output that it reportedly almost got Jones fired–would later influence the artists behind the heavily stylized UPA cartoons (among them Mr. Magoo and Gerald McBoing-Boing) produced in the 1950s and beyond.

The 1940s brought an important collaboration for Jones, when he teamed up with children’s author Dr. Seuss for a series of animated cartoons featuring a character named Private Snafu (the character itself was dreamed up by Hollywood director Frank Capra). These cartoons were created exclusively for the United States Army, which had quickly discovered that straightforward, live-action educational films were not very adept at holding the soldiers’ attention. The Private Snafu shorts were thereby devised as a way to engage soldiers and humorously educate them about the rules and regulations of service. The partnership between Seuss and Jones would be a prolific one; Jones eventually produced and directed the perennial holiday special How the Grinch Stole Christmas, based on Seuss’ popular book, in 1966.

By the end of the 1940s, Jones had found his footing as an animator and director. Starting with 1948′s Scaredy Cat, featuring Sylvester and Porky, Jones produced an almost unbroken string of hit cartoons, featuring some of the most beloved shorts ever created. His 1949 Pepe Le Pew feature For Scent-imental Reasons was Jones’ first ‘toon to win the Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film. That same year, he introduced a newer take on the Daffy Duck character in The Scarlet Pumpernickel; Jones’ Daffy was less loopy and zany, and more fame-hungry, jealous, strident, and insistent, eventually forming a rivalry with the perpetually-popular Bugs Bunny that saw a hilarious trio of hunting-themed cartoons opposite Elmer Fudd in the 1950s (Rabbit Fire, Rabbit Seasoning, and Duck! Rabbit, Duck!).

1949 also saw the debut of one of animation’s most enduring cartoon pairings: that of the Roadrunner and Wile E. Coyote, in Fast and Furry-ous. The cartoon also featured the debut of one of the most legendary cartoon tropes–the Acme Corporation, which provides all of the gadgets that never seem to work quite right for the constantly-frustrated coyote. In Memories of Childhood, Jones explains that he named the infamous “Acme” company somewhat ironically after a childhood habit: “Whenever we played a game or we had a grocery store or something, we called it the ‘Acme Corporation.’ Why? Because, in the Yellow Pages, if you looked, say, under ‘drug stores,’ you’d find the first one would be Acme Drugs. Why? Because A-C was about as high as you could go. It means the best, the superlative.” In creating the dynamic between the carnivorous coyote and his would-be prey, Jones went so far as to craft a series of inviolate rules to maintain consistency with the characters–a list that included such tenets as preventing the Road Runner from actively harming the coyote and maintaining the setting of the Southwestern deserts.

The 1950s were arguably the most successful decade of Jones’ career, as he directed almost two dozen cartoons during that period. Eight of these cartoons would eventually be voted to the 50 Greatest Cartoons list in 1994; four of them–What’s Opera, Doc; Duck Amuck; Duck Dodgers in the 24 1/2 Century; and One Froggy Evening–appear in the top five of that list. Jones is the most-represented animator on the list–with ten total entries, his work comprises a full TWENTY PERCENT of what is considered the “best” animation of all time. No other artist comes close.

Jones was undoubtedly the biggest asset to the Warner Bros. animation empire, and he was locked into an exclusive contract with the studio. But in the early 1960s, Jones collaborated with animators from UPA to produce the feature Gay Purr-ee, which he co-wrote with his wife, Dorothy. Ironically, Warner Bros. won the distribution rights for the film; when Jones’ role in its production was discovered, his now-violated contract with the studio was terminated in 1962. The Warner Bros. animation department was shut down the following year.

Jones subsequently formed his own animation studio, Sib Tower 12 Productions, and rehired his old unit from Warner Bros. (which has been disbanded after Jones was fired). The studio was contracted to create new cartoons for the Tom and Jerry series for MGM; two years later, Jones’ studio was purchased outright by MGM and renamed MGM Animation/Visual Arts. Jones produced nearly three dozen Tom and Jerry shorts throughout the 1960s, and also created the Oscar-winning short The Dot and the Line: A Romance in Lower Mathematics in 1965 as well as MGM’s final animated short, 1967′s The Bear That Wasn’t, and the studio’s final animated feature, the 1970 adaptation of Norton Juster’s classic children’s book The Phantom Tollbooth (which mixed animation with live-action). The MGM animation studio was closed soon after that film’s release.

Again, Jones went the independent studio route; he formed his own company, Chuck Jones Productions, and continued to produce cartoons for television and film, including the 1979 compilation film The Bugs Bunny/Road Runner Movie, a couple of Raggedy Ann and Andy specials, and several animated adaptations of Rudyard Kipling’s work, including a memorable version of Rikki-Tikki-Tavi narrated by legendary actor Orson Welles. He even delved into comic strip work, creating and maintaining the comic Crawford for two years in the 70s.

Jones was still animating and directing up until his death in 2002; his final project was the self-titled The Chuck Jones Show (2001-2002) for Cartoon Network. He never seemed to tire of creating; quite simply, he loved his job. In Chuck Jones: Conversations, author Maureen Furniss perhaps puts it best: “A dominant narrative heard in … interviews [with Jones] is that, lacking sufficient pay or even a boss that recognized his value as an artist, self-fulfillment and his love of drawing kept him at work. This scenario is a familiar story of the ‘American way’ that only strengthens our admiration for Jones as a cultural icon.”

And an icon he remains: Jones is, without a doubt, the most celebrated animator of all time, outshining even the master of self-promotion, Walt Disney himself (who, let’s face it, wasn’t exactly known for his personal prowess with pen and ink). His influence is virtually unmatched, his talent unparalleled as both a creator and a director. Jones was the ultimate cultural ambassador for animation, promoting the work of talented, young animators and continually educating people about the importance of animation as not only a field of entertainment, but an art form. Over the years, his work was nominated for eight Oscars (three of his cartoons won the award, and he personally won one–for producing The Dot and the Line–as well as an Honorary Award in 1996); he also won the prestigious Winsor McCay Award for lifetime achievement in the animation field in 1974 (along with former boss Avery, fellow Warner Bros. stalwart Friz Freleng, and Disney animator Art Babbitt). All things considered, though, the prizes didn’t matter to Jones; in Memories of Childhood, he even jokes that all it means is that “during that year, you were considered by your peers to be the best of that particular year. But it may be a very bad year. You still accept it!” Still, he adds, though he was “glad” to receive recognition, “The road is better than the end.”

Chuck Jones’ road was one any person would love to travel, and through his cartoons, we get a little glimpse of what that journey must have been like for him. When Jones died ten years ago, he left behind a legacy of laughter and beauty, inventiveness and inspiration, that continues to touch us and, most importantly, to move us to gales of chuckles. And it will always be this way, because thankfully, there will never be a day when a Chuck Jones cartoon is anything less than thoroughly enjoyable.

 

*Want to enter our drawing for two Looney Tunes collections on DVD? Don’t forget to leave a comment on this post!*

“Looney” happenings this week …

Posted on by under animated shorts, animation, announcements, classic cartoons, pioneers of animation

Friday, September 21st marks the 100th birthday of animation pioneer Chuck Jones, and in honor of this memorable natal day, True Classics is dedicating the next week’s worth of posts to the life and career of this cartoon genius.

Several events marking the occasion have been scheduled in California for the upcoming week, but seeing as how we’re clear across the country, we decided to stage our own little celebration of the man here in our humble corner of the blogosphere. So, starting tomorrow, we will delve into Jones’ oeuvre, highlighting some of the most well-known and beloved products of his time at Warner Bros., as well as other career milestones. It’s going to be a lot of fun to revisit these ‘toons, and we hope you’ll join us throughout the week and share memories of your favorite Chuck Jones productions!

But enough about all that … who wants to win a PRIZE???

This week, one lucky reader will win the Looney Tunes Spotlight Collection, Volumes 1 and 2, on DVD! Together, these compilations feature 58 of the best and most entertaining shorts to come out of animation’s Golden Age, starring such popular characters as Bugs, Daffy, Porky, Pepe Le Pew, Sylvester and Tweety, and many more! The sets include a number of Chuck Jones-helmed cartoons–including what many consider the best animated short ever produced, 1957′s What’s Opera, Doc?–among many more memorable classics. These discs are a great way to start or supplement your personal animation library (and I can tell you, my sets get broken out for frequent viewings around here!).

All you have to do to be entered into the drawing for these DVDs is to leave a comment on any of the Chuck Jones pieces that will be posted here at True Classics between tomorrow (Monday, September 17th) and Saturday (September 22nd). And yes, you can increase your odds to win by commenting on multiple entries. The winner will be notified on Sunday, September 23rd, and will have forty-eight hours to respond before another winner is drawn. Note: this contest is for residents of the United States and Canada only (apologies, international readers!).

For now … that’s all, folks!

Who’s afraid of the Big Bad Wolf?

Posted on by under animated shorts, animation, classic cartoons, classic disney, saturday morning cartoons

Mary Pickford (as “Alice”) and Mickey Mouse

 

As recounted in Stefan Kanfer’s fantastic history of animation, Serious Business (1997), early in 1933, Walt Disney gave a personal tour of the Disney animation studio to movie star Mary Pickford. Disney was considering making a live-action version of Alice in Wonderland with Pickford in the title role, and in fact shot some test footage of the actress in costume in Technicolor (this footage is now considered to be lost, though a couple of stills remain).

A big fan of Pickford’s, Walt sought to impress her with something new, so in the middle of the tour, he prevailed upon composer Frank Churchill to play the “pig thing” for Mary. Churchill obligingly sat down at the piano and launched into a rendition of his newest song, which he had written for the studio’s in-production adaptation of the classic fairy tale about three little pigs–a production that Walt had been considering shutting down before completion. Accompanied by story department head Ted Sears and voice actor Pinto Colvig (who would later stumble into immortality voicing Goofy), Churchill sang “Who’s Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf?” and, at the end, all of the men waited anxiously for Pickford’s reaction.

“If you don’t make this cartoon about the pigs, I’ll never speak to you again,” she replied.

That was all it took–production resumed in earnest, and the cartoon was released in May at Radio City Music Hall in New York.

 

Three Little Pigs is a relatively simple fable about the importance of hard work in keeping the “big bad wolf” away from your door. Fifer Pig and Fiddler Pig would rather build their houses hastily so they can continue to play their instruments (the flute and the fiddle, respectively) all day long. But the Big Bad Wolf has other plans–he blows down Fifer’s straw house, and does the same to Fiddler’s house of sticks. The two seek refuge in the solid brick home of their brother, Practical Pig, whom they had earlier made fun of for spending his day building the house, and the Wolf, unable to blow down the sturdy structure, is ultimately stymied in his attempt to have pork chops for dinner.

Produced in glorious three-strip Technicolor (Disney had a temporary monopoly on the process, which prevented other animation studios from using the full potential of color in their own cartoons), the film was released under the banner of Disney’s Silly Symphony series. Indeed, the success of the film owes a great deal to its musical score; Three Little Pigs became a smash hit in large part due to Churchill’s theme song. “Who’s Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf?”–with some encouragement from United States President Franklin D. Roosevelt, who called the cartoon his “favorite” film–became the unofficial anthem of the Great Depression, a way for people to thumb their noses at the dire state of the economy. When the sheet music for the song was produced, “Big Bad Wolf” became the top-selling song of the year. And as the United States entered World War II in the next decade, “Big Bad Wolf” found new life as a musical “screw you” to Nazi Germany.

Notice the photograph of dear old dad, in his (presumably) final form as a string of sausage links.

 

The importance of Three Little Pigs to the history of animation is in its characterization of the four figures in the cartoon. Though “personality animation” had its roots in Winsor McCay’s Gertie, who had taken her first bow almost two decades before, Pigs had four individual characters with different personalities, interacting together in a way that had yet to be seen in animated features. As legendary animator Chuck Jones later put it: ”Until [Pigs], animated films followed the form of the silent comedies. Small creature, good guy. Big creature, villain. Cute was enough to get you by. Personality animation–characters who may look alike, but who react and move very differently from each other–begins with this little movie.” Whether the Disney animators intended to break new ground or not, Pigs nonetheless set the standard for future cartoons, as strong storytelling and believable, engaging characters became ever more vital to the genre’s success. Beyond the animation of the characters, Pigs also demonstrates the importance of voice casting in bringing the characters to life. Colvig voices Practical Pig as sturdy and no-nonsense, like his beloved brick house, while Practical’s more fanciful brothers are given higher-pitched voices by Mary Moder and Dorothy Compton. And Billy Bletcher’s gruff, booming baritone (used so effectively in crafting the character of Mickey’s nemesis, Pete) is a perfect fit for the blustering Wolf.

“Acceptable” stereotyping … for 1933

 

Popular as it was (and still is), Pigs is not without its controversy, which has led to latter-day censorship of one particularly insensitive sequence. Walt Disney’s notoriously ingrained antisemitism (yes, the man was antisemitic, whether you want to believe it or not–there are multiple instances of his having made horrible comments about the “Jew studios” in Hollywood over the years) was reflected in a scene in the original cartoon in which the Wolf disguises himself as a stereotypical Jewish peddler, complete with a long beard, bulbous nose, and exaggerated Yiddish accent. The film has undergone several edits over the years to alter this: initially, it was reanimated to portray the Wolf as a Fuller Brush salesman (though the original vocals nonsensically remained), and later the soundtrack was re-dubbed to remove the accent altogether.

The phenomenal success of Three Little Pigs ultimately surprised everyone, especially Walt Disney himself. In the wake of the pigs’ popularity, Disney commissioned three sequels: The Big Bad Wolf (1934), Three Little Wolves (1936), and The Practical Pig (1939). A fourth, unofficial sequel, The Thrifty Pig, was produced in 1941 by the National Film Board of Canada as propaganda for the war effort–it is little more than a shortened re-figuring of the original intended to encourage the purchase of war bonds. None of the sequels matched Three Little Pigs in popularity, and Walt finally retired the trio of oinkers, philosophically concluding, “You can’t top pigs with pigs.” Still, the original remains one of the most well-regarded cartoon shorts of all time: it won the Academy Award for Best Short Subject in 1934 and placed at #11 on the storied list of the 50 Greatest Cartoons. Five years ago, the National Film Registry added Pigs to its preservation roster. Even today, the Pigs and the Wolf haven’t lost their luster: they remain popular Disney characters, popping up around the theme parks and in various films and television shows produced by the company.

Now THAT’S comedy.

Posted on by under classic cartoons, ripe for parody, saturday morning cartoons

I’ve previously mentioned my all-abiding love for the 1990s cartoon series Animaniacs here on the blog. Produced by Steven Spielberg, the show was more than a mere cartoon–it was a cleverly-constructed show that appealed to both adults and children with a hilarious combination of slapstick-y violence, meta references, and witty send-ups of pop culture icons.

This week, the Mental Floss blog published an article on the show that instantly reminded me of how truly great Animaniacs was. When I was younger, I watched the show religiously. Though I didn’t understand all of the references at the time, there was nonetheless something appealing about the humor. It was cheeky and sly and filled with “adult” allusions, but most importantly, even though it was a “kid’s show,” the writers didn’t condescend to their audience.

The starring trio–the screwy Warner Brothers, Yakko and Wakko, and their so-cute-and-she-knows-it sister Princess Angelina Contessa Louisa Francesca Banana Fanna Bo Besca the Third (known more commonly as Dot)–were the guiding force of the show, aided by a sterling set of supporting characters, some of which became breakout stars in their own rights (as with Pinky and the Brain, the laboratory mice determined to take over the world, who were spun off into their own series). There was something for every taste on the show: from the adorable adventures of Mindy and her put-upon dog, Buttons, to the cranky septuagenarian Slappy Squirrel (whose catchphrase provides the title for this post), to the combative Goodfeathers (a parodic take on the 1990 Martin Scorsese film Goodfellas), to the musical cat Rita (voiced by the incomparable Bernadette Peters) and her dog pal, Runt.

Watching reruns and clips of the show from the perspective of a much more pop culture-savvy adult, I can now appreciate just how deft the film parodies on Animaniacs really were. The writers had an obvious love for classic film, and quite a few movies from the Golden Age of Hollywood were given the Animaniacs treatment: gentle (sometimes sarcastic) prodding, witty reenactment, and a healthy helping of innuendo, tempered by a great deal of affection for the source material and frequent breaking of the fourth wall.

For this week’s entry in our continuing Saturday Morning Cartoons series, here’s a sampling of some of my favorite classic movie parodies that were tackled by Animaniacs. Mind you, this is only a handful of the fantastic film spoofs this show has to offer …

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“Meatballs or Consequences”

Hands down, my favorite sketch from the show, ever. Yakko, Wakko, and Dot find themselves in Sweden facing “a literary personification of the state of non-being” in a game of checkers, in a phenomenal parody of Ingmar Bergman’s The Seventh Seal (1957). This one is filled with quippy gems. “All is strange and vague.” “Are we dead?” “Or is this Ohio?”

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“Bumbie’s Mom”

Slappy Squirrel’s nephew, Skippy, is traumatized by the on-screen death of “Bumbie’s” mother … much like the rest of us were. The look on Skippy’s face at the pivotal moment: priceless. [Note for Disney fans: Sherri Stoner, the voice of Slappy Squirrel, was the "motion model" for the characters of Ariel in The Little Mermaid (1989) and Belle in Beauty and the Beast (1991).]

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“Our Final Space Cartoon, We Promise”

A take on 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968). “AL 5000″ is not who you think he is. The animators went all-out for this one–even the wraparounds in the episode were parodies of the film.

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“The Boids”

The Goodfeathers get a job as extras/”stunt birds” in a Hitchcock film, and soon come to regret it as they clash with a Jack Nicholson-type crow on the set and realize acting is not exactly the easy life.

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“Mindy in Wonderland”

Of course, it should go without saying that the Alice in Wonderland parody is one of my favorites. Taking their cues from the 1951 Disney version of Lewis Carroll’s classic story, this one features Bernadette Peters stepping outside of her normal role as Rita and voicing the Cheshire Cat (Mindy, incidentally, is voiced by Nancy Cartwright, better known as the voice of Bart Simpson).

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“King Yakko”

One of the more in-depth and effective parodies offered by the show is this spoof on the 1933 Marx Brothers classics Duck Soup, with Yakko in Groucho’s place and Wakko taking on a Harpo-esque role.

Wait ’til you get a view of sweet Betty.

Posted on by under animated shorts, animation, classic cartoons, pioneers of animation

In 1918, Max Fleischer, the innovative mind behind early Walt Disney Studios rival Fleischer Studios, began producing a series of silent cartoon shorts called Out of the Inkwell. Much like earlier efforts by animation pioneers such as Winsor McCay, many entries in this series combined live-action with animation, showing Fleischer drawing the figures that would then come to “life” on the screen (as demonstrated in the 1921 short “Modeling“).

The Inkwell shorts featured two notable recurring characters: Koko the Clown, who was first animated in 1915 as Fleischer developed his revolutionary rotoscope (a device which allowed animators to trace over live-action scenes in order to recreate them in a relatively lifelike manner), and Fitz the dog, introduced as Koko’s sidekick in 1923. When Koko’s popularity waned by the end of the 1920s, the character was temporarily retired, and Fitz was re-envisioned as a leading man (so to speak) and renamed “Bimbo.” Bimbo became the first recurring character for the new sound-synchronized Talkartoons series, which replaced the silent Inkwell shorts in 1929.

After two successful solo cartoons, Bimbo was given a girlfriend in 1930′s Dizzy Dishes. But little did anyone realize that this new character, an anthropomorphic, stocking-wearing chanteuse/poodle who came to be known as Betty Boop, would become a groundbreaking cartoon character in her own right within months.

Thought not officially christened “Betty Boop” until the 1932 short Stopping the Show, the character, a quintessential flapper type, was popular almost from the start. She retained her canine features–low-hanging, floppy ears, a dog-like button nose, and a jaw structure that suggested a muzzle–until 1932, when she was redesigned to be more overtly human. This ultimately signaled the death knell for Bimbo; though Betty maintained a romantic relationship with Bimbo for a short while, he was ditched in 1933, as it was considered unseemly for a human girl to be in love with a dog (a year later, Betty was given a pet puppy named Pudgy, ostensibly to replace Bimbo as her sidekick).

The Betty Boop cartoons–at least, the ones produced before the enforcement of the Production Code in 1934–are not intended for children. There is a darkness to many of the earlier Boop shorts, which reference controversial themes such as rape (1932′s Chess-Nuts), sexual harassment (1933′s Betty Boop’s Big Boss), and even ephebophilia (after all, Betty’s supposedly only sixteen years old!). Tied into these darker themes is an inescapable, pervasive sexuality, marked by innuendo and risqué imagery. This is not to say that these early shorts are not enjoyable; quite the opposite, in fact, and they seem incredibly tame by today’s standards (as one might expect). But the scenarios in which Betty finds herself can be quite disturbing, and the innuendo is sometimes overly heavy-handed.

Whatever problems arise in Betty’s animated life, the girl just can’t help it: to co-opt Jessica Rabbit’s famous catchphrase, she’s not bad–she’s just drawn that way. As Grim Natwick, the animator who crafted the original design of Betty Boop under the auspices of Fleischer, once said, “Although she was never vulgar or obscene, Betty was a suggestion you could spell in three letters: s-e-x.” Indeed, every aspect of the character is designed to entice, from her Kewpie-doll features (inspired by actresses Helen Kane and Clara Bow) to her short, low-cut dresses and garters. And yet there is an innocence to Betty that is encapsulated in her breathy, squeaky, baby-talk voice, brought to life most memorably by voice-over artist Mae Questel (who also provided the voice for Fleischer’s other popular leading lady, Popeye’s paramour Olive Oyl). This makes for a character who is a potent combination of girl and woman, protecting her chastity from wolves and scoundrels while punctuating every song with an alluring wink and a shake of the hips.

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And now, four pre-Code Boop classics with which every self-professed fan of classic animation should be familiar …

 

Boop-Oop-A-Doop (1932)

Like Chess-Nuts, this short employs rape as a central conceit. Betty is the star of the circus, trying to avoid the advances of the smarmy ringmaster who’s determined to take her “boop-oop-a-doop away.” Can Koko’s interference save her from this awful fate? (Spoiler alert: it can, and he does.)

 

Minnie the Moocher (1932)

This one is notable for the vocal and musical contributions of the great Cab Calloway; in fact, the short opens with a great live-action shot of Calloway sliding sinuously across the screen in front of his orchestra as the music swells. There’s not much to the story–Betty doesn’t want to eat her dinner, so she runs away from her “mean” parents (with Bimbo by her side) and soon encounters Calloway’s jazzy ghost and his frightening friends–but it’s nonetheless a visual and musical treat.

 

Snow White (1933)

Betty’s outing as the Fairest of Them All predates Disney’s take on the story by almost four years. Again featuring the vocal stylings of Calloway, this skewed fairy tale is delightful from start to finish. Notably, the entire cartoon was crafted from start to finish by a single animator, Fleischer stalwart Roland Crandall, over the course of six months. Snow White is considered one of the greatest animated shorts ever produced, coming in at #19 on the 1994 list of the 50 Greatest Cartoons of All Time (and the aforementioned Minnie the Moocher is right behind it, at number 20 … as is another 1931 Bimbo-Betty short, Bimbo’s Initiation, at number 37).

 

Betty in Blunderland (1934)

This was one of the last Betty Boop cartoons to be produced and released before the strict enforcement of the Production Code would take effect in July 1934. As a lifelong, inveterate Alice in Wonderland fan, I’d be remiss not to mention this funny little take on Lewis Carroll’s twisted tale.

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For the most part, the shorts produced after 1934 lack bite and verve. The humor is watered down, Betty is covered up, and the naughty appeal of the previous cartoons is lost in a haze of family-friendly blandness. When the series concluded production in 1939, Betty was largely forgotten for a time until the shorts began airing on television in the 1950s. But she has found new life over the years through widespread (some would say “over-saturated”) merchandising, and she even made a brief cameo in 1988′s Who Framed Roger Rabbit. Most of the pre-Code Betty Boop shorts have not found their way to DVD yet, but some of her later, tamer appearances–the ones that have lapsed into the public domain–have been released as part of a number of mass-market, old-school cartoon compilations (though the quality of the transfers is typically lacking). Hopefully, the day will come soon when Betty Boop’s quirky and hilarious filmography will get the DVD/Blu-ray treatment it deserves, so new generations can continue to enjoy her antics!

 

This post is our contribution to the Short Animation blogathon currently being hosted by Pussy Goes Grrr. Make sure to check out all of the animated (get it?) entries that have been posted throughout the week!

Hey, Pluto!

Posted on by under blogathon, classic cartoons, classic disney, saturday morning cartoons

By 1930, Mickey Mouse had become a bona fide animated star. Since his creation two years earlier at the hands of Walt Disney and Ub Iwerks, he had starred in almost two dozen black-and-white shorts, ranging from his ever-popular debut in Steamboat Willie to Mickey’s Follies (1929), which introduced “Minnie’s Yoo Hoo,” the song that would remain Mickey’s theme for several years. These early cartoons became immensely popular, but after a few years, Disney’s writers and animators began having trouble crafting new, interesting material for the company’s flagship character. It didn’t help that the character of Mickey had begun to evolve (likely at Walt’s behest) from a sly schemer (a la his predecessor, Oswald the Lucky Rabbit) into a paragon of “good” behavior (albeit with some killer dance moves).

The development of a strong supporting cast of characters solved this problem, as figures such as the temperamental Donald Duck, the appropriately-named Goofy, and the rascally chipmunks Chip ‘n’ Dale allowed the animators to indulge in more varied storylines, with new gags that were sometimes silly, sometimes mean-spirited. Donald could be the bully, Goofy could do the crazy stunts, and Chip ‘n’ Dale could provide the mischievousness that Mickey’s sometimes bland portrayal lacked.

But those characters didn’t emerge until later (Goofy in 1932, Donald in 1934, the chipmunks in 1943). The earliest supporting characters in the Mickey shorts–figures such as Clarabelle Cow and Horace Horsecollar–would not prove to be as lasting a presence in the Mickey cartoons throughout the years. Though Mickey’s recurring early nemesis, Pete (who had originally debuted as a villain in the “Alice Comedies” and the Oswald shorts), would remain a go-to “bad guy” figure over the years, Clarabelle and Horace–and their barnyard friends–were not nearly as popular. By the late 1930s, the pair only appeared in a handful of shorts, and by the mid-1940s, they were essentially forgotten.

But in 1930, one of Mickey’s most popular and longest-lasting supporting characters was introduced, when he was given what every young, anthropomorphized mouse needs: a canine companion.

Pluto (or, as he was initially known, Pluto the Pup) didn’t start out as Mickey’s dog, however. In his first appearance, in 1930′s The Picnic, he was actually Minnie’s dog, and his name was Rover. But even before that cartoon, a precursor of Pluto popped up in The Chain Gang, which was released a month before The Picnic in 1930. In that short, Mickey escapes from jail and Pete is sent after him, trailing a pair of vaguely familiar-looking bloodhounds.

The design of these dogs was adapted and refined for The Picnic. In the cartoon, Minnie insists on bringing her “little Rover” along on the trip, and in a scene that likely enrages PETA advocates everywhere, Mickey ties the dog to the back of the car before driving off and dragging him behind. But when Pluto spots a pair of dancing (and honking) rabbits, the dog ends up dragging the car–and the hapless Mickey and Minnie–behind himself as he sets out on the chase.

Pluto debuted as Mickey’s companion almost seven months later, in the 1931 short The Moose Hunt. It is in this cartoon in which the character is first referred to as “Pluto.” The origins of the character’s name, however, have long been in dispute. More than a year earlier, in 1930, the current-dwarf-planet-formerly-known-as-a-”planet”-planet Pluto was discovered. It has long been believed that Disney subsequently named the dog after the planet (as opposed to the original source of the name–the Roman god of the underworld), but Disney never officially indicated why the name was ultimately given to the character. Still, it can’t be a coincidence that the name “Pluto” was in the news quite a bit while the dog was being created …

Over the years, Pluto has arguably become the most lovable Disney creation. And in many ways, this is due to his non-anthropomorphized nature. Unlike most of the other animal characters in the Disney universe, Pluto does not walk upright, nor does he speak, though he does occasionally snicker in addition to typical canine communication such as whining, barking, and growling. His movements and behavior are that of a dog–an uncommonly versatile dog, true, but a pet nonetheless.

In many ways, Pluto hearkens back to Winsor McCay’s Gertie the Dinosaur, the seminal animated short that inspired a generation of artists including Walt Disney himself. Gertie’s appeal as an animated creature that could communicate through sheer will of personality alone is revisited in Pluto’s antics. But Pluto also has the benefits of an overly expressive face, which can convey everything from joy to anger to utter befuddlement. Who needs words when the entire audience can tell what a character’s thinking with one quizzical glance or bared grimace?

This reliance on physicality is exemplified in Playful Pluto (1934), which is Pluto’s first significant role in a cartoon. It’s not the best Pluto cartoon–in essence, it’s little more than a series of funny vignettes in which Pluto’s titular playfulness interrupts Mickey’s attempts to get some work done around the house. But the scene that steals the show–and ultimately makes this cartoon an important one in the annals of animation–is a carefully-crafted sequence in which the dog has an uncomfortably close encounter with a sticky flystrip.

This scene has become famous over the years, and with good reason. Animated by Norm Ferguson, who had worked on developing the character from its earliest days, the “flypaper sequence” has been lauded by animators and historians for its realistic depiction of a “thinking” character. According to storied Disney animators Frank Thomas and Ollie Johnston, authors of The Illusion of Life (considered the veritable bible of animation by many in the field), this single minute-long scene was a groundbreaking moment in the development of animated characters whose thoughts could be telegraphed solely through their movements on the screen, as opposed to relying on dialogue to express their feelings.

As animation scholar Michael Barrier states in Hollywood Cartoons: American Animation in its Golden Age (2003):

“Throughout the sequence, Pluto’s state of mind is always visible, in his expressive face and body. The gags are well-constructed–everything that happens to Pluto seems possible, in a physical sense, with none of the gags forced–but it is the trajectory of the dog’s emotions that makes this sequence so vivid.”

Indeed, Pluto’s reactions to his predicament flow naturally from one impediment to the next. You can almost see the wheels turning in Pluto’s mind as he tries to extricate himself from the flypaper, his emotional responses running the gamut from startled to confused to determined to angry to purely frustrated. In an era when cartoon characters relied on witty dialogue and music to get their full intentions across to the audience, Pluto’s bout with the flypaper is truly a marvel.

Over the years, Pluto starred in a number of shorts, some with Mickey, some with Minnie,  and some on his own. He’s been paired with Donald Duck and Chip ‘n’ Dale in several cartoons. He has a particularly antagonistic relationship with the last two, as evidenced by shorts such as 1943′s Private Pluto (the chipmunks’ first appearance), the Oscar-nominated Squatters’ Rights (1947), and 1952′s Pluto’s Christmas Tree (which has always been one of my particular favorites).

And any time Mickey welcomed another pet into the house, Pluto had something to say (bark?) about it, whether it be Figaro, the mischievous cat from the 1940 film Pinocchio (see Pluto’s Sweater, 1949) or a fun-loving seal, as in the Academy Award-nominated cartoon posted above, 1948′s Mickey and the Seal.

In the early 1950s, Disney ceased production on Pluto-starring cartoons while continuing to produce toons featuring other characters such as the ever-popular Donald. But the lovable pooch is still a welcome presence in Disney shows and other modern media, including the early-2000s series House of Mouse, the current computer-animated Disney Junior series Mickey Mouse Clubhouse, and the Kingdom Hearts video games. Still, for me, his appeal will always lie in those early cartoons, because Pluto’s two-decade run of shorts produced some seriously hilarious and aww-inducing bits of animated genius.

Like Mickey, I just can’t be mad at’cha, Pluto, old boy.

***

Some more fun facts about the precocious pup:

  • For most of the first thirty years of his existence, Pluto’s barks and grunts were voiced by Pinto Colvig, who was also the original voice of Goofy (though he did not record Goofy’s infamous yodeling “holler”). Among numerous other roles, Colvig also played both Sleepy and Grumpy in 1937′s Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.
  • Playful Pluto is the cartoon shown to the convicts near the end of Sullivan’s Travels (1941), which prompts Sullivan (Joel McCrea) to realize the importance of humor in helping people get through their daily lives.
  • Though Pluto is known for being a non-speaking character, he actually does speak briefly in The Moose Hunt. When Mickey believes he has (accidentally) shot Pluto, he weeps and begs the dog to “speak to me–say something!” At that, Pluto sits up and says, “Kiss me!” while batting his eyelashes.
  • Pluto appeared in two entries in the Silly Symphonies series, both without Mickey: 1932′s Just Dogs, and 1936′s Mother Pluto.
  • In two different cartoons, Pluto is seen as having a family: in Pluto’s Quin-puplets (1937), he has a wife (Fifi the Pekinese) and five children, but in 1942′s Pluto Junior, he has a single son.
  • The Pluto-starring 1941 short Lend a Paw (a remake of the 1933 black-and-white cartoon Mickey’s Pal Pluto) won an Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film, beating out an unprecedented NINE other nominees, including another Disney cartoon, Truant Officer Donald.
  • When Mickey’s Christmas Carol, the first theatrical Mickey Mouse cartoon in thirty years, was released in 1983, Pluto was the only Disney stock character not to be featured (even though the long-forgotten Clarabelle Cow and Horace Horsecollar were!).

This post is our (long-winded) contribution to the Classic Movie Dogathon hosted by the Classic Film & TV Cafe. Make sure to check out the other wonderful entries that will posted between now and Wednesday, February 22nd!

Pioneers of Animation: Ub Iwerks (The Later Years)

Posted on by under classic cartoons, classic disney, pioneers of animation, saturday morning cartoons

After leaving Disney Brothers, Ub Iwerks’ own self-named animation venture, the Iwerks Studio, opened in 1930. Backed by Celebrity Pictures, with a distribution deal from major studio MGM, Iwerks was in an enviable position right out of the gate, making more money than he had ever made working with Walt Disney. He hired a group of fresh animators to work with him (a group that briefly included a young Chuck Jones). His first creation under his own banner was an anthropomorphic musical frog named Flip, who debuted in the six-minute short Fiddlesticks.

Fiddlesticks is noteworthy for being the first synchronized-sound two-strip Technicolor cartoon (it’s interesting to note that, when the three-strip color process was perfected a couple of years later, Disney produced the first cartoon in that mode, 1932′s Flowers and Trees–which would go on to win the first Academy Award for Animated Short Subject). Fiddlesticks also appears to feature a thumb to the nose of Disney, as one of Flip’s animal co-stars is a violin-playing mouse who strongly resembles the early concept sketches of Mickey Mouse.

After the success of Fiddlesticks, most of Flip’s future adventures were shot in black-and-white as opposed to the costly, time-consuming Technicolor process. And over time, at the behest of MGM, Flip’s design changed from amphibious to a more obviously human-like characterization, all in an effort to challenge the notably more human-like qualities of Mickey Mouse and crew. In all, Flip the Frog cavorted his way through just over three dozen shorts in the period between 1930 and 1933. When the public (and MGM) grew tired of the character, Iwerks retired Flip and debuted a new creation, Willie Whopper.

As his name implies, young Willie is a big fat liar, spinning tall tales for anyone who will listen. In his first appearance, 1933′s The Air Race, Willie tells his schoolyard chums the story of “the time I won the National Air Race.” The short even features a brief animated cameo by aviatrix Amelia Earhart, who crowns Willie the winner at the end. However, The Air Race was never released in public because MGM did not care for the final version. The story was reworked as Spite Flight, which would become the second Willie Whopper short distributed to theaters.

As with his predecessor, Flip, Willie Whopper went through several design changes over the course of the production of the shorts. Whereas in The Air Race Willie is a relatively thin young boy, in later cartoons he is drawn as much more rotund. Still, the changes did not result in longevity for Willie Whopper: while the character enjoyed a brief moment of popularity, ultimately only fourteen shorts were produced between 1933 and 1934.

Iwerks’ next endeavor was a series of shorts called ComiColor Cartoons, which his studio produced between 1933 and 1936. The ComiColor series ultimately represented the best of the Iwerks Studio’s output in the 1930s. The shorts were based on fairy tales and classic stories from literature ranging from Jack and the Beanstalk (the first ComiColor produced in 1933) to Don Quixote to the controversial Little Black Sambo cartoon (which was eventually banned). One particular short, 1935′s Balloon Land, gained a new audience in the 1980s after being featured on the popular children’s show Pee Wee’s Playhouse.

The ComiColor series was created using the Cinecolor process. Throughout most of the 1930s, Walt Disney held an exclusive contract with Technicolor, and no other studio could use that (infinitely better) process to make their own cartoon shorts. Cinecolor was the next best option, and was widely utilized by the lower-budget Hollywood studios. Many of the shorts were filmed by Iwerks himself using a multi-plane camera he had built from random parts of an old Chevrolet. The use of this camera allowed Iwerks to implement a sort of three-dimensional effect in some of the ComiColor cartoons–an impressive technique for the time (and one that would soon be replicated by Disney for the production of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs).

As innovative as some of the ComiColor shorts were, they marked the end of the Iwerks Studio. After MGM declined to continue distributing Iwerks’ products in 1934, distribution of the shorts fell to Celebrity Pictures. The arrangement would only last until 1936, and Iwerks was forced to close the studio that bore his name. For the next couple of years, Iwerks was a sort of freelance animator, producing several Looney Tunes shorts at Warner Bros. and working briefly for Columbia Pictures’ animation division.

It’s doubtful that the loss of the studio was particularly heartbreaking for Iwerks. Despite the initial success of the Iwerks Studio, the animator was never particularly happy in his new venture. By the end of the decade, he had to acknowledge to himself that his interests lay not in crafting new characters and stories, but in experimentation with the technology of the time, trying new, heretofore unseen tricks with the camera to better enhance the illusion at play. In 1940, Iwerks once again joined the Disney studio, albeit in a new capacity: as a special effects wizard.

Iwerks was more than up to the challenge. Within the first decade of his return to Disney, he invented a multi-head optical printer, a device which allowed for the realistic-looking combination of live-action and animation in 1940s package films such as The Three Caballeros and Song of the South. Never satisfied, Iwerks continued to tinker with his printer, improving its capabilities exponentially (and eventually winning the first of two technical Academy Awards for his efforts). Iwerks also conceived the idea of color traveling matte composite photography, the technology that made possible such sophisticated live-action/animation scenes as the penguin dance in 1964′s Mary Poppins.

Another innovation used in Mary Poppins that Iwerks helped to develop was the use of yellowscreen technology, in which actors were filmed in front of a white screen while being lit with sodium vapor lights. This process allowed for matte shots to be inserted into live-action shots, permitting live-action elements and animated scenes to blend together almost seamlessly. When Iwerks worked on the production of Alfred Hitchcock’s The Birds in 1963, he used the yellowscreen technology to compose the shots of the attacking birds (for his efforts, Iwerks was nominated once more for the Oscar for Special Effects, though he ultimately lost to Cleopatra, for some reason unbeknownst to yours truly).

Iwerks also took the existing technology of xerography and adapted it to the field of animation. He tinkered with a Xerox camera and eventually was able to design a device that would transfer animators’ drawings directly onto the animation cels as opposed to having each one individually hand-inked. This process was first used for the production of One Hundred and One Dalmatians, and it reportedly saved the Disney studios quite a bit of money that would have been spent trying to animate all of those multi-spotted dogs!

Not all of Iwerks’ time was spent working on films, however. In the 1960s, he joined what would later become the Disney Imagineering department, working on Disney theme park attractions such as “Pirates of the Caribbean” and “It’s a Small World.”

From animator to studio head to technical wizard, Ub Iwerks had a long, productive, and innovative career. By the time he passed away in 1971, at the age of seventy, he had secured his position as one of the true pioneers of modern animation. In recent years, his contributions have become even more well-known, and his role in elevating the House of Mouse to its storied heights has been recognized by the Disney company itself, which inducted Iwerks into its “Legends” hall of fame in 1989. Ub’s son, Don Iwerks, followed in his footsteps as a technical wizard in his own right, working for Disney for more than thirty-five years (and becoming a Legend himself in 2009).

The young innovators, Disney and Iwerks

Even though Walt and Ub’s friendship never recovered from Ub’s move towards independence in 1930, the two men truly comprised a partnership that was made in cinematic heaven. Each respected the other for what he could do, and each allowed the other to aspire to greatness. Though Iwerks was content to remain in the background in his later years, leaving the showmanship to Disney, his contributions were nonetheless vitally important to the development of the Walt Disney Company as a force to be reckoned with.