Just got in a copyright synopsis of the Tex Avery short Dumb-Hounded from David Gerstein. Fortunately the MGM copyright synopses are the most detailed of all the studios. No other’s synopses have scene by scene descriptions like this, so it’s easy to notice changes made in the reissues, like the wartime references that were originally in the newspaper headline, or how “Runnin’ Wild” played over the credits.
Monthly Archives: March 2009
Middle Age Fan Boys
“Make your own film.” This is my favorite quote ever, because it comes up so often in the Internet age, when people get venomous over whenever their own film or a film they like is criticized. We got taught in theater class that this is usually the response from people who either make films that regularly get poor reviews, or from those who work on such bad films that even mediocre ones (older or current) seem like Godsends. So yeah, I guess if I worked on whatever’s running on Cartoon Network right now, I’d be in awe of a waste of film like Disney’s Robin Hood (the film Hanna-Barbera would have made if they got the Disney staff on loan for a year) too. If you know what I’m talking about, good. If you don’t, disregard this. Rant over and out.
Filed under uncreative writing
Pointless Tidbit: Animated Silhouettes
Watching the great Chuck Jones short 8 Ball Bunny for the umpteenth time on film, I noticed something I hadn’t before: that in the wonderful Ken Harris scene of Calypso Bugs, when it cuts to the penguin building the boat, we still see Bugs in the background as an animated silhouette. Can anyone think of other scenes like this where a silhouette is actually animated, but is not the focus of the shot?
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This is another example of Jones and his unit at the height of their powers. The scene is made even funnier by how Bugs seems utterly offended by Bogart having the audacity to interrupt his song in this filler exposition scene, and then immediately resuming his deadpan expression.
Filed under classic animation
The Fitzgerald-Pratt Gangbang
Life with Feathers is an important cartoon for another reason other than it was the first cartoon with Sylvester. I corresponded with Mike Barrier over when exactly Hawley Pratt began working as Friz Freleng’s layout artist, and this is what he had to say:
Owen [Fitzgerald] said that his last work for Freleng was in early ’44, on a cartoon that was almost certainly Life With Feathers (which he misremembered, understandably, as the first Sylvester and Tweety); Owen said that Pratt took over for him on that cartoon. Pratt’s next work for Freleng was probably Hare Trigger; Freleng told me twice that that was the first cartoon Pratt laid out for him, and it was the next Freleng cartoon after Life With Feathers on the release schedule. Holiday for Shoestrings has an earlier production number, and a Pratt credit, but it was released almost a year after Hare Trigger.
Pratt was an assistant animator at Disney, moved over to Warners as an inbetweener and then an assistant (to [Dick] Bickenbach) after the strike, until he became Freleng’s layout man.
People take for granted how Freleng turned out so many black comedies on a regular basis. He may have done more than Jones if we’re going by how many involve a character’s life-at-stake being played for laughs. This is by far the funniest cartoon turned out by the studio that year, and that’s not a small accomplishment. So much worthier of the Oscar than yet another standard Tom & Jerry. How many other times was an iconic character completely nailed (in design, voice, characterization, whatever) on the first go? (Well, other than the other iconic Freleng character established in 1945…)
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Judging by the comments over the ones Jerry Beck has posted over on Cartoon Brew lately, it seems that a lot of people take offense to these asshole wife/dweeb husband cartoons. I say the hell with ’em.
Filed under classic animation
