What About Thad?

Just to break up the monotony of Looney Tunes, here’s a pseudo-Looney Tune…

These Blackie vs. Wolfie shorts are some of the rarer gems of 1940s cartoonery. The shorts are obviously inspired by Bugs Bunny, but they still manage to have their own identity – the characters are always trying to kill each other, but they’re almost suburbanites in being on first-name terms with each other. Lamb in a Jam and Sheep Shape are even better than this one, but I don’t have presentable copies of either now, unfortunately. I posted about the first, and best, of the cartoons, No Mutton fer Nuttin’, here.

The animation by Dave Tendlar’s crew (his star animator was powerhouse Marty Taras) is full of vigor, echoing some of Bob Clampett’s work in that every miniscule action has a mind of its own. The scenes with the ‘ear-drum’ and Wolfie inhaling the ‘mint julep’ are at least as good as any animation done at Warners at the time. There’s even some well-acted footage of Wolfie dying of sunstroke in the desert (this looks like it could be Morey Reden’s work, though it might not be).

What most people don’t understand about Famous Studios is that while there were several units operating with a lead animator, those leaders didn’t direct in the fashion that the Warner or MGM directors would (the ‘idealized’ director system, which almost never, ever happens in animation, anywhere). Rather, head hacks Seymour Kneitel and Izzy Sparber would have final approval over everything, and almost always water everything down to a meandering 1-2-3 pace (Tendlar and Tom Johnson still managed to get the best results possible out of this system). Animation veteran (and treasure) Howard Beckerman told me there was no shortage of talent at Famous and some of them could have become high-profile directors if it weren’t for these management politics. The Paramount suits sure didn’t get in the way – they just cared if the pictures were clean, not if they were any good.

Regardless, the best of the 1940s Famous Studios cartoons remain the most underrated and neglected of animation’s golden age (along with Shamus Culhane’s work at Lantz). There’s a lingering stigma to reject them because they require a bit more work to get into, but trust me, find the right ones, like this one, and you’ll be rewarded.

Much Ado About Mutton was the last of the Sheep-Wolf cartoons, and the Blackie character axed permanently. (Wolfie would live on to harass other small creatures and be occasionally scared shitless by Casper the Friendly Ghost.) Here is a Tendlar model sheet of the character done for this particular cartoon (courtesy of Bob Jaques).

This was the first time in a long while that I went out of my way to look at an early Chuck Jones cartoon, so bear with me. Jones’ cartoons in his fake-Disney period all blend together in my mind, and I’d be fine with never seeing them again. This particular cartoon, Dog Gone Modern isn’t bad, but it’s not good either. It’s probably better than most cartoons released in 1939, and is better-acted and animated than most of the Disney cartoons it’s imitating (though it has no excuse not to, seeing as Jones had both Bob McKimson and Ken Harris in his unit at the time).

Jones’ drawing and acting style is already evident here, so even in his second cartoon the characters are making coy, wry expressions. But in having this style, the director is setting us up for jokes that don’t happen. The smaller dog slyly pushes a button after being warned not to – and a table just drops out, frightening him. That’s the gag? That there’s no payoff? He just runs off like a dog? To be blunt, that ‘Imitation of Life’ shit’s just not funny, no matter how many books say it is.

Another problem is the movement and timing aren’t funny. 1939 was not a good year overall for the Schlesinger studio, but at least the Avery and Clampett pictures were brisk and snappy in their execution. The robot (how the hell do you think up a design like that?) in particular is rather floaty in its animation in some scenes. What little looseness present here started to disappear as he got deeper into the fake Disney mire. You can clearly see Jones had the tools to make much faster pictures, but he was very conscientiously ignoring the opportunity, probably trying to grab Walt Disney’s attention by making Norm Ferguson clones and get a job offer.

The offer never came, so fast forward eight years later, when Jones was eight times the director he once was, and well into a long period when he was incapable of not making a great cartoon (even objectively, it’s at least a period of ten years). Jones’ cartoons were as crazy and innovative as any of the Avery or Clampett cartoons, just in a different way. (i.e. Jones the psychopath to Clampett the sociopath).

Same director, same animators, and same story as Dog Gone Modern, but House Hunting Mice shows how much Jones (and Warner cartoons in general) had grown and learned from his contemporaries over the years. The actual drawing and animation is not only beautiful, but funny too, not an easy combination. The writing and gags are sharp, with the mice in a literal battle of wits with the modern home, using the home to fight itself as much as it’s fighting them.

Hubie and Bertie are great personalities, unlike the other mice that infest animation. Hubie is an apt caricature of the Dead End Kids, whereas Bertie borderlines between naive and mentally retarded, as exemplified in his hilarious entrance. A shame Jones decided to axe the characters; it may have been a powerplay, as the actual characters had more of Mike Maltese in them than Jones, just as the Three Bears did. (Though with the bears, those cartoons actually were getting terrible reviews, so there might have been some legitimacy to pull the plug in that case.)

The robot is a great example of how even a noncharacter can be given life if it’s just moved well enough; it’s actually a menace to the mice, and the humor of the situation is improved from the dilemma in Modern, where it’s not just the cheese that’s considered waste, but Bertie too. It’s easily the best robot ever animated, and it doesn’t even have a face. (The hell with Wall-E – again.)

Let me point out before others do – House Hunting Mice probably has the best usage of Raymond Scott’s Powerhouse ever. I’m not comfortable enough with making identifications on the whole cartoon, but I can say with certainty that Ken Harris animated the opening and closing scenes, and Ben Washam did the whole sequence involving Hubie getting ‘mangled’ in the laundry.

Incidentally, I hope you noticed the original titles (sourced from my 16mm film collection) are on this copy. I guess you’ll just have to look at my blog for restorations of real Warner cartoons, since it’s not happening on home video.