What About Thad?

Bob posted a clip that Ben Solomon animated from We’re On Our Way to Rio, so I thought I’d post the whole thing. This was one of the last cartoons done at the Miami studio, the key tipoff being Dave Barry voicing Bluto. This is a very well-directed and animated cartoon (save those creepy band members). Solomon’s dance animation of Popeye has real weight to it and is wonderful at showcasing the sailor’s dancing incompetency. Jim Tyer’s animation is hysterical and really captures the ugly insanity that is the Popeye-Olive-Bluto triangle. I bet this was pure eye candy to see in Technicolor, but alas, all we have for now is a faded TV print.

(This version was planned for Cartoon Network’s THE POPEYE SHOW when they found the opening and closing titles’ soundtrack, but was shelved.)

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Frank Tashlin’s reign as head of the Screen Gems cartoon studio didn’t even last a year, but his experimentation aura continued on even after he left and Dave Fleischer took over (which occurred, as John Hubley remembers, because “he was so out of it, he was so completely detached, that he was never any problem.”)

On the whole, they are a mixed bag, as with all eras of all things Screen Gems. The Fox and Grapes and Wolf Chases Pigs are masterworks. Dog Meets Dog is better at doing the Disney-style than Disney did themselves. Wacky Wigwams actually makes the Pete Smith “spot-gag” format a joy to watch with practically every scene animated by Emery Hawkins. Pete Pelican brought new lows to cartoon filmmaking with The Tangled Angler and Under the Shedding Chestnut Tree. Old Blackout Joe is one of the most un-racial cartoons ever made starring a black character.

In spite of the vastly underrated Bob Wickersham being the de-facto director of this cartoon, Tashlin’s style is all over this film: the weird cutting, a “montage” of past events (seen in many other Columbia shorts), and the unrelenting antagonist. I can’t think of any cases, other than Walt Disney, where the producer’s point-of-view/style was evident in films he only produced and not direct. (I suppose, arguably, Hubley at UPA would be one; and less arguably the Fleischers in the 1930s.)

For your enjoyment this is the original theatrical version. The home movie version in trading circles clipped a bit of footage at the beginning when they redid the title art.

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It’s been awhile since I’ve done a Tom and Jerry animator breakdown, so here is one of the best ones.

One of the problems I’ve started to have with a lot of T&J (and the Hanna-Barbera team’s direction in general) is that the gags don’t have much of a payoff, or at least ones I laugh at. Even in the best ones, like Mouse Trouble, there’s the infamous “surprise package” that goes on for half a minute, that doesn’t even have a payoff until we see that Tom actually did survive the Guantanamo Bay treatment in the next scene – a payoff I do laugh at, but it takes too long to get to. Had such a gag arose in a Friz Freleng Sylvester, the humor would have derived from the fact that we don’t see the cat get mutilated, and only see the results.

Mike Barrier has said that the H-B T&Js are “Terrytoons in a Harman-Ising shell,” which is too sweeping a statement. While it’s clear that H-B were not nearly as talented or inventive in their directorial approach as their co-worker Tex Avery (or most of their contemporaries at Warners), most Terrytoons generally feel as though somebody told those guys about comedy timing (never mind animation timing) over the phone, a vibe even the worst T&Js don’t give off.

Mouse Trouble, though, works on several levels. The cartoon, with its frequent renditions of “All God’s Chillun Got Rhythm”, is timed and animated like a musical, even more so than the ‘actual’ musical T&J shorts. For once the Bradley score and the action onscreen are in perfect balance. When Tom places the mouse trap, he just doesn’t scurry out of sight, he dances out of sight. Even the underscore of Tom setting the bear trap is meticulously done. The obscene violence also actually builds up in the short, leading to Tom’s inevitable demise. And you’ve got Jerry blatantly taking the Mae West quoting wind-up toy to make sexytime with. (Amazing that it got passed Joe “sex isn’t real” Breen; but then again, Tom & Jerry is the last series you’d think of looking for sexual promiscuity in).

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