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Director: Bob Clampett
Release Date: July 5, 1941
Stars: Porky Pig
Rating: ★★½
Review:
On September 26 1940 the Selective Training and Service Act came into effect. This was the first peace time conscription in the history of the United States.
By 1941 the draft was in full effect, as is reflected by cartoons like ‘Hysterical Highspots in American History‘, ‘Meet John Doughboy’, ‘Rookie Revue’ and ‘The Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy of Company B‘. Of the real draftee cartoons ‘Meet John Doughboy’ is probably the first. The short stars Porky Pig, who can boast to be the first major cartoon star to join the army. In November Porky was followed by Barney Bear (‘The Rookie Bear’) and Popeye (‘The Mighty Navy‘), while other stars only joined the war effort after the attack on Pearl Harbor, December 7, 1941.
Unfortunately, ‘Meet John Doughboy’ is not about Porky’s tribulations as a draftee. Instead Porky introduces a movie newsreel “chock full of military secrets, so if there are any Fifth Columnists in the audience, please leave the theater right now.”. This is immediately the best gag of the short, which is a rather trite spot gag cartoon.
‘Meet John Doughboy’ is mostly of historical interest. The film features some stark images of weaponry, in beautiful black and white contrasts. The cartoon even depicts a possible invasion by air, luckily easily dispelled by the Statue of Liberty with some use of inspect spray. Otherwise, it remains a rather uninteresting spot gag cartoon. Three months later, Friz Freleng made a color cartoon covering similar grounds in the even less funnier ‘Rookie Revue‘.
Watch ‘Meet John Doughboy’ yourself and tell me what you think:
This is Porky Pig cartoon no. 88
To the previous Porky Pig cartoon: Porky’s Prize Pony
To the next Porky Pig cartoon: We, the Animals, Squeak
‘Meet John Doughboy’ is available on the DVD-sets ‘Looney Tunes Golden Collection Volume Six’ and ‘Porky Pig 101’
Director: Bob Clampett
Release Date: December 20, 1941
Stars: Bugs Bunny, Elmer Fudd
Rating: ★★★½
Review:
When Tex Avery left Warner Bros. in 1941, Bob Clampett inherited his unit.
This is best visible in ‘Wabbit Twouble’, which features the same rich oil background art as Avery’s earlier cartoons. The short is Clampett’s only third Merrie Melody (and thus color cartoon), and his first take on Bugs Bunny, who still was only one-and-a-half year and seven cartoons old. Clampett’s take on the rabbit is quite different from his contemporaries. In a way he goes all the way back to Bugs Bunny’s forerunner in ‘Porky’s Hare Hunt‘ (1938), with Bugs Bunny taunting Elmer just for fun.
Elmer comes to ‘Jellostone park’ for rest and relaxation. But as soon as he has installed himself, Bugs starts nagging him. Bugs Bunny’s best trick is giving Elmer glasses which he paints black, making Elmer think it has become night already. Also involved in the routine is a bear, who even replaces Bugs as Elmer’s main problem. This leads to a chase scene, which is very remarkable as it almost consists of poses only, with little to no movement in between. Chuck Jones would expand on this animation on poses in ‘The Dover Boys‘, and this animation technique would become more dominant in the postwar era.
‘Wabbit Twouble’ features very unusual opening credits. First Bugs Bunny’s name is photographed using real carrots. Second, the credits are written on a moving landscape, a device that would be used extensively by Chuck Jones in the late 1950s and 1960s, and third, the names of all contributors are written in ‘Elmerfuddese’: thus ‘Wobert Cwampett’, ‘Sid Suthewand’ and ‘Cawl W. Stawwing’. This sequence alone shows how important Arthur Q. Bryan’s voice had become for the Elmer Fudd character, after only six cartoons.
Even more interesting, ‘Wabbit Twouble’ suddenly shows a fatter design of Elmer, which was modeled on Arthur Q. Bryan’s looks, so the animators could also use the actor’s funny movements. Unfortunately, Elmer lost a lot of his appeal with this fatty design, and it was only used in three more cartoons (‘The Wabbit Who Came to Supper‘, ‘The Wacky Wabbit’ and ‘Fresh Hare’, all from 1942). With Friz Freleng’s ‘The Hare-Brained Hypnotist‘ Elmer luckily was his normal self again.
Watch ‘Wabbit Twouble’ yourself and tell me what you think:
This is Bugs Bunny cartoon No. 7
To the previous Bugs Bunny cartoon: All This and Rabbit Stew
To the next Bugs Bunny cartoon: The Wabbit Who Came to Supper
‘Wabbit Twouble’ is available on the Blu-Ray set ‘Looney Tunes Platinum Collection: Volume 2’ and on the DVD-set ‘Looney Tunes Golden Collection Volume One’
Director: Bob Clampett
Release Date: November 1, 1941
Stars: Porky Pig
Rating: ★★★
Review:
In ‘Porky’s Pooch’ a dog tells his Scottish terrier friend how he managed to get a master.
This dog is a clear forerunner of Chuck Jones’s Charlie Dog, who would make his debut six years later in ‘Little Orphan Airedale’ (1947). Like Charlie Dog, this dog, called Rover, is an orphan, forcefully trying to make Porky Pig his master. Rover speaks in a similar way as Charlie, and even introduces the Charlie Dog lines “You ain’t got a dog, and I ain’t got a master’ and ‘and I’m affectionate, too’.
The dog also does a Carmen Miranda impression, most probably the first in an animated film, as the Brazilian actress had become famous only one year earlier, with ‘Down Argentine Way’ (1940). The short is also noteworthy for the use of real photographs as backgrounds, against which the characters read surprisingly well.
Watch ‘Porky’s Pooch’ yourself and tell me what you think:
This is Porky Pig cartoon no. 93
To the previous Porky Pig cartoon: Robinson Crusoe, jr.
To the next Porky Pig cartoon: Porky’s Midnight Matinee
‘Porky’s Pooch’ is available on the DVD sets ‘Looney Tunes Golden Collection Volume 5’ and ‘Porky Pig 101’
Director: Bob Clampett
Release Date: May 10, 1941
Rating: ★★
Review:
‘Farm Frolics’ was the second Merrie Melodie directed by Bob Clampett.
In this cartoon Clampett follows Tex Avery with his own spot gag cartoon, this time on farm life, making it strangely similar to the Walter Lantz cartoon ‘Fair Today‘ from only three months earlier.
The Warner Bros.’ spot gag cartoons rarely belonged to the best of their repertoire, and ‘Farm Frolics’, too, is hardly funny. Even the running gag of this forgettable cartoon is trite, and fails to provide a welcome finale. Nevertheless, the animation is very fine. For example, there’s some surprisingly realistic animation on a horse. Thus even this weak short shows that by 1941 the Warner Bros. animators could do almost everything.
Watch ‘Farm Frolics’ yourself and tell me what you think:
‘Farm Frolics’ is available on the DVD set ‘Looney Tunes Golden Collection Volume 5’
Director: Bob Clampett
Release Date: October 12, 1940
Stars: Porky Pig
Rating: ★★½
Review:
In ‘Prehistoric Porky’ Porky Pig follows the footsteps of Daffy Duck, who had started a prehistoric cartoon in ‘Daffy Duck and the Dinosaur‘.
Set rather extravagantly ‘one billion, trillion years b.c. (a long time ago)’ the short opens beautifully with several moving silhouettes of dinosaurs. Soon we cut to caveman Porky, who has a pet Brontosaur (erroneously with visible ears) called ‘Rover’. Porky reads in ‘Expire – the magazine for cavemen’, and discovers that his own bearskin is outdated. So he goes out to hunt for one. Unfortunately, he encounters a vicious sabertooth tiger…
Like almost all films set in the prehistory, ‘Prehistoric Porky’ cheerfully mixes all kinds of prehistoric periods together. Unfortunately, the short is rather low on gags, and has a trite ending. Moreover, most dinosaurs look like fantasy dragons, instead of the real thing. Yet, the sabertooth tiger is well animated, and it’s interesting to see Porky in a quasi-urban caveman setting, making the cartoon one of the forerunners of ‘The Flintstones’.
Watch a colorized version of ‘Prehistoric Porky’ yourself and tell me what you think:
This is Porky Pig cartoon no. 78
To the previous Porky Pig cartoon: Calling Dr. Porky
To the next Porky Pig cartoon: The Sour Puss
‘Prehistoric Porky’ is available on the DVD sets ‘Looney Tunes Golden Collection Volume 5’ and ‘Porky Pig 101’
Director: Bob Clampett
Release Date: November 2, 1940
Stars: Porky Pig
Rating: ★★★
Review:
When Porky reads in the paper that fishing season will open the day after, he goes out fishing with his cat next day.
At the pond they encounter a flying fish (actually a marine species), which soon turns out to be as loony as Daffy Duck. The fish has the last laugh, imitating comedian Lew Lehr, saying “pussycats is the craziest people”.
‘The Sour Puss’ is a pretty run of the mill cartoon, and over before you know it. Porky has a modest role in a cartoon that’s actually devoted to his cat. Most interesting is the convincing animation of Porky in his rocking chair: one can see his body shift to move the chair. Also noteworthy are a bizarre shot in which Porky imitates a fish, a mussel with Popeye-like arms, and the cat’s over-joyous reaction to Porky’s promise of a fish dinner: he even kisses a mouse, which prompts a canary on committing suicide, saying ‘Now I’ve seen everything’. This last gag was repeated by a Pete Lorre-like fish in ‘Horton Hatches the Egg‘ (1942), while the Lew Lehr line reappeared in ‘Scaredy Cat‘ (1948).
Watch ‘The Sour Puss’ yourself and tell me what you think:
This is Porky Pig cartoon no. 79
To the previous Porky Pig cartoon: Prehistoric Porky
To the next Porky Pig cartoon: Porky’s Hired Hand
‘The Sour Puss’ is available on the DVD sets ‘Looney Tunes Golden Collection Volume Four’ and ‘Porky Pig 101’.
Director: Bob Clampett
Release Date: April 27, 1940
Stars: Porky Pig
Rating: ★★½
Review:
Bob Clampett is one of the greatest ‘authors’ of the classic cartoon era, but not every cartoon he made was a winner. For example, ‘Porky’s Poor Fish’ is less than impressive.
‘Porky’s Poor Fish’ revisits a story idea that goes all the way back to the Silly Symphony ‘The Bird Store‘ (1932): a cat enters a pet store and when he catches one specimen, the other animals come to the rescue in a war-like reaction.
In Clampett’s film the bird store has changed in to a fish store, and the war scene involves a squadron of flying fish, a very silly hammerhead shark, and electric eels. There’s nothing special to the story, and the film’s charm and laughs lie exclusively in the abundance of puns, e.g. on holey mackerel and sole.
Watch ‘Porky’s Poor Fish’ yourself and tell me what you think:
This is Porky Pig cartoon no. 72
To the previous Porky Pig cartoon: Slap Happy Pappy
To the next Porky Pig cartoon: You Ought to Be in Pictures
‘Porky’s Poor Fish’ is available on the DVD sets ‘Looney Tunes Golden Collection Volume Four’ and ‘Porky Pig 101’.
Director: Bob Clampett
Release Date: March 29, 1941
Rating: ★★★½
Review:
‘Goofy Groceries’ was the first Merrie Melodie directed by Bob Clampett, and thus his first color film.
In this film Clampett made a follow up to Frank Tashlin’s cartoons, ‘Have You Got any Castles?‘ and ‘You’re and Education‘ (both 1938), in which things come alive at night, featuring Hollywood caricatures. Moreover, he maintains Tashlin’s high production standards and original cinematography. Thus, ‘Goofy Groceries’ is a beautiful and well-made picture, even though it makes little sense.
As the title implies, now things come to life in a grocery store, including caricatures of Ned Sparks, Jack Benny and Leopold Stokowski. The best parts are a Busby Berkeley ballet of some feminine sardines, and Tomato cans dancing a can-can. The musical number is interrupted by a King Kong-like gorilla, which prompts the stock battle scene, until he’s called home by his mother.
‘Goofy Groceries’ is far from a classic, but it shows that the Leon Schlesinger studio was capable to incorporate the innovations by one director, in this case Frank Tashlin, into other directors’ films, making the studio improve with a remarkably speed.
Watch ‘Goofy Groceries’ yourself and tell me what you think:
‘Goofy Groceries’ is available on the DVD sets ‘Looney Tunes Golden Collection Volume Three’
Director: Bob Clampett
Release Date: December 16, 1939
Stars: Porky Pig
Rating: ★★½
Review:
‘The Film Fan’ is one of those cartoons on cinema itself.
In this short Porky Pig is still a kid, sent to the grocery store by his mother. But when he passes a cinema with free admittance for kids, he rushes inside. What follows are some typical cinema annoyances, and advertisements for films like ‘Gone with the Breeze’. However, when an employee interrupts the program to say that “if there’s a little boy in this theater, that was sent to the store by his mother, he’d better go home right away’, Porky leaves the theater, together with all other kids…
There’s little to enjoy in ‘The Film Fan’, which is remarkably low on gags, most of them trite, and the film can’t stand the comparison with the similar ‘She Was An Acrobat’s Daughter‘ (1937).
Watch ‘The Film Fan’ yourself and tell me what you think:
This is Porky Pig cartoon no. 66
To the previous Porky Pig cartoon: Porky the Giant Killer
To the next Porky Pig cartoon: Porky’s Last Stand
‘The Film Fan’ is available on the DVD sets ‘Looney Tunes Golden Collection Volume Three’ and ‘Porky Pig 101’
Director: Bob Clampett
Release Date: November 26, 1938
Stars: Daffy Duck, Porky Pig
Rating: ★★★
Review:
Bob Clampett had animated Daffy Duck in his first appearance in’Porky’s Duck Hunt’ (1937), most notably the duck’s absolutely zany exit scene. Indeed, in Clampett’s view the duck was a real loon, and nowhere such a dangerous one as in ‘The Daffy Doc’.
In his first scene, Daffy is depicted as an absolute nut, comparable with other Clampett lunatics, like the loony goose in ‘Porky’s Party‘. In ‘Porky and Daffy’, Clampett had been the first director to take Daffy out of his natural habitat, and in ‘The Daffy Doc’ Clampett places him in a medical center.
Here Daffy is an assistant to Dr. Quack, but he’s thrown out when he shows some really insane behavior. Because of Dr. Quack’s kick Daffy’s head gets stuck in an iron lung, which leads to a nonsensical gag, in which different body parts inflate in succession. Undaunted, Daffy seeks out to find his own patient, and knocks down Porky Pig in order to ‘treat’ him. When Daffy wants to operate Porky with a saw and without any anesthetics, Porky naturally flees. The chase scene is short, however, and the cartoon ends with the same iron lung gag.
In ‘The Daffy Doc’ Daffy is more strange than really funny, and he suffers from the all too loony design and occasionally primitive animation. For example, there’s no lip synchronization to his dialogue. Worse, the best gag goes to Dr. Quack, whose operation turns out to be the repair of a football, which immediately prompts the operation audience into a game watching one.
Porky would have to stand a loony doctor once again in ‘Patient Porky’ (1940).
Watch ‘The Daffy Doc’ yourself and tell me what you think:
This is Daffy Duck cartoon no. 4
To the previous Daffy Duck cartoon: Porky and Daffy
To the next Daffy Duck cartoon: Daffy Duck in Hollywood
This is Porky Pig cartoon no. 49
To the previous Porky Pig cartoon: Porky in Egypt
To the next Porky Pig cartoon: Porky the Gob
‘The Daffy Doc’ is available on the DVD sets ‘Looney Tunes Golden Collection Volume Five’ and ‘Porky Pig 101’
Director: Bob Clampett
Release Date: November 5, 1938
Stars: Porky Pig
Rating: ★★★½
Review:
This cartoon starts with the call for morning prayer in a dream Egypt, which has more in common with 1001 Arabian nights than with the real state during the 1930’s.
We watch three Arabs rolling dice, a sexy veiled woman, who turns out to be hideously ugly, and the antics a fakir. Then we cut to some tourists taking a tour on a multi-bumped camel into a desert.
Porky Pig is a little too late to join them, and follows the group on his own camel, called Humpty Dumpty. Unfortunately, once they’re in the desert, the burning sun hits the camel with desert madness. In a wonderful scene, the camel loses grip and starts to hallucinate. The hallucinating effect is greatly added by twirling background images. In this scene the acting of the camel is no less than superb. The sheer manic power of this acting is unprecedented in any animated cartoon, and a subtle milestone of animation.
Unfortunately, the complete cartoon is more strange than funny. Notice the multi-door gag, which is halfway between the ones in ‘The Mad Doctor‘ (1932) and ‘The Northwest Hounded Police‘ (1946).
Watch ‘Porky in Egypt’ yourself and tell me what you think:
This is Porky Pig cartoon no. 48
To the previous Porky Pig cartoon: Porky’s Naughty Nephew
To the next Porky Pig cartoon: The Daffy Doc
‘Porky in Egypt’ is available on the Blu-Ray set ‘Looney Tunes Platinum Collection: Volume 2’, and on the DVD-sets ‘Looney Tunes Golden Collection Volume Three’ and ‘Porky Pig 101’
Director: Bob Clampett
Release Date: September 24, 1938
Stars: Porky Pig
Rating: ★★★★★ ♕
Review:
In ‘darkest Africa’ lies Wackyland, a wacky land indeed, defying all logic and laws of nature.
The importance of ‘Porky in Wackyland’ can hardly be overstated. This classic cartoon reintroduced complete nonsense back into the cartoon world, after a virtual absence of about five years – and with a vengeance. Interestingly, in ‘Porky in Wackyland’ seems to build on some promising ideas of some Van Beuren cartoons that never really matured in that studio, most notably ‘Jungle Jazz‘ (1930), with its surreal African creatures, and ‘Pencil Mania‘ (1932), with its characters drawing things in mid air, like the Do-Do does in Clampett’s cartoon.
However, ‘Porky in Wackyland’ mostly is the product of an evolution at the Warner Bros. studio itself, which started in 1935, when Tex Avery arrived. Since then Avery, Frank Tashlin and Bob Clampett had already experienced with natural law-defying and dimension-breaking cartoon scenes, but in ‘Porky in Wackyland’ these are unleashed full throttle. Anti-realism starts immediately, when the newspaper boy enters the title card, but it goes totally bezerk in Wackyland. Indeed, a sign says (with voice over): “It CAN happen here!”. What follows is a string of totally surreal and loony scenes, like a rabbit swinging on his own ears, which somehow hang in empty air, or a dog-cat-hybrid attacking itself.
The scenes with the Do-Do are even more outlandish. The Do-Do is a.o. able to pull a giant brick wall out of nothing, to sit behind a window, which floats in empty space, and he even appears on the WB logo, which suddenly appears from the horizon with the sole reason to make the Do-Do knock out Porky. The list is endless, and most of the action has to be seen to be believed.
All this weirdness is greatly enhanced by Stalling’s intoxicating score, a multitude of strange sounds and voices, and outlandish background paintings, which are sometimes reminiscent of the work of George Herriman and Cliff Sterrett (there are three simultaneous moons in one scene), and sometimes completely abstract, like the one in the scene in which Porky meets the Do-Do. All this makes ‘Porky in Wackyland’ the most surreal cartoon since Max Fleischer’s ‘Snow-White‘ (1933). In fact, Porky in Wackyland is more surreal even than most cartoons following it, and stands in a league of its own. Even if Bob Clampett would not have made any other cartoon, he would have been glorified just for this masterpiece of genuine silliness and imagination.
‘Porky in Wackyland’ was remade in 1949 in color as ‘Dough for the Do-Do‘, but now with totally different backgrounds, connecting its surreal aspects to fine art surrealism, most obviously Salvador Dalí.
Watch ‘Porky in Wackyland’ yourself and tell me what you think:
This is Porky Pig cartoon no. 46
To the previous Porky Pig cartoon: Wholly Smoke
To the next Porky Pig cartoon: Porky’s Naughty Nephew
‘Porky’s Double Trouble’ is available on the Blu-Ray set ‘Looney Tunes Platinum Collection: Volume 2’, and on the DVD-sets ‘Looney Tunes Golden Collection Volume One’ and ‘Porky Pig 101’
Director: Bob Clampett
Release Date: January 15, 1938
Stars: Porky Pig
Rating: ★★★★
Review:
‘Porky’s Poppa’ starts with a close harmony group singing a variation on ‘Old MacDonald had a Farm’, ‘Porky’s Poppa has a farm’.
On his farm Poppa also has a mortgage, and his prize cow, Bessie, is ill. So he orders a mechanical cow. Porky, however, revives Bessie, and makes her compete against the mechanical cow.
For his cartoons Clampett had redesigned Porky Pig, making him more boyish and more appealing than he was in Freleng’s, Avery’s and Tashlin’s shorts. Porky is still a child character in this cartoon, but the cartoon humor is not. Despite the sentimental Great Depression theme, this cartoon is delightfully silly and nonsensical.
‘Porky’s Poppa’ is only director Bob Clampett’s fifth film, and the short simply bursts with energy. The cartoon already shows what Clampett had in store for the world: nonsensical gags, zany animation and sheer fun.
Watch ‘Porky’s Poppa’ yourself and tell me what you think:
This is Porky Pig cartoon no. 34
To the previous Porky Pig cartoon: Porky’s Hero Agency
To the next Porky Pig cartoon: Porky at the Crocadero
‘Porky’s Double Trouble’ is available on the DVD-sets ‘Looney Tunes Golden Collection Volume Five’ and ‘Porky Pig 101’
Director: Bob Clampett
Release Date: June 25, 1938
Stars: Porky Pig
Rating: ★★★★
Review:
By 1938, the Warner Bros. Studio really started to hit its stride. ‘Porky’s Party’ is a good example of the studio’s new, confident and unique style, which owed virtually nothing to the Disney convention.
In ‘Porky’s Party’, Porky celebrates his own birthday. His party is hindered by a silk worm he gets as a present from uncle Phineas Pig. When one exclaims ‘sew’, the worm immediately starts sewing clothes out of nowhere, including a bra. It may be clear that once Porky says ‘So!’, the worm does the same thing. Another problem is Porky’s dog, who gets drunk on his hair tonic, and who’s mistaken of being mad. Porky’s guests aren’t helping either: one is a penguin who eats all his food, the other a particularly loony duck goose.
‘Porky’s Party’ is rather disjointed, but its atmosphere is strikingly silly, and the gags come in fast and plenty. Only the gag in which the penguin swallows a worm-produced silk hat, is milked too long. But mostly, ‘Porky’s Party’ is an early testimony of Warner Bros.’ unique, wacky style, which would dominate the war years.
Watch ‘Porky’s Party’ yourself and tell me what you think:
This is Porky Pig cartoon no. 42
To the previous Porky Pig cartoon: Porky the Fireman
To the next Porky Pig cartoon: Porky’s Spring Planting
‘Porky’s Party’ is available on the DVD-set ‘Looney Tunes Golden Collection Volume Three’
Director: Tom Palmer
Release Date: September 9, 1933
Rating: ★★
Review:
Early 1933 Hugh Harman demanded more money for their cartoons, but Leon Schlesinger refused it. This led to a break between the two, and Harman & Ising quit in June 1933.
This event left Schlesinger with a contract with Warner Bros. to deliver cartoons, but without a studio to make them. Moreover, he was without a cartoon star, as Harman & Ising had taken Bosko with them. Schlesinger quickly set up a studio of his own, at the old Warner Bros. lot at Sunset BLvd. He quickly signed several people to man his brand new studio, including Jack King from Disney, and Bob Clampett from Harman & Ising.
However, somehow he first trusted his new studio into the hands of a guy called Tom Palmer, tipped by his sound engineer, Bernard Brown. Palmer and his associate quickly came up with a brand new star called Buddy, whom Bob Clampett described as “Bosko in whiteface”. This is not entirely true, however, for where Bosko was devoid of personality, he was at least cheerful, and nicely drawn. Buddy, on the other hand, had an ugly design, and was bland as hell.
In ‘Buddy’s Day Out’, Buddy’s first film, even his makers were not sure what to make of him. He’s obviously drawn like a boy, but he drives a car, and has an all too clearly erotic relationship with his girlfriend Cookie. Added to these ‘stars’ are a little baby brother called Elmer and a dog called Happy, which is almost a copy of Terry from Disney’s ‘Just Dogs‘ (1932). As you may notice Buddy, Cookie and even Elmer follow a trend that had existed since the dawn of the sound era of creating a star and giving him a girlfriend. Obnoxious baby brothers are nothing new either, and appear in e.g. Fleischer’s ‘Let Me Call You Sweetheart‘ (1932), Van Beuren’s ‘In the Park‘ (1932), and in Columbia’s complete Scrappy series.
In their very first adventure the quartet go on a picnic, but problems soon start when Elmer runs away with the car. This part is absolutely action rich, but the complete cartoon lacks anything that resembles a gag. Palmer was not much of a gag man, let alone a director, and after ‘Buddy’s Day Out’ he directed only one more cartoon (‘I’ve Got To Sing A Torch Song‘) before Schlesinger fired him.
‘Buddy’s Day Out’ thus was the first cartoon of Leon Schlesinger’s very own studio, and it shows. Compared to the Harman & Ising Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies, ‘Buddy’s Day Out’ is clearly of a lesser quality. Especially the thin lining of the characters is subpar, as is the rather erratic animation on them. That said, the animation on ‘Buddy’s Day Out’ is still far better than practically any animation at Paul Terry or Van Beuren, and the short at least showcases a nicely animated train. However, the cliched blandness of Buddy and friends, and the lack of anything resembling humor make ‘Buddy’s Day Out’ a far from promising start for Schlesinger’s new star.
Nevertheless, Buddy was a child of his time, for in 1933/1934 cartoons moved away from the world of sex, booze and horror to a more childish world of fairy tales, nursery rhymes etc. It was Disney who had made the first move, but also Iwerks and Van Beuren had already drifted into that direction. Thus at Warner Bros. the supposedly black, somehow mature Bosko was replaced by the white, somewhat childish Buddy. The Hays code sealed the trend by banning sex, drugs etc. By 1934 cinema had entered its most infantile stage. And it was Buddy who would be Warner Brother’s epitome of this low point in early cartoon history, which would last until the end of 1935, when a guy called Tex Avery came along…
Watch ‘Buddy’s Day Out’ yourself and tell me what you think:
‘Buddy’s Day Out’ is available on the DVD-set ‘Looney Tunes Golden Collection Volume Six’
Director: Bernard Brown
Release Date: January 27, 1934
Rating: ★★
Review:
Mid-1933 Harman and Ising had quit with Leon Schlesinger after a dispute over money, leaving Schlesinger without a studio.
So Schlesinger quickly set up one at Sunset Boulevard, initially with help from sound engineer Bernard Brown and his friends. Brown even himself directed two cartoons during the studio’s chaotic starting months, of which ‘Pettin’ in the Park’ is the first.
Brown was no animator himself, and judging from this cartoon he was not much of a director, either: ‘Pettin’ in the Park’ just makes no sense. The first half is just an illustration of the song from the Warner Bros. musical ‘Gold Diggers from 1933’, featuring the familiar theme of a cop courting a babysitter (see also Fleischer’s ‘Let Me Call You Sweetheart‘ and Van Beuren’s ‘In the Park‘ (1933). The second half suddenly reports a diving contest and a swimming race between birds. Bridging the action is a cheeky little penguin – what he does in a park no-one will ever know.
There’s a surprising lack of continuity and consistency rarely seen outside the Van Beuren studio output, and the cartoon is of an appalling low quality, especially when compared to the earlier Harman and Ising output. Even worse, few of the gags come off, and none is anything near funny.
Nevertheless, even a terrible film like ‘Pettin’ in the Park’ shows that the typical Warner Bros. animation style, developed at Harman & Ising, had not been lost. It certainly helped that Schlesinger had managed to hire away some crew from his former associates. Bob Clampett, for example, who gets his first billing as an animator here. Clampett and Jack King (hired away from Disney) are clearly trying to put some pepper into the hopeless scenes. Thus despite its story atrocities, even ‘Pettin’in the Park’ displays Warner Bros. own distinct animation style, which, in 1933 was second to Disney only in quality.
Watch ‘Pettin’ in the Park’ yourself and tell me what you think:
‘Pettin’ in the Park’ is available on the DVD-set ‘The Busby Berkeley Collection’
Director: Bob Clampett
Release Date: April 11, 1942
Rating: ★★★★★ ♕
Review:
‘Horton Hatches The Egg’ is a unique film within Bob Clampett’s oeuvre, and indeed the complete Warner Bros. canon: it’s the studio’s only book adaptation, it lacks sex and violence, and there is nothing of the zany and extreme animation so typical of Clampett’s unit.
Instead, we’re treated on a surprisingly faithful adaptation of Dr. Seuss’s children’s book to the screen. The cartoon uses most of Dr. Seuss’s rhymes, with adding only a little dialogue of its own, which is easily identifiable because of the lack of rhyme. Dr. Seuss’s designs, too, are wonderfully transferred to the animated screen. Especially Horton and the other forest animals have a distinctive Dr. Seuss character.
The Warner Bros. team departs from Dr. Seuss’s drawings, however, in the human designs. The three hunters are rather bland in Dr. Seuss’s children’s book, but Clampett made them a very funny trio in the cartoon. Moreover, some of the wild Warner Brothers humor has crept into the cartoon, most typically two movie star references, which, unfortunately, date the film a little: Lazy Mayzie imitates Katharine Hepburn, and there’s a fish with Peter Lorre’s features, who, after seeing Horton on a ship, shoots itself, exclaiming “Now I’ve seen everything!”.
Today, a gag like this is regarded inappropriate for children, and it might be this gag that is responsible for the little screen time the cartoon gets today. This is very unfortunate, because this animated adaptation of a Dr. Seuss book is not only the first of all, it is also one of the best, being second only to Chuck Jones’s ‘How The Grinch Stole Christmas‘ from 1966.
Watch ‘Horton Hatches the Egg’ yourself and tell me what you think:
http://www.metatube.com/en/videos/195775/Horton-Hatches-the-Egg-Cartoon-1942/
Director: Bob Clampett
Release Date: September 25, 1943
Stars: Bugs Bunny, Porky Pig, Elmer Fudd, Daffy Duck?
Rating: ★★★★★ ♕
Review:
‘A Corny Concerto’ is a two part spoof on Disney’s most ambitious feature, ‘Fantasia’ (1940), using two waltzes by Johann Strauss jr.
The cartoon features a very Fantasia-like opening, with Elmer Fudd as a clear caricature of Deems Taylor. He announces ‘Tales from the Woods’, which tells about Porky Pig and a dog hunting Bugs Bunny. Porky fills the role of Elmer Fudd in this sequence, and it’s the only cartoon in we can watch him hunting Bugs Bunny. This first part is a classic Bugs Bunny routine, complete with death scene, but now timed to music and acted in pantomime. With its overt mix of high culture and silliness this part is a direct ancestor to Chuck Jones’s later ‘What’s Opera, Doc?‘ (1957).
The second part is a story on ‘The Blue Danube’. It opens with flowers dropping on water, just like in the Nutcracker Suite sequence in Fantasia. This part tells about a little black duck, an infant version of Daffy Duck, trying to join a family of swans, and finally saving them from a vulture by destroying him with TNT. As this story is some kind of inverse of ‘The Ugly Duckling‘ (another acclaimed Disney masterpiece), this could be considered to be a parody within a parody.
Apart from Elmer Fudd’s speeches, the cartoon is completely pantomimed, and full of the wild and zany animation so typical of Bob Clampett’s unit. The backgrounds are lush and colorful, and reminiscent of the the Pastoral Symphony sequence in the original Fantasia. Their designs become overtly ridiculous in ‘The Blue Danube’, with Greek columns placed randomly in the water.
The result is a highly original mix of style and nonsense, and a great testimony of what Leon Schlesinger’s studio could do on a limited budget. In all, the cartoon is an undisputed classic, and very enjoyable, even if you don’t know its topic of parody.
Watch ‘A Corny Concerto’ yourself and tell me what you think:
This is Bugs Bunny cartoon No. 19
To the previous Bugs Bunny cartoon: Wackiki Wabbit
To the next Bugs Bunny cartoon: Falling Hare
This is Porky Pig cartoon No. 102
To the previous Porky Pig cartoon: Porky’s Pig’s Feat
To the next Porky Pig cartoon: Tom Turk and Daffy
Director: Bob Clampett
Release Date: October 3, 1942
Rating: ★★★★★
Review:
‘The Hep Cat’ was the first Looney Tune made in color. As the Merrie Melodies already were in color, this cartoon heralded a full color era for the Leon Schlesinger studio.
In ‘The Hep Cat’ the dog Rosebud (Willoughby but with another name) tries to catch a ‘hep cat’, a feline womanizer who, on his turn, tries to get a girl, a.o. by speaking with a deep french voice, anticipating the romancing skunk Pepe Le Pew by three years. Rosebud succeeds to seduce the jive cat by using a sexy kitten-like hand puppet. He looses the chase however, and in the last shot we can see the hep cat stroking the hand puppet, saying, with a Jerry Colonna voice ” I can dream, can’t I?”.
‘The Hep Cat’ does not have much of a story, but who cares? It’s an intoxicating and jazzy cartoon, and from the moment the Hep Cat starts singing ‘Java Jive’ with alternate lyrics, you’re lost. The short is fast and funny, full of uninhibited sex and violence gags and throughout the picture one keeps marveling at the extreme and amazingly flexible animation from Bob Clampett’s unit.
Watch ‘The Hep Cat’ yourself and tell me what you think:
Director: Bob Clampett
Release Date: June 9, 1945
Stars: Tweety
Rating: ★★★★★ ♕
Review:
Two cats, a yellow dopey one and a red one who’s a caricature of Jimmy Durante, fight over a little white kitten.
She tells them that she’ll go out with the first who brings her a little bird. Enter Tweety, who, despite his cute and helpless appearance, finishes with the two cats in no mild manner. On the contrary, ‘A Gruesome Twosome’ is probably the most violent of all classic cartoons. It’s also very beautifully animated, full of wild and zany action, and simply hilarious. The highlights are a dog, who “doesn’t actually belong in the picture” and a very silly pantomime horse costume.
With ‘A Gruesome Twosome’ director Bob Clampett made one of his most extreme cartoons. Its outrageousness splashes from the screen in every scene. Its theme of sex and violence is executed in a much wilder way than Tex Avery would do, let alone any other director of the era. The cartoon’s sheer energy still impresses today. In this way, ‘A Gruesome Twosome’ may be viewed as the ultimate Bob Clampett film.
‘A Gruesome Twosome’ was the last of the three Tweety cartoons Bob Clampett directed (the other two being ‘A Tale of Two Kitties’ from 1942 and ‘Birdy and the Beast’, 1944). The character would reappear in a redesigned, less grotesque and much cuter form in 1947 in ‘Tweety Pie’ to start a much better known career with Sylvester, as directed by Friz Freleng.
Watch ‘A Gruesome Twosome’ yourself and tell me what you think:
Dr. Grob's Animation Review 