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Director: Ben Hardaway & Cal Dalton
Release Date: August 12, 1939
Stars: proto-Bugs Bunny
Rating: ★★½
Review:
In 1939 Ben Hardaway revisited the rabbit he had introduced in ‘Porky’s Hare Hunt‘ (1938).
The rabbit was completely redesigned, and received the colors that would make Bugs Bunny. However, the rabbit retained his loony character and Woody Woodpecker laugh, and is a far cry from the cool guy Bugs Bunny would become. But as he was Ben “Bugs” Hardaway’s bunny, it was this character that gave Tex Avery’s later star his name.
‘Hare-Um Scare-Um’ stars an anonymous red-nosed man who goes hunting when meat prices soar. In the forest he encounters the loony rabbit, who at one point even sings a song about how crazy he is.
There’s remarkably little to enjoy in ‘Hare-um Scare-um’, as neither hunter nor rabbit are sympathetic, and one doesn’t care for either. However, the short introduces cross-dressing, when the rabbit disguises himself as a female dog to attract the hunter’s pooch. This cross-dressing would become a popular feature of the later Bugs Bunny.
Watch ‘Hare-Um Scare-Um’ yourself and tell me what you think:
‘Hare-Um Scare-Um’ is available on the Blu-Ray set ‘Looney Tunes Platinum Collection: Volume 2’
This is the third of four cartoons featuring a Bugs Bunny forerunner
To the first proto-Bugs Bunny cartoon: Prest-O Change-O
To the next proto-Bugs Bunny cartoon: Elmer’s Candid Camera
Directors: Cal Howard & Cal Dalton
Release Date: June 11, 1938
Rating: ★★★★
Review:
At Katnip Kollege, all cool hep cats attend the swingology class. They all sure can swing, except bespectacled Johnny, who has no rhythm at all.
Johnny has to stay in the dunce’s corner, and at night he’s still there, while all other cats are having fun outside. But wait! Suddenly the clock gives Johnny the ‘rhythm bug’ and he rushes to the others to sing that swinging is ‘as easy as rollin’ off a log’ to his surprised girlfriend Claudia Kitty Brite. He also breaks into a hot trumpet solo, Roy Eldridge-style, which earns him kisses from his sweetheart.
‘Katnip Kollege’ is the second of only three films directed by the duo consisting of story man Cal Howard and animator Cal Dalton. The two Cals replaced Friz Freleng when he was lured away by MGM. After these three cartoons their unit was merged with that of Ben Hardaway, until Freleng returned from an all too short stint at the competing studio in 1940. In their films Howard, Hardaway and Dalton displayed not too much talent as directors, and although they produced some fun shorts, their cartoons are inferior to contemporary cartoons by Tex Avery, Bob Clampett, and Frank Tashlin.
‘Katnip Kollege’ is a clear example of their unsure style: the cartoon is low on gags, and the animation is erratic, with a lot of superfluous movement. At times it’s unclear whether the characters’ actions are supposed to be funny. Moreover, the school backgrounds feature incongruous over-sized tins, cans and clothes pins, as if the cat characters are supposed to be as tiny as bugs.
On the other hand, the swing music is genuinely intoxicating, the cartoon simply bursts with color, and the atmosphere is one of sheer joy, resulting in a really enjoyable cartoon. The cartoon easily beats ‘The Swing School‘ by the Fleischer studio, which was released only two weeks earlier, but which covers remarkably similar grounds.
Watch ‘Katnip Kollege’ yourself and tell me what you think:
‘Katnip Kollege’ is available on the DVD-set ‘Looney Tunes Golden Collection: Volume 2’
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Directors: Ben Hardaway & Cal Dalton
Release Date: July 9, 1938
Rating: ★★½
Review:
Love and Curses’ is set during the gay nineties and is a spoof of the classic melodrama, complete with mustached villain, a train track and a sawmill.
Unfortunately, the cartoon is hampered by the stiff melodramatic dialogue and the slow timing. Most of the ‘humor’ comes from the invincible hero Harold reciting proverbs all the time, but his appearances are tiresome, not funny. There are also a couple of throwaway gags, but these are mildly amusing at best.
This is one of those rather rare cartoons (not counting Popeye) featuring adult human designs, and the results are pretty unsteady. The animation of the girl singing at the nightclub is the most elaborate, but none of the animation is convincing.
Chuck Jones would visit the same kind of material four years later with ‘The Dover Boys‘, which seems light-years ahead of this cartoon.
Watch ‘Love and Curses’ yourself and tell me what you think:
‘Love and Curses’ is available on the DVD-set ‘The Busby Berkeley Collection’
Directors: Ben Hardaway & Cal Dalton
Release Date: May 1, 1939
Stars: Porky Pig
Rating: ★★★½
Review:
In ‘Porky and Teabiscuit’ Porky is the son of a farmer.
Porky’s father sends him away to the race track to sell hay. By accident Porky buys a sick horse, called ‘Tea Biscuit’, a salute to Seabiscuit, the most famous race horse of its time. Despite the horse’s illness, Porky enters a steeple chase with it, end even wins the race.
‘Porky and Teabiscuit’ pays tribute to Floyd Gottfredson’s classic Mickey Mouse comic ‘Mickey Mouse and Tanglefoot’ (1933). Where Tanglefoot won by his fear of wasps, Tea Biscuit wins by being startled by blows. Unfortunately, Hardaway & Dalton add nothing to this premise, and the result is a rather mediocre cartoon, albeit a quite entertaining one.
Watch ‘Porky and Teabiscuit’ yourself and tell me what you think:
This is Porky Pig cartoon no. 55
To the previous Porky Pig cartoon: Chicken Jitters
To the next Porky Pig cartoon: Kristopher Kolumbus, jr.
‘Porky and Teabiscuit’ is available on the DVD-set ‘Looney Tunes Golden Collection Volume Three’
Director: Boyd La Vero
Release Date: 1931
Stars: Marty the Monk
Rating: ★
Review
The work of Steve Stanchfield from Thunderbean Animation cannot be praised enough. His tireless work to unravel lost or forgotten animation films from the golden age has resulted in many great finds. Many of the films discussed on this blog can be found on Thunderbean Animation DVDs only.
However, there are times when Steve Stanchfield unravels something that is hardly worth unraveling. Boyd La Vero’s Marty the Monk series is one of those. The series, made for Associated Films, apparently only comprised three known episodes. These three shorts are typical products of the rubberhose animation era, but they are all hampered by erratic storytelling, poor animation, slow timing and hardly any sense of gravity.
In the first cartoon we watch several animals, including Marty, riding a streetcar to ‘Parade Grounds’, where Marty starts to conduct an orchestra, while a fashion show of bathing beauties is going on. One of the beauties is a female monkey, and the two dance together in what’s the only interestingly animated scene of the entire cartoon. Next there’s a diving contest, and the female monkey falls into the pond, to be rescued by Marty or is she?
There’s extremely little to enjoy in ‘Marty the Monk’, and to me it’s no wonder the character and his maker are forgotten today. So, who was Boyd La Vero? I have no idea. The only person telling us something on the internet is historian David Gerstein, who reveals that animator Cal Dalton (of later Warner Bros. fame) worked for him… Perhaps he can tell us a little bit more?
‘Marty the Monk’ is available on the DVD ‘Cultoons! Rare, Lost and Strange Cartoons! Volume 3: Monkeys, Monsters & More!’
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