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Director: Jack Hannah
Release Date: April 25, 1961
Stars: Chilly Willy, Wally Walrus
Rating: ★★
‘Clash and Carry’ pairs Wally Walrus with Chilly Willy. The latter is hungry and tries to steal fish from Wally’s fish market.
To be frank, Wally clearly is no match for Chilly Willy, who easily empties the complete store before Wally’s eyes. The best gag is when Chilly Willy uses cardboard plaques attached to shopping carts to empty Wally’s market. The cardboard women all carry a sign telling Wally to ‘charge it’. Soon, more outlandish cardboard figures follow, like a picture of Napoleon. But Wally only sees his fish selling, and calls all ships out sea to catch more fish. This leads to live action footage of fishing boats, and even a whale hunt.
Unfortunately, neither story man Homer Brightman nor Jack Hannah apparently knew how to work this gag into the finale, and so, the cartoon dies out with the lame sight of Chilly Willy playing a vacuum cleaner like bagpipes, with marching fish behind him, apparently sucked by the vacuum cleaner.
Apart from the utterly disappointing finale, the short is hampered by Wally’s omnipresent vocalizations (by Paul Frees), which only become funny during the great scene mentioned above. Apart from that ‘Clash and Carry’ remains a very mediocre cartoon.
Watch ‘Clash and Carry’ yourself and tell me what you think:
‘Clash and Carry’ is available on the DVD-set ‘The Woody Woodpecker and Friends Classic Cartoon Collection Volume 2’
Director: Tex Avery
Release date: April 11, 1955
Stars: Chilly Willy
Rating: ★★★★★ ♕
Review:
In ‘The Legend of Rockabye Point’ a polar bear tries to steal blue finned tuna from a ship which is guarded by a vicious bulldog.
However, he’s hindered by Chilly Willy, who does anything to awaken the bulldog. The polar bear repeatedly tries to save his skin by singing the bulldog back to sleep. In the end, it has become a habit, and we watch the old-aged polar bear singing his old friend to sleep in his arms.
Penned by Michael Maltese, this cartoon shares some ideas with ‘Deputy Droopy’ (which was made earlier, but only released six months later), but the result is fresh and original. ‘The Legend of Rockabye Point’ was the third of four cartoons Tex Avery made at Walter Lantz’s studio, and without doubt it is the best of the lot. Avery’s timing is, as always, excellent, and the gags come fast and funny. In fact, the cartoon is one of Tex Avery’s all time best, and it stands as Avery’s last masterpiece.
Watch ‘The Legend of Rockabye Point’ yourself and tell me what you think:
Director: Tex Avery
Release date: December 20, 1954
Stars: Chilly Willy
Rating: ★★★★★
Review:
In 1954 Tex Avery left MGM to return to his first employer in the animation field, Walter Lantz, at whose studio he had been an animator in the early 1930s.
I’m Cold’ was the first of a mere four cartoons Tex Avery made at Walter Lantz’s studio. In this cartoon he sets his teeth on a character introduced in 1953 called Chilly Willy, a cute little penguin.
Like Pablo the cold-blooded penguin from ‘Three Caballeros‘ (1944), Chilly Willy finds it too cold in Antarctica. Avery, however, uses this premise with much funnier results. In an attempt to get warm, Chilly Willy sneaks into a fur coat store, guarded by a phlegmatic dog who shares a Daws Butler voice with the laid-back wolf from Tex Avery’s ‘Three Little Pups‘ from 1953. This phlegmatic dog was reused in at least four more Chilly Willy cartoons.
Avery is in excellent form here, delivering a perfectly timed cartoon. ‘I’m Cold’ demonstrates how genius can overcome small budgets and limited (animation) talent. Even Clarence Wheeler’s music sounds more inspired and certainly funnier than normal. Of course, the product was much cruder than Avery’s films at MGM had been, but at the same time it was much better than any earlier Lantz film from the 1950s. And, Avery’s second film featuring Chilly Willy, ‘The Legend of Rockabye Point‘ (1955) would even be better…
Watch ‘I’m Cold’ yourself and tell me what you think:
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