I don't know if I'm sub-consciously writing more about Warner Brothers cartoons or not. I may have touched upon this in a previous entry but I tend to not write as much about the Warner cartoons because there's so many people who do...I tend to spotlight the lesser-known or the made-for-TV programs from Hanna-Barbera simply because there's not a whole wide spectrum of sites that specialize in those cartoons whereas the programs from Warner Brothers are embedded into pop-culture so much what isn't there to know?
However, I wanted to spotlight one of the latest spotlight collections, number 6. It's a DVD collection of 30 cartoons on two disc's which comes to 15 cartoons on each. There are 8 more cartoons featured as bonuses: 4 on DVD #1 and 4 on DVD #2. I hadn't had the time to watch DVD #2 but i've watched DVD #1 a couple times. The theme of DVD #1 is "Cartoon Superstars". It features cartoons that star each of the main characters. The first, "Baby Buggy Bunny", centers around Bugs finding an orphan of sorts...actually, some money has been stolen from a bank that finds it's way to Bugs' hole in the ground. The thief, a midget, adopts the identity of a baby and arrives at Bugs' hole as an orphan. Bugs at first is unaware of the baby's true identity...the baby's name is Fenster. After repeated attempts from the baby to grab the money, Bugs excuses himself and later spies the baby shaving and smoking a cigar in the bathroom. Coincidentally, a news report flashes on the TV about a bank robber on the loose...Bugs gets that 'look' on his face that he's been tricked and then gets the devilish look that he's going to get his revenge. He strolls in and starts whipping the kid and throwing him up in the air and shaking him...it's quite a funny scene as guns and weapons start falling everywhere all the while Bugs is still spanking him "Oh Fenster! What a naughty, naughty, boy!!!". The anger in Bugs' voice as he's getting his revenge is quite satonic but that makes it all the more hilarious.
In the next short, "Broom-Stick Bunny", Bugs is out on Halloween dressed as a witch and he stumbles upon the castle of Witch Hazel. This cartoon's plot is Witch Hazel trying to get the "witch" {Bugs} into a pot of boiling water...periodically she stops at a magic mirror asking who's the ugliest one of all. She gets great delight in being declared ugly...she also gets delight in making jokes, causing her to go off into a fit of cackling laughter. Bugs reveals himself as a rabbit which causes Witch Hazel to grow even more determined to fulfill her magic potion. She is about to kill Bugs when he gives her the pouty-eyes routine and she starts crying, thinking about memories of Paul. Bugs turns the tables and offers the witch a drink. She drinks it and turns into a Cinderella-type...and then she goes to her magic mirror asking who's the ugliest one of all...the genie in the mirror doesn't even bother answering her...one look and he hops on his carpet in hot pursuit and flies out of the mirror chasing her.
"To Duck or Not to Duck" is a cartoon starring Daffy Duck and Elmer Fudd. The cartoon is basically about a boxing match between the two of them...with a lot of duck's in attendence cheering on Daffy while only one in the stands cheers on Elmer, namely the hunting dog Ladamore. Each time he cheers on Elmer he gets pelted with fruit. The referee introduces Elmer amidst a series of laughter...and the audience boo's. The referee then turns his attention to Daffy...and in a scene that often becomes a subject of mockery, the referee brings on Daffy with some of the most sentimental words imaginable...going so far as to climb upon Daffy in an intimate way, blinking his eyes and wrapping an arm around Daffy's shoulder, becoming quite affectionate in the process. This, of course, is a spoof of boxing in general...how it often comes across that referee's have favorites and that the fighting is rigged...which is spoofed when the referee goes into his "I wanna clean fight" routine. Elmer, at cartoon's end, turns the tables on the scheming ducks. The cartoon fades out as Elmer's throwing the ducks all over the boxing ring.
"Birth of a Notion" is one of the more hilarious ones. In this, Daffy gets tangled up with an evil scientist wanting his wish bone. The scientist is a caricature of Peter Lorre. Daffy was brought to the castle by a dog named Leopold...Daffy, not wanting to fly south for the winter, befriended the dog and was soon in the castle. Daffy overhears the scientist's plans of needing a duck's wishbone and soon it's a battle of wits between him and Daffy. The action takes place between the two of them so much that in one segment it shows Leopold griping about his lack of screen-time. In one of the most singled-out moments in the cartoon, Daffy attempts to throw a baseball bat at the scientist only for Leopold to grab it in time. This, however, causes the scientist to think his own dog is out to kill him and the scientist breaks the bat into tiny pieces. Daffy attempts to murder the scientist with a knife but the scientist is prepared...he lets out with a creepy, perverted giggle as he chases after Daffy, who, runs off hollering his trademark "hoo hoo hoo hoo".
The two Foghorn Leghorn cartoons appear on "Crowing Pains" and "Raw! Raw! Rooster". In the first cartoon, we see Henery Hawk on a quest for a chicken. The character has never really been written as a smart guy...more of a little tough guy instead...who can never recall what a chicken looks like since he's so easily fooled by Foghorn in all the cartoons. So, he usually listens to Foghorn's stories and claims about other animal's being chickens. In "Crowing Pains" the action revolves around Foghorn, the Barnyard Dog, and Sylvester the cat...although some cartoon purists would say it isn't Sylvester because the character doesn't have a patch of white fur on his tail...but the character design and speech pattern is definitely Sylvester. So, the three of them are consistently fighting amongst each other while Henery just wants to know which one of them is a chicken. This is one of the earlier Foghorn cartoons as Mel Blanc's vocal performance is more in step with bellowing and hollering his words instead of delivering them as the refined southern blow-hard the character became.
Foghorn likes to play tricks on the dog...and Sylvester's presence causes the dog to be after the cat, natural instincts. Foghorn plants an egg under Sylvester at one point...further confusing Henery, who's actually inside the egg...a device Foghorn came up with. Henery finally decides to wait until sunrise to see which animal crows...Sylvester, prone to keeping his mouth open even when he isn't talking, has his mouth open a little as the sounds of a rooster is heard. The Dog looks over at Sylvester and gets a disgusted look because he knows Foghorn's tricks...and Henery drags Sylvester away.
"Raw! Raw! Rooster" is one of the later Foghorn cartoons...you'll notice the difference in Mel's delivery. The cartoon is about one of Foghorn's rivals coming for a visit...the rival is a big practical joker, which doesn't sit too well with Foghorn, who would rather play jokes on others instead of having them played on himself. The rival, known as Rhoad Island Red, mingles with Foghorn and has all the hen's love-struck, which causes further jealousy to mount. Rhoad Island Red was voiced by Daws Butler. Foghorn sends his rival away by the end of the cartoon and has a few going away prizes...filled with dynamite.
In "My Favorite Duck", Porky Pig attempts to have a relaxing time at a camp site only to be tormented by Daffy at each attempt. The joke of the cartoon is that the woods has a strict fine on hunting ducks...people aren't even allowed to harass or bother ducks. This, of course, allows Daffy to become over-bearing and do all sorts of things to Porky...who can't do anything because each time he attempts to strangle or hit Daffy, this would cause Daffy to whip out a sign that read "No Duck Hunting" or "No Harming Ducks". Later in the cartoon, the tables are turned, and Daffy finds himself as a most-wanted duck...each sign that he comes up with invites Porky to kill and shoot...one sign I think read "Open season on ducks...no limit". The cartoon ends rather Tex Avery-like with Porky and Daffy chasing one another around and around a tree...before long the cartoon's "film" starts to go haywire and it snaps into. Daffy pokes his head into the scene and goes about telling us how the film ended...only to be pulled off-camera by Porky, who finishes beating him up...with the cartoon ending as Porky drags Daffy across the screen.
"Jumpin' Jupiter" is a surreal cartoon...it involves Porky and Sylvester camping out in a dessert area. Later, aliens come down to Earth and literally lift the camp ground up and fly off with it into outer space. Sylvester awakens and reacts to all of this while Porky remains asleep. Even after the gravity pull is gone, Porky is clueless of what's going on...then the camp site appears on the planet Jupiter. Porky wakes up...Sylvester was up all-night experiencing everything. Sylvester spots one of the aliens...Porky meets the alien but mistakes him for some sort of Indian. Gags from this cartoon were re-used years later on the Daffy Duck film Daffy Duck's Quackbusters including the gag of Sylvester being so scared he turns stiff as a board around Porky's face and when thrown off, hits the ground with a hollow thud. Another re-used gag was the phrase "yellow dog of a cowardly cat", Porky's affectionate description of Sylvester.
In "Satan's Waitin", we see the story of Sylvester and his nine lives. The cartoon centers around a bulldog Devil wanting Sylvester to go through the last 8 lives rather quickly...often causing Sylvester to get into all kinds of predicaments, with his lives evaporating one by one. Each of his lives sit together on a rock couch down in the pits of fire...he soon decides to hide himself in a bank vault where no harm can come to him...since he only has one life left. Later, bank robbers blow up the vault and everyone's killed. The cartoon fades out with Sylvester and the bank robbers all taking a trip down to meet the devil.
The rest of the cartoons on DVD #1 are just as good as those that I mentioned. "Dog Gone South" is a laugh-out-loud cartoon about a dog's adventures on a plantation. In "Often an Orphan" we have the same dog being the victim of owner abandonment. At the start of the cartoon we see the dog purposely being left at a camp site by his master. The dog talks his way into Porky's life by trying to convince him he needs a dog. This goes back and fourth throughout much of the cartoon...near the end we see Porky and the dog in a very familiar scene at a camp site ready to have a picnic. Porky tells the dog to fetch a stick but being through that routine too many times the dog jumps into Porky's car instead and speeds off as the scene fades.
Tuesday, January 6, 2009
Friday, December 12, 2008
Hollywood glimpse
We will take just a glimpse at the famed Hollywood cartoons of Warner Brothers. I don't have any "official" followers to my blogs but I do know they're being read because they're sent to several e-mail addresses upon publishing. For those who read the blog's I write here in the Animation section it may come across that I'm more into Hanna-Barbera cartoons than anything else. I tend to write more about those cartoons because they're easier to write about...it's tougher to write about Warner Brothers cartoons because a lot of them use pop-culture references, catch-phrases, and slang phrases and it's more of a chore explaining what things mean or who's who in a Warner Brothers cartoon...so this is why I've not written much about the famous characters of Warner Brothers.
However, in this particular blog, I'm going to briefly highlight some Hollywood cartoons. This is old Hollywood...back when being a movie star was looked up at...something to aspire to be...nowadays Hollywood is more or less a wasteland, except for a very, very few who still go there because of their acting aspirations and not for the perks that being in Hollywood can bring someone. I am sure even then there were those who went there looking for kicks...listen or watch any Dragnet episode for examples of the bad side of Tinseltown...but for the most part, the personalities booming from Hollywood were almost always larger-than-life and in some cases manufactured for profit. There's always been the stories of how screen tough guys were really sensitive nice guys off-camera...plus there's also been the stories of how the celebrities known for being nice and charming are callous jerks off-camera. So, don't mistake my commentary as being too glossy...I'm just saying there's a definite difference between the Hollywood of 2008 and the Hollywood of 1938.
So, now, here's my little look back at Hollywood cartoons. As Portland Hoffa would inquire to a hurried Fred Allen... "shall we go?"
The cartoon that always gets the most votes as the best Hollywood spoof is the 1941 release, "Hollywood Steps Out". In this cartoon, directed by Tex Avery, huge super-stars of that era were caricatured in a night-club setting. I will not even begin to compile a definitive cast-list but let's just say there are well over 40 celebrities spoofed in this cartoon. The plot of the cartoon is simple...the action goes from table to table, most of the dialogue is based on the catch-phrases of the time period and references to movies and radio programs. In addition to this, there are segments that feature Bing Crosby acting as host of a revue program where he introduces the likes of Leopold who conducts a Conga number...causing several of the celebrities to get into a line-dance. Later, the scene shifting back to the center stage, we see Bing introduce a bubble dancer named Sally Strand...a pun on Sally Rand. In a bit of irony, at the start of the cartoon, Rand's actual name is mentioned by the hat-check lady...but it's been said that because Rand didn't want her dance used for the cartoon, the writers had to refer to her as Sally Strand when they introduced the bubble dance segment. This remains one if not the only best-remembered Hollywood cartoon out of the several that were released.
Goofy Groceries is a 1941 Bob Clampett cartoon short where celebrities and famous characters come to life from food items. There are several celebrities spoofed...most notably Jack Benny in the form of Jack Bunny. He is the focal point of the cartoon...which includes a send-up of King Kong where a gorilla busts loose from a box of animal crackers. Ned Sparks is parodied as a crab, spoofing his crabby personality in his movies. Superman is even spoofed...he pops off of a comic book and hollers "HEY YOU!!!" at the escaped gorilla...to which the gorilla sneers: "yeeeaaahhhh????". This growl of intensity causes Superman to turn into a baby, literally, crying. Meanwhile, the gorilla sets off a rampage of horror and Jack Bunny hops on a horse and it's proclaimed "Buck Benny Rides Again", a reference to Jack Benny's western character. In the end of the cartoon, Jack Bunny becomes the victim of an explosion...the gorilla handed him a stick of dynomite. After the explosion, Jack Bunny appears black-face, with a voice like Eddie Anderson, the actor who played Rochester the butler on Jack Benny's radio and TV show.
In The Woods Are Full of Cuckoos from 1937, directed by Frank Tashlin, we see more caricatures of Hollywood radio personalities than movie stars. The start of the cartoon features a caricature of Alexander Woolcott as Owl Cott, ringing the bell welcoming everyone to the production. Ben Bernie, under the name of Ben Birdie, hosts the program. He is met with heckles from a caricature of Walter Winchell called Walter Finchell, a radio and newspaper commentator. Milton Berle is parodied as Mr Squirrel in a bit part. The radio duo known as The Happiness Boys are brought out to sing the cartoon's theme song. On the cartoon Billy Jones and Ernie Hare a/k/a The Happiness Boys, are turned into Billy Goat and Ernie Bear and they sing their own song "How Do Ya Do" before launching into "The Woods Are Full of Cuckoos...Cuckoos...Cuckoos...oh the Woods Are Full of Cuckoos and my heart is filled with love...". Looking back, Ernie Hare could've been portrayed as a rabbit...but I suppose he was turned into a bear for the cartoon because they couldn't use the real names of the celebrities they were spoofing. Fred Allen is portrayed on the cartoon as a fox...the person he's with is an obvious parody of his co-star wife, Portland Hoffa. In a joke about Fred's censorship problems and the network interference with his shows, the fox is intentionally singing the wrong song...singing "Swanee River" instead of the cartoon's theme. Hoffa tells him he's singing the wrong song and he hollers: "Why doesn't somebody tell me these things???". Jack Benny is parodied in this cartoon as well. He and Mary Livingstone, who ironically doesn't have her name spoofed, and Andy Devine whose name is spoofed as Andy Bovine, appear together in a whimsical and brief send-up of plays presented by Louella Possums, based on gossiper Louella Parsons.
In Speaking of the Weather we re-visit the concept of magazine and store items coming to life with celebrity spoofs. This cartoon short debuted in 1937 and it features a villain hopping from magazine to magazine. Each magazine features a pun on it's title. LIFE, LOOK, and other magazine titles. There aren't as many celebrity spoofs in this one as there were in the others that were released. Hugh Herbert is featured plenty of times in this...hand-clapping...woo-hooing. Ned Sparks makes an appearance...chomping on what looks to be a cigarette holder. Leopold conducts a symphonic interlude...yanking and pulling on his white hair in rhythm prior to turning around and singing out loud "speaking of the weather..." in a German accent which I think is provided by Paul Frees...it sounds like Boris Badenov. The villain escapes from a magazine and a judge sentences him to LIFE. Get it? Dick Powell makes an appearance as The Thin Man. Clark Gable, Greta Garbo, and others make sight-gag appearances. It's a music-driven short...with the emphasis on the music.
In a more obscure entry, Have You Got Any Castles, from 1938, we see a very realistic looking drawing of radio personality Alexander Woolcott, the host of a show called "The Town Crier". The character appears in much the same way he often appears...ringing his bell with his "here ye, here ye..." catch-phrase. Aside from Woolcott, the rest of the characters that appear are exaggerated/spoofy in appearance. There are several scenes in this cartoon that are considered racist and network TV edited out several of the scenes to make the cartoon look like a mish-mash of nonsense. The Alexander Woolcott scenes at the top and bottom of the cartoon were edited out...later, the scenes involving the black/African-American singers were removed including the caricature of Cab Calloway who sang "I've Got Swing For Sale" on the cartoon. Another scene that was deleted was the Rip Van Winkle segment where he borrows/steals the scissors from "The Valiant Little Tailor" to cut the hair off Uncle Tom to use as ear-plugs during Calloway's singing because it's interrupting his sleep...but there's also the theory that it's a slam against the style of music Calloway was famous for, which was very different than the crooner-pop style that was preferred by the masses at the time. Tom gets his revenge later on by cutting off Van Winkle's beard. There's another scene involving Mr Bojangles...which, that too, was deleted/edited out for TV. The full and complete cartoons without the edits are found on the various Looney Tunes DVD Golden collections.
She Was An Acrobat's Daughter is another Hollywood cartoon, released in 1937 under the direction of Friz Freleng, which goes in a similar pattern with The Woods Are Full of Cuckoos in that the cast is animal-based. The plot of She Was An Acrobat's Daughter simply spoofs the theater business and it's patrons. Annoying instances of people who want to get up and go to the restroom or go get a refreshment is spotlighted as a hippo manages to excuse himself several times "pardon...pardon...pardon..." as he makes his way down the row of seats. Lowell Thomas, a famous newscaster of the era, is spoofed as Dole Promise. Newsreel personality Lew Lehr is parodied in a funny segment called "Nit Wit News", under the name of Who Dehr, a German spoof. In an earlier cartoon that I'm not featuring in this blog, The Film Fan, Porky Pig goes to a free matinee and while at the theatre up on the screen Lowell is spoofed again but as Cold Promise. Meanwhile, getting back to She Was An Acrobat's Daughter, a piano pushes up from the floor at the theatre and the pianist invites the audience to sing "she was an acrobat's daughter...". The main attraction is a spoof of Bette Davis and Leslie Howard's 1936 movie "The Petrified Forest"...called "The Petrified Florist". In the send-up, Howard's character delivers a gibberish version of Mary Had a Little Lamb, somewhat close to spoonerism where words are deliberately re-arranged like "Larry mad a hittle wamb" for example. A duck father and son become the focal point near the end as the son is constantly asking his father "why'd he say that, daddy? does he like her, daddy? can I have more popcorn, daddy...". The boy duck then wanders into the movie projection room and gets caught in the movie projector.
Lastly we have CooCoo Nut Grove which, released in 1936, served as the inspiration for a whole lot of usage on The Woods Are Full of Cuckoos of 1937 right down to the same caricatures of celebrities. Ben Birdie is back conducting the woodland band. In this adaptation, the action is set inside an actual club...parodying the Cocoanut Grove club...in a more cartoonish version of what would become Hollywood Steps Out by Tex Avery in 1941. In this CooCoo cartoon, several Hollywood movie stars are spoofed. Mae West is caricatured as a canary I do believe...maybe a chicken...I know W.C. Fields liked to use the phrase "chick-a-dee" a lot. George Arliss is spoofed as a turtle. He and Mae West are shown dancing together. Walter Winchell, called Walter Windpipe on here, is on hand to heckle Ben Bernie's caricature. John Barrymore is caricatured as "the profile of profiles". Gary Cooper is caricatured...being drunk. Ned Sparks is here... "i go everywhere, i do everything, i never have any fun". Laurel and Hardy are shown in a sight gag sipping on coconut juice. Edna Mae Oliver is shown doing some sort of dance...to which Clark Gable's ears flap approvingly. Helen Morgan sings a love ballad...causing everyone to start crying...including tough guys Edward G Robinson and George Raft...her song is filled with so much emotion that her crying, plus the crying from everyone else, floods the restaurant...Arliss makes use of his turtle shell as he's shown swimming on his back as the cartoon comes to and end with Ben Birdie telling everyone "cheerio, pip-pip, au revioir, and a goody goodnight".
This concludes the look at the Hollywood cartoons. My descriptions are nowhere near the amount of fun you'll have watching them. There's so many celebrity and pop-culture references in those cartoons that you'll catch something different each and everytime you watch.
However, in this particular blog, I'm going to briefly highlight some Hollywood cartoons. This is old Hollywood...back when being a movie star was looked up at...something to aspire to be...nowadays Hollywood is more or less a wasteland, except for a very, very few who still go there because of their acting aspirations and not for the perks that being in Hollywood can bring someone. I am sure even then there were those who went there looking for kicks...listen or watch any Dragnet episode for examples of the bad side of Tinseltown...but for the most part, the personalities booming from Hollywood were almost always larger-than-life and in some cases manufactured for profit. There's always been the stories of how screen tough guys were really sensitive nice guys off-camera...plus there's also been the stories of how the celebrities known for being nice and charming are callous jerks off-camera. So, don't mistake my commentary as being too glossy...I'm just saying there's a definite difference between the Hollywood of 2008 and the Hollywood of 1938.
So, now, here's my little look back at Hollywood cartoons. As Portland Hoffa would inquire to a hurried Fred Allen... "shall we go?"
The cartoon that always gets the most votes as the best Hollywood spoof is the 1941 release, "Hollywood Steps Out". In this cartoon, directed by Tex Avery, huge super-stars of that era were caricatured in a night-club setting. I will not even begin to compile a definitive cast-list but let's just say there are well over 40 celebrities spoofed in this cartoon. The plot of the cartoon is simple...the action goes from table to table, most of the dialogue is based on the catch-phrases of the time period and references to movies and radio programs. In addition to this, there are segments that feature Bing Crosby acting as host of a revue program where he introduces the likes of Leopold who conducts a Conga number...causing several of the celebrities to get into a line-dance. Later, the scene shifting back to the center stage, we see Bing introduce a bubble dancer named Sally Strand...a pun on Sally Rand. In a bit of irony, at the start of the cartoon, Rand's actual name is mentioned by the hat-check lady...but it's been said that because Rand didn't want her dance used for the cartoon, the writers had to refer to her as Sally Strand when they introduced the bubble dance segment. This remains one if not the only best-remembered Hollywood cartoon out of the several that were released.
Goofy Groceries is a 1941 Bob Clampett cartoon short where celebrities and famous characters come to life from food items. There are several celebrities spoofed...most notably Jack Benny in the form of Jack Bunny. He is the focal point of the cartoon...which includes a send-up of King Kong where a gorilla busts loose from a box of animal crackers. Ned Sparks is parodied as a crab, spoofing his crabby personality in his movies. Superman is even spoofed...he pops off of a comic book and hollers "HEY YOU!!!" at the escaped gorilla...to which the gorilla sneers: "yeeeaaahhhh????". This growl of intensity causes Superman to turn into a baby, literally, crying. Meanwhile, the gorilla sets off a rampage of horror and Jack Bunny hops on a horse and it's proclaimed "Buck Benny Rides Again", a reference to Jack Benny's western character. In the end of the cartoon, Jack Bunny becomes the victim of an explosion...the gorilla handed him a stick of dynomite. After the explosion, Jack Bunny appears black-face, with a voice like Eddie Anderson, the actor who played Rochester the butler on Jack Benny's radio and TV show.
In The Woods Are Full of Cuckoos from 1937, directed by Frank Tashlin, we see more caricatures of Hollywood radio personalities than movie stars. The start of the cartoon features a caricature of Alexander Woolcott as Owl Cott, ringing the bell welcoming everyone to the production. Ben Bernie, under the name of Ben Birdie, hosts the program. He is met with heckles from a caricature of Walter Winchell called Walter Finchell, a radio and newspaper commentator. Milton Berle is parodied as Mr Squirrel in a bit part. The radio duo known as The Happiness Boys are brought out to sing the cartoon's theme song. On the cartoon Billy Jones and Ernie Hare a/k/a The Happiness Boys, are turned into Billy Goat and Ernie Bear and they sing their own song "How Do Ya Do" before launching into "The Woods Are Full of Cuckoos...Cuckoos...Cuckoos...oh the Woods Are Full of Cuckoos and my heart is filled with love...". Looking back, Ernie Hare could've been portrayed as a rabbit...but I suppose he was turned into a bear for the cartoon because they couldn't use the real names of the celebrities they were spoofing. Fred Allen is portrayed on the cartoon as a fox...the person he's with is an obvious parody of his co-star wife, Portland Hoffa. In a joke about Fred's censorship problems and the network interference with his shows, the fox is intentionally singing the wrong song...singing "Swanee River" instead of the cartoon's theme. Hoffa tells him he's singing the wrong song and he hollers: "Why doesn't somebody tell me these things???". Jack Benny is parodied in this cartoon as well. He and Mary Livingstone, who ironically doesn't have her name spoofed, and Andy Devine whose name is spoofed as Andy Bovine, appear together in a whimsical and brief send-up of plays presented by Louella Possums, based on gossiper Louella Parsons.
In Speaking of the Weather we re-visit the concept of magazine and store items coming to life with celebrity spoofs. This cartoon short debuted in 1937 and it features a villain hopping from magazine to magazine. Each magazine features a pun on it's title. LIFE, LOOK, and other magazine titles. There aren't as many celebrity spoofs in this one as there were in the others that were released. Hugh Herbert is featured plenty of times in this...hand-clapping...woo-hooing. Ned Sparks makes an appearance...chomping on what looks to be a cigarette holder. Leopold conducts a symphonic interlude...yanking and pulling on his white hair in rhythm prior to turning around and singing out loud "speaking of the weather..." in a German accent which I think is provided by Paul Frees...it sounds like Boris Badenov. The villain escapes from a magazine and a judge sentences him to LIFE. Get it? Dick Powell makes an appearance as The Thin Man. Clark Gable, Greta Garbo, and others make sight-gag appearances. It's a music-driven short...with the emphasis on the music.
In a more obscure entry, Have You Got Any Castles, from 1938, we see a very realistic looking drawing of radio personality Alexander Woolcott, the host of a show called "The Town Crier". The character appears in much the same way he often appears...ringing his bell with his "here ye, here ye..." catch-phrase. Aside from Woolcott, the rest of the characters that appear are exaggerated/spoofy in appearance. There are several scenes in this cartoon that are considered racist and network TV edited out several of the scenes to make the cartoon look like a mish-mash of nonsense. The Alexander Woolcott scenes at the top and bottom of the cartoon were edited out...later, the scenes involving the black/African-American singers were removed including the caricature of Cab Calloway who sang "I've Got Swing For Sale" on the cartoon. Another scene that was deleted was the Rip Van Winkle segment where he borrows/steals the scissors from "The Valiant Little Tailor" to cut the hair off Uncle Tom to use as ear-plugs during Calloway's singing because it's interrupting his sleep...but there's also the theory that it's a slam against the style of music Calloway was famous for, which was very different than the crooner-pop style that was preferred by the masses at the time. Tom gets his revenge later on by cutting off Van Winkle's beard. There's another scene involving Mr Bojangles...which, that too, was deleted/edited out for TV. The full and complete cartoons without the edits are found on the various Looney Tunes DVD Golden collections.
She Was An Acrobat's Daughter is another Hollywood cartoon, released in 1937 under the direction of Friz Freleng, which goes in a similar pattern with The Woods Are Full of Cuckoos in that the cast is animal-based. The plot of She Was An Acrobat's Daughter simply spoofs the theater business and it's patrons. Annoying instances of people who want to get up and go to the restroom or go get a refreshment is spotlighted as a hippo manages to excuse himself several times "pardon...pardon...pardon..." as he makes his way down the row of seats. Lowell Thomas, a famous newscaster of the era, is spoofed as Dole Promise. Newsreel personality Lew Lehr is parodied in a funny segment called "Nit Wit News", under the name of Who Dehr, a German spoof. In an earlier cartoon that I'm not featuring in this blog, The Film Fan, Porky Pig goes to a free matinee and while at the theatre up on the screen Lowell is spoofed again but as Cold Promise. Meanwhile, getting back to She Was An Acrobat's Daughter, a piano pushes up from the floor at the theatre and the pianist invites the audience to sing "she was an acrobat's daughter...". The main attraction is a spoof of Bette Davis and Leslie Howard's 1936 movie "The Petrified Forest"...called "The Petrified Florist". In the send-up, Howard's character delivers a gibberish version of Mary Had a Little Lamb, somewhat close to spoonerism where words are deliberately re-arranged like "Larry mad a hittle wamb" for example. A duck father and son become the focal point near the end as the son is constantly asking his father "why'd he say that, daddy? does he like her, daddy? can I have more popcorn, daddy...". The boy duck then wanders into the movie projection room and gets caught in the movie projector.
Lastly we have CooCoo Nut Grove which, released in 1936, served as the inspiration for a whole lot of usage on The Woods Are Full of Cuckoos of 1937 right down to the same caricatures of celebrities. Ben Birdie is back conducting the woodland band. In this adaptation, the action is set inside an actual club...parodying the Cocoanut Grove club...in a more cartoonish version of what would become Hollywood Steps Out by Tex Avery in 1941. In this CooCoo cartoon, several Hollywood movie stars are spoofed. Mae West is caricatured as a canary I do believe...maybe a chicken...I know W.C. Fields liked to use the phrase "chick-a-dee" a lot. George Arliss is spoofed as a turtle. He and Mae West are shown dancing together. Walter Winchell, called Walter Windpipe on here, is on hand to heckle Ben Bernie's caricature. John Barrymore is caricatured as "the profile of profiles". Gary Cooper is caricatured...being drunk. Ned Sparks is here... "i go everywhere, i do everything, i never have any fun". Laurel and Hardy are shown in a sight gag sipping on coconut juice. Edna Mae Oliver is shown doing some sort of dance...to which Clark Gable's ears flap approvingly. Helen Morgan sings a love ballad...causing everyone to start crying...including tough guys Edward G Robinson and George Raft...her song is filled with so much emotion that her crying, plus the crying from everyone else, floods the restaurant...Arliss makes use of his turtle shell as he's shown swimming on his back as the cartoon comes to and end with Ben Birdie telling everyone "cheerio, pip-pip, au revioir, and a goody goodnight".
This concludes the look at the Hollywood cartoons. My descriptions are nowhere near the amount of fun you'll have watching them. There's so many celebrity and pop-culture references in those cartoons that you'll catch something different each and everytime you watch.
Sunday, December 7, 2008
Christmas Carols
Ahhh, we're going to talk a little bit about holiday cartoons and Christmas Carol. The blog starts off with a Christmas comedy record, not really a "cartoon" but technically the stars that appear on the recording are all first-rate cartoon voice actors. Stan Freberg released this comedy recording at the height of his popularity in the world of comedy records. He wrote the satire about the over-commercialization of Christmas, aiming his recording at advertising, a field in which he himself was a member of, which made the recording even more hard-hitting. Freberg plays the part of "Scrooge", a big-wig on Madison Avenue searching for new ways to promote products using a Christmas theme. Daws Butler co-stars in the recording playing "Bob Cratchit", the voice of reason, attempting to sway Scrooge's plots of commercializing the holiday for profit. Along the way Scrooge sings songs decorated in commercialism and tries to show how meaningful Christmas can be to your wallet. Cratchit's attempts backfire, of course, as Scrooge gets frustrated by Cratchit's agenda of trying to show what Christmas is really about; Scrooge, unshaken by Cratchit's pleas for less profit during December, shouts "wake up, Cratchit...it's later than you think!" to which Cratchit meekly replies "I know, Mr Scrooge, I know" as the production moves to it's finale...before coming to an end amidst the sounds of a cash register ringing out a sale. In spite of the song's attack on commercialism, Freberg continued to work in the advertising world throughout the '60s, '70s, and '80s. 
In the above picture, Scrooge McDuck, a character in the Walt Disney universe, plays the part of Ebenezer Scrooge in the now-classic 1983 short film Mickey's Christmas Carol. The film marked the first time the character's voice was provided by Alan Young, a face actor known for his role as Wilbur Post on Mister Ed. The film featured Mickey Mouse as Cratchit and Donald Duck as Fred, Scrooge's nephew. Wayne Allwine provided the voice of Mickey for the first time while Clarence Nash provided the voice of Donald for the last time. The film celebrates it's Silver Anniversary this season, 25 years since it's original release. Scrooge McDuck, primarily due to the voice acting of Alan Young, would go on to headline the mega-successful series DuckTales in the later part of the 1980's.
The Flintstone cast got into the Christmas Carol act as well. This wasn't the first Christmas special featuring the Bedrock bunch but it's the only one intentionally re-creating the Christmas Carol story. In it, Fred portrays the role of Ebenezer Scrooge for a town play. The plot involves Fred becoming obsessed with the part that he in "real life" starts to carry himself like a thoughtless miser-type. Soon, reality and fantasy blend together as Fred gets caught up with being a "star". Wilma initially isn't a part of the play until Fred's co-star becomes ill...causing the producers to cast Wilma in the role vacated by the Bedrock bomb shell. This, however, leads to more irritation as Fred sulks over having Wilma be his leading lady instead of the glamourous actress. Barney plays the Cratchit role while Bam-Bam is Tiny Tim. Henry Corden voiced Fred Flintstone while Jean Vanderpyl voiced Wilma. Frank Welker voiced Barney and BJ Ward voiced Betty. Don Messick voiced Bam-Bam and Joe Rockhead. John Stephenson voiced Mr Slate. 
In the Bugs Bunny Christmas Carol, several of the characters from the Warner Brothers library get into the spirit. Yosemite Sam is easily depicted as the Scrooge character. The short was only eight minutes in length but it's widely remembered. Porky Pig played the role of Cratchit while Bugs Bunny appears as himself, trying to get Scrooge to see the light of day about his stinginess, dressing up as a ghost in the process. The short appeared in 1979 as part of a special called Bugs Bunny's Looney Christmas Tales which also featured the short subject episodes "Freeze Frame" and "The Fright Before Christmas". Mel Blanc voiced all the characters except the women, they were voiced by June Foray.
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