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I think that everything I don’t like about Chuck Jones (my personal favorite animation director) can be summed up in his television special, “A Connecticut Rabbit in King Arthur’s Court” (retitled “Bugs Bunny in…” for later broadcasts and home video, as scene here).

Jones’ cartoons at Warners have been blasted lately as being ’self-serving and pretentious’ which is definitely a falsehood. Maybe people find them that way because Jones’ best cartoons are more personal than just about any other director’s (save Avery, Clampett, and Tashlin), and perhaps that’s why they cant ‘get’ them. But this special definitely can fall under ’self-serving and pretentious’. Jones in his post-heyday world seemed to like to educate his viewers by being ’smart’ and ‘witty’, but it really just comes off as boring and dry. It’s hilarious that he still saw the need to resurrect Tedd Pierce’s “Merlin of Monroe” pun from “Knight-Mare Hare”.

Here we have Jones doing a special in honor of Mark Twain, who I think was the only person he ever truly liked (though if you’re going to only like one guy, Mark Twain is a good choice). There is also an insufferable valentine to Ray Bradbury in the first part. I think it’s the later work like this (and his two autobiographies, of which only the first is worth reading) that gives people a bad impression of Jones.

“King Arthur” is actually a special I want to like more than I do. Jones seemed to have a lot of clout over the old Warner crew and got a lot of people back, like Lloyd Vaughan and Phil Monroe (who left Jones’ unit in the 50s), and even Friz Freleng’s main pre-’53 shutdown crew. (I suspect Jones would have wanted Ken Harris and Gerry Chiniquy back too, but they were in England working for Dick Williams).

Don Foster (the genius behind the opening titles of the Warner cartoons for years) also did graphics, and Irv Wyner (Freleng’s main BG artist after Paul Julian left) did production design and BGs.

The quality of the animation in this special is amazing and seems right out of the 1950s Jones cartoons. I was pleased when watching this special again that I could point out the work of Ben Washam and Virgil Ross (the two animators who drew the most aesthetically pleasing versions of the Warner characters) immediately. Ross said in an interview that he was sorry he never worked for Jones earlier, as his layouts were so inspirational that all you had to do was really inbetween them. That’s funny because his animation in this special still looks like his work for Friz.

Ben Washam - funny how he’s still doing the chiseltooth thing…




Virgil Ross

With brilliant animation like this it’s a shame that Jones couldn’t come up with something less dreary.

The always poignant Mark Mayerson, forgetting that I have the final word on any matter related to classic animation, and no one can expand upon it, wrote this in the comments of the last post…

It’s been a while since I looked at Jack Hannah cartoons, but my memory of them is rather good. His cartoons are always marked by strong poses (even his Lantz cartoons) and I think that he had an excellent sense of timing. Like Jones, he timed out the entire cartoon regardless of who was animating for him. The problem might be that the animated Donald is a pretty shallow character or that Hannah wasn’t imaginative enough, but his cartoons are really bread and butter cartoons much like the Tom and Jerrys.

Maybe you prefer the T&J animators to Hannah’s, but neither series blazed any trails in terms of content. When Hannah was finding new adversaries for Donald, H&B were bringing in cute guest starts into the T&J series. For both series, it was a sign of desperation. The one-note characters were falling into a rut.

I actually agree whole-heartedly with Mark’s statement, even though I don’t think anyone is going to argue that Hanna and Barbera had a better animation crew to work with than Hannah did, and the animation in the Donald cartoons were never as full as the Tom & Jerry’s were.

The similarities between the series are pretty interesting. I stated in the comments that Hannah seems to have had a similar directing style to Bob McKimson at Warners. They both seemed to have a rigid preference of staying on model and not breaking any new ground, and only a non-conformist like Rod Scribner or Emery Hawkins (in McKimson’s case) would stand out. In Hannah’s case, John Sibley’s animation stands out by a mile in the cartoons he animated on. Take a cartoon like “Dude Duck” (my personal favorite cartoon by Hannah) where the horse is rather blandly animated, until Sibley’s footage comes along, where every drawing is unique and funny (bearing a resemblance to his animation of Ichabod Crane’s horse, which is IMO the greatest horse ever animated).

While my love of the Tom and Jerrys of the 1940s knows no bounds, I’m beginning to think that the success of that series was sort of like one giant happy accident. It definitely was in no ways original outside of the outstanding animation. The cat, mouse, and maid designs are swiped from various Silly Symphonies (”The Country Cousin” most notably). The secondary characters are ripped off from “The Alley Cat”, an earlier Hugh Harman cartoon at MGM. (I’ve added images to prove it.) The names “Tom and Jerry” were already used for Christ’s sake!

The cartoons of the 1940s are outrageously funny and slick, which was most definitely influenced by the arrival of the inarguably superior Tex Avery. But while Avery was able to come up with all kinds of ideas with those crazy characters and animation (and not just stock crazy, real crazy), Hanna and Barbera steamed out of it rather quickly. The cartoons take to the “Charles Nichols syndrome” of adding annoying, small costars, like Tuffy (who was actually created for use in OUR GANG comics in 1942!), Little Quacker, Tyke, and other random baby animals, which Hannah also did as well.

I have to disagree on one point with Mark though, and that is that Tom really is a great character, more than one-note. The animators obviously had more fun with him, and he is easy to sympathize and relate to. Jerry just seems to be there because, well, a mouse goes well with a cat.

Hanna and Barbera were probably the least artistic directors of the Golden Age, at least as far as West Coast animation is concerned. Barbera in particular was always looking for ways to cut corners to make a profit, and after Fred Quimby (who I feel was a better producer than some say) left, the animation quality takes a nosedive. Cartoons like “Blue Cat Blues” and “Robin Hoodwinked” are as soul-less as anything they did for television.

Lack of originality continued into television. Ruff and Reddy are Rags and Crusader, Huckleberry Hound is Andy Griffith, Yogi Bear is Art Carney, Fred Flintstone is Jackie Gleason, Top Cat is Phil Silvers, etc. The animation, characters, and layouts are lifeless, and I’ve never been able to stay awake through more than three of them in a row. Maybe I’d be less disdainful of those television cartoons (which I was previously just indifferent to) if it weren’t for John K’s frequent, lauding posts of how those cartoons are as worthy of analyzing as Bob Clampett’s [brilliant] color Warner cartoons.

One of my favorite Harry McCracken quotes, and I think most revealing, is as follows:

If Daws Butler had never lived, would anyone remember the earliest HB cartoons with even a small fraction of the fondness they generate today?

No, I really don’t think so. And if the Tom and Jerrys never had that lush animation of the 40s by Muse, Spence, and Patterson, they wouldn’t be too fondly remembered either. But then, why dwell on the “what-ifs” rather than the “what actually happened”? “Flirty Birdy”, “Tee for Two”, “Kitty Foiled”, “Heavenly Puss”, “Mouse in Manhattan”, “Mouse Trouble”, and “Mouse Cleaning” are still some of the best and funniest cartoons ever made, so those guys weren’t all bad.

I’ll have to admit that I’ve enjoyed the third Donald Duck collection a bit more than I thought I would. These shorts look great in original Technicolor, and quite a few feature work by the Golden Age’s greatest traveling animator, Emery Hawkins (here at Disney for his second time).

This set doesn’t really represent Jack Hannah too well, who I don’t have a really high opinion of as a director (though he was an excellent draftsman), but I still wouldn’t consider one of the most incompetent directors of the Golden Age (those would be fellow Disney director Charles Nichols and Seymour Kneitel at Famous). It seemed to be Hannah’s goal as a director during this period to see how many annoying foils he could come up with for Donald. So in this collection we get the wonderful antics of the Bootle Beetle, Spike the Bee, and the fantastically funny Chip an’ Dale (that was a bad attempt at sarcasm).

In addition to annoying costars, these shorts also feature, like the cartoons being made by the Nichols unit, inane violence and often artless animation, so I guess even the Famous Studios cartoons beat out Disney’s (at least as far as ‘artful animation’ is concerned) in this case. Jack King’s were never really funny either, though there is at least some great animation and clever staging in those cartoons.

I think it would be asinine to write a description for each of the cartoons on this collection, seeing as the insect and chipmunk cartoons are interchangeable, so here’s what I recommend as the “good ‘un’s”:

“Straight Shooters” (1947, Jack Hannah) Donald as a crooked carnie screwing his nephews out of money and candy. Features a great scene of the nephews disguised as Cleopatra avoiding Unca Donald’s sexual advances.

“Clown of the Jungle” (1947, Hannah) Donald, on a bird watcher’s expedition, gets harassed by the Aracuan Bird, returning from THE THREE CABALLEROS. He would also appear in MELODY TIME. There was also a scrapped short, PIRATE GOLD, involving the Aracuan heckling Donald on a treasure hunt.

“Donald’s Dilemma” (1947, Jack King) My favorite cartoon on this collection, and one of my very favorite Disney cartoons. A blow to the head makes Donald become the world’s greatest crooner and forget all of his loved ones, devastating Daisy. Features some beautiful Emery Hawkins animation.

“Crazy with the Heat” (1947, Bob Carlson) Donald and Goofy hallucinate in the Sahara.

“The Trial of Donald Duck” (1948, King)
Donald vs. Pierre in court over a $35.99 restaurant bill. More great Hawkins animation here too.

“Donald’s Dream Voice” (1948, King) Clever premise with Donald taking voice pills to rid him of his speech impediment, making him a successful brush salesman, and gives him the nerve to propose to Daisy. Great Hawkins animation in this one too.

“Soup’s On” (1948, Hannah) Hilariously dark short with the nephews tricking Donald into thinking he’s been killed by a rockslide… all over a turkey dinner.

“Donald’s Happy Birthday” (1949, Hannah) The nephews try to get money from Donald to buy cigars as his birthday gift. Another great dark ending in this one that I’m sure social services loves.

“Hook, Lion, and Sinker” (1950, Hannah) Mountain lion and his cub pal try to steal Donald’s catch of fish. This one is interesting for Donald actually getting the best of his co-stars for the entire short, and for the beautiful John Sibley animation.

Watching this collection made me realize that Hannah’s cartoons suffer from the lack of having a particular great animator tied to Donald. Fred Moore had Mickey, John Sibley had Goofy, and even the syrupy Pluto had Norm Ferguson… Supposedly the best animator on the earlier Donald’s was Hal King, but he was promoted to features around the time Hannah became a director full-time.

But hey, if you want the really good stuff, you’re going to have trudge through the muck. A volume four (collecting the remaining Donald shorts) would be a lot of fun with great cartoons like the ones with Humphrey the Bear, and this one entirely animated by John Sibley.

Happy secular holidays.

I don’t know why I credited the first two scenes to Paul Smith… It’s Les Kline.

Jerry Beck announces that the second volume of Woody Woodpecker will be released April 15th, 2008.

Like this year’s Disney Treasures, this is really a set that happened because of the fans (and not just us geeks). Universal had very low expectations for the sales of the first volume, and were apparently blown away by how well it did, resulting in a second volume.

For me, this is where blind nostalgia really kicks in for the enjoyability of the cartoons. I view the later Lantz cartoons like I do most of the Terry, Columbia, and later Famous shorts. I’m not going to kid myself, because these shorts are not artful, and for the most part are pretty awful. But there are some bright spots if you look hard enough (if I could stay awake through them, I’d apply this rule to Hanna-Barbera’s output). This rule mainly applies to the star character’s shorts on this set (of which we are seeing 45 straight chronologically, from 1952’s “Termites from Mars” to 1958’s “Jittery Jester”), as there are several wonderful cartoons from the 1940s by Shamus Culhane and Dick Lundy.

We’re going to be heavily disappointed with the selection of Oswald cartoons on this set (at least compared to the first volume), as for the most part, they’re pretty weak, and mostly Hollywood parodies, which are only funny to those who like good movies or are over 50.

Some highlights on this set…

- “Termites from Mars” (1952, Patterson): The directorial debut of Don Patterson, a very talented animator who tried to put out something of decency on a shoestring budget. He was demoted back to animator for some unknown reason rather than Paul Smith. Woody protects the Earth from an invasion of maniacal termite Martians.

- “Hot Noon (or “12 O’ Clock for Sure”)” (1953, Smith): Paul Smith’s first Woody cartoon, a takeoff of the Gary Cooper classic. Buzz Buzzard comes back to town to settle a score with the sheriff. Woody is elected, and aims to bring Buzz to justice so he can get laid by his Mexican girlfriend.

- “Convict Concerto” (1954, Patterson): Woody is forced by gunpoint to play Liszt’s Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2 to help a thug on the lam hide from a cop.

- “Bunco Busters” (1955, Smith): “If Woody had gone right to the police…” You know this one.

- “Get Lost!” (1956, Smith): Splinter and Knothead (June Foray) play ‘Hansel and Gretel’, and run into a cat wanting a woodpecker pie. A surprisingly hilarious and violent cartoon. The only classic cartoon (other than “Knight-Mare Hare”) I know of with a reference to Marilyn Monroe.

- “Chief Charlie Horse” (1956, Smith): Woody tries to bring in an outlaw native for the reward money, but the idiot sheriff keeps getting tricked by him that he’s really a wooden Indian.

- “Niagara Fools” (1956, Smith): Woody tries to go over Niagara Falls in a barrel. The disgruntled tour guide keeps going over instead.

- “A Haunting We Will Go” (1939, Burt Gillett): Li’l Eightball gets taken to a haunted house by a ghost, set in his belief that there’s no such thing as them.

- “The Painter and the Pointer” (Andy Panda, 1944, Shamus Culhane): Andy rigs his dog to a gun so he’ll keep still for a painting… and two spiders try to take him alive!

- “The Poet and Peasant” (Andy Panda, 1946, Dick Lundy): I just showed you this one.

- “Mousie Come Home” (Andy Panda, 1946, Culhane): Mouse tries to commit suicide finding out his victims Andy and Milo have moved away. Features some of my all-time favorite animation by Emery Hawkins of the mouse getting hammered.

- “The Hams That Couldn’t Be Cured” (Swing Symphony, 1942, Walter Lantz): To save his own neck (literally), the wolf tells the sheriff how the pigs blew his house down with their boogie woogie.

- “Juke Box Jamboree” (Swing Symphony, 1942, Lovy): Cute cartoon about a mouse who gets wasted and hallucinates a mini-mariachi band.

- “Boogie Woogie Man” (Swing Symphony, 1943, Culhane): The ghost community gets shown how to get hep by zoot-suited black ghosts.

- “Half-Baked Alaska” (Chilly Willy, 1965, Sid Marcus): You know this one too. “More butter? More syrup?”

- “Dig That Dog” (1954, Ray Patterson and Grant Simmons): One of the two Lantz cartoons farmed out to these two animators’ studio. This clever one-shot about a Great Dane who buries everything in sight was one of Lantz’s personal favorites.

What more appropriate way to celebrate Xmas than a cartoon with two characters trying to kill each other over a turkey dinner?

The Harvey version snips off the credits, but it’s a Dave Tendlar picture with animation by Morey Reden, Tom Golden, and Marty Taras.

And hey, might as well watch this classic too.