Wabbit Twouble: A Small Addendum to An Outstanding Podcast

Original animation drawing from Wabbit Twouble with color
notations for the ink and paint department.

Release date: 12/20/41

Availability: Looney Tunes Golden Collection, Volume 1 (DVD); Looney Tunes Platinum Collection, Volume 2 (Blu-Ray; both from Warner Home Video)

You can view a nice copy of this cartoon HERE.

This may be the most perfunctory post on this blog, since others have already covered, in good detail, what I might have observed about Wabbit Twouble, the last Avery-instigated Bugs B unny cartoon. 

That Komoroski and Bob Jaques devoted the fourth episode of their must-hear podcast Cartoon Logic to Wabbit Twouble. You may listen to that episode HERE.

Steven Hartley, in his gone-but-not-forgotten Warner Brothers cartoon blog "Likely Looney, Mostly Merrie," covered Wabbit Twouble HERE.

Circus Today: Okay, okay! (with guest commentator Devon Baxter)

Release date: 6/22/1940 (according to BCDb)
DVD-Blu-Ray Availability: NONE

You may view the complete version of this cartoon HERE. It has some audio garbage at the start; apologies for the watermarks.

Dailymotion has been acting up lately, but this is the only extant online version I could find (that didn't seem suspicious)...

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It may come as a shock to some of you to see a new post here. People have been inquiring about about when I'll be doing the next post on this blog. I'm flattered to know there are folks out there who anticipate reading my two cents on the early works of Tex Avery. Thank you.

Well, since I have a reward in the next cartoon after this, and since my old chum Devon Baxter (whose weekly column on the Cartoon Research website you are reading, aren't you? Hmmm?) offered some guest-commentator notes, I'll saddle up the old bronc and get through yet another Avery unit spot-gag cartoon.

Circus Today is one of the better efforts in this vein--there aren't many spots where I gag--and has some compelling in-jokes. Well, leave us get started...    

No narrator! This cartoon opens with an effective use of sound and visuals to convey the setting and mood. Don Brodie* gets us in the proper festive spirit as a carnival barker, spiels over this lovely circus artwork...

...and dissolves to the barker drawing a crowd. This is a significant step up from the prior spot-gag cartoons. Though Robert C. Bruce's tolerant, bemused narrative voice works well in the earlier cartoons, it's refreshing to see Avery and his writers having enough confidence to let go of that crutch.

Uncle Tom's Bungalow: Brief Bursts of Brilliance in a Controversial Cartoon

RELEASE DATE:
6/5/1937 (according to the Big Cartoon Database; IMDb claims a 7/12/1937 release date)

DVD/BLU-RAY AVAILABILITY:
NONE

We once had access to a very nice print of this cartoon, but it was taken down. An adequate version may be seen HERE, and you can always take initiative to find other versions out there. It's easy, mac!

The first of two Avery cartoons banned from television airing by the late 1960s, Uncle Tom's Bungalow is part of a group of cartoons animation scholars (and fans) refer to as "The Censored 11."

These cartoons were suppressed mostly for racial stereotypes that were too much for post-civil rights America. Aside from prints hoarded by collectors, these cartoons were often difficult to see, pre-Internet—and are still often encountered in faded, lo-rez versions that do the originals no favors.

Arguably, only three of the "Censored 11" are great cartoons. Bob Clampett's exuberant mini-masterpiece Coal Black And De Sebben Dwarfs (1943), Friz Freleng's solid, funny musical Goldilocks and The Jivin' Bears (1944) and this Avery cartoon are the real keepers of this clandestine subset.

Appreciation of these cartoons requires the viewer's understanding of the era and circumstances in which they were made. In Avery's case, they raise larger concerns and ask bigger questions.

A Tex Avery Terrytoon? Almost--Ain't We Got Fun

RELEASE DATE:
5/1/1937 (according to the Big Cartoon Database; IMDb claims a 7/2/1937 release date)

DVD/BLU-RAY AVAILABILITY:
The Life of Emile Zola DVD (Warners Home Video)

Thanks to the always-awesome Devon Baxter, you can view a mid-1990s Turner print of this cartoon HERE. You're a brick, Devon!

After the epochal effort and game-changing effect of Porky's Duck Hunt, Avery's next cartoon is an inevitable letdown.

This is a Tex Avery pattern: a masterpiece followed by a "meh." Avery's lesser cartoons still have redeeming moments, and this Merrie Melodie, which chooses the road less traveled of prudence and restraint, is a minor moment in a major filmography. By the standards of any of the other units in Leon Schlesinger's studio, this would be a good-to-average cartoon. It might have been Jack King's masterpiece.

It's also Avery's first cartoon to deviate from his way of drawing. I'll get into this topic more later, but the majority of the characters in Ain't We Got Fun don't appear to be of his design.

Perhaps this film was a trade-off for the Avery unit being allowed to make Porky's Duck Hunt, which was previously covered in depth here. "You made a cartoon your way; now you gotta make one for the front office." (This is only an educated guess.) Where Duck Hunt is infused with comedic passion, Ain't We Got Fun is phoned in with gritted teeth. One recalls Oliver Owl, from Avery's I Love To Singa, forcing out his pinched rendition of "Drink To Me Only With Thine Eyes."

Porky's Duck Hunt: Return To Monochrome Inspires Director; Gives Birth to Archetype To End All Cartoon Archetypes

RELEASE DATE:
4/17/1937 (according to the Big Cartoon Database; IMDb concurs)

DVD/BLU-RAY AVAILABILITY:
Available on the Warner Home Video DVD THE ESSENTIAL DAFFY DUCK, released in 2011)

This epochal cartoon--as important to the artform as STEAMBOAT WILLIE or ROOTY TOOT TOOT--has, at long last, been lovingly restored and released on legit DVD.

It's the sole "new" attraction of the double-disc, double-dipfest that is The Essential Daffy Duck. Thanks to the wonderful Patrick Malone at The Internet Animation Database (link: http://www.intanibase.com) I have a sumptuous rip of the restored version. You can view this gorgeous, accurate version of Porky's Duck Hunt HERE. Do take nine minutes and watch it before you read further.

It is downright curious that such a crucial cartoon has been so overlooked in the restoration process. This cartoon appeared on one of the Warner VHS collections of the 1980s, and was in dire need of some TLC then. WHV also waited to restore Avery's other seminal game-changer, A Wild Hare (1940) until after the heyday of the scattershot-but-sweet Looney Tunes Golden Collection DVD sets.

In a sense, Porky's Duck Hunt, like Steamboat Willie, has outlived its own effectiveness. Revolutionary upon its release, its gags and attitude were so absorbed into the lifeblood of the American cartoon landscape that it might elicit a "meh" from the casual viewer.

If this cartoon had not appeared when it did, and made the way it was made, American animation might have further suffered the stifling constraints of the Disney way.

(Page) Miss Glory: A Reluctant Excursion Into Style

RELEASE DATE:
6/9/1936

DVD/BLU-RAY AVAILABILITY:
Looney Tunes Golden Collection,
Vol. VI (Warner Brothers DVD 115871)

You can watch a nice color print of this cartoon, with commentary by Will Friedwald, HERE. If you're not familiar with this cartoon, please watch before you read--thanks!

As I anticipated (and dreaded) when I began this blog, it has proven difficult to look beyond the mere trainspotting of facts, figures and rumors that seem to obsess many fans of classic animation.

That is not what this blog is about. I hate to repeat myself, but I guess I must. My sole intention with this blog is to examine the development of Fred "Tex" Avery as a humorist, movie-maker and pop-culture influence. It is not to determine who did what, when, where, or why.

Yes, animation is a team effort. Yes, some talented and very significant animation figures worked on these cartoons. Yes, there was behind-the-scenes intrigue. You can find that information readily elsewhere on the Internet. What you'll find here is MY personal look at the developmental efforts of a great film-maker. Please respect what I'm trying to do here. Thank you.

I'd Love To Take Orders From You: Avery's First Technicolor Cartoon, If Nothing Else...

RELEASE DATE:
5/25/1936

DVD/BLU-RAY AVAILABILITY:
none at present

An on-line color version can be viewed HERE.

If you're not familiar with this cartoon, please watch it now before reading my analysis. Thanks!

Avery's sudden promotion to the Technicolor Merrie Melodies series shows that he had impressed Leon Schlesinger with his first three black-and-white cartoons. I'd Love To Take Orders From You completely suppresses the creative urges that shine through those first efforts.

Perhaps this was by choice. The stakes were higher for these larger-budgeted Technicolor cartoons. They typically flogged a recent song from the Warner Brothers popular music catalog. More attention was paid to the Merrie Melodies by the front office, and expectations for more crowd-pleasing (i.e., bland) content were perhaps encouraged.