"No Squat, No Stoop, No Squint"--Cinderella Meets Fella

Release date: 7/23/1938 (according to BCDb)

DVD-Blu-Ray Availability: as a bonus feature on the Warner Home Video boxed set, The Busby Berkeley Collection, Vol. 2)
You may view this cartoon HERE.

With this cartoon, the Fred Avery unit enters a strong period. Accomplished film-making technique, coupled with improving animation and a tight core group of voice, music and graphic talent gives Avery's cartoons a sudden authority.

Avery the cartoon director seems assured and in control of his comedic notions. This assurance is cloaked in a self-effacing nonchalance. Not for Avery was the zany grandstanding of a Bob Clampett, nor the stylistic indulgence of a Chuck Jones.

Compare Cinderella Meets Fella to the previous year's Little Red Walking Hood, and Avery's pronounced and expanding skill is strongly felt. He is humbly in control of a comedic universe that bends to his whims, and delights in surprising and amusing its audience.

Like Walking Hood, this film uses the title card-as-storybook motif, and wastes no time getting down to business:

Avery is still a bit trigger-happy, and rushes to debunk the simulation of sincerity with a cheerfully corny post-script...

By 1938, there had been a few cartoon versions of the Cinderella story, so audiences knew what to expect--which gives Avery and his team a familiar world to subvert and wring out.

Cinderella, who at times resembles "Cookie" from the pre-Avery "Buddy" cartoon series, is seen doing exactly what her story demands--cleaning house for her trio of entitled step-sisters. They make one brief appearance to taunt our heroine:

 The trio leans back in to invoke the radio-derived catchline "And I do... mean... YOU!"

 Cinderella is typically crestfallen.

Stuttering Charlatan Loses Girl, Wins Food Source: I Only Have Eyes For You

RELEASE DATE:
3/6/1937 (according to the Big Cartoon Database; IMDb says 5/18/37)

DVD/BLU-RAY AVAILABILITY:
Available on the Warner Home Video DVD DAMES, released in 2006)

A reasonably good copy of this cartoon can be seen HERE (thanks for providing this, Devon Baxter!) As always, we recommend that you watch the cartoon before reading!

Frustrating cartoon, this. It comes right before Fred Avery's first bonafide masterpiece—one of the most revolutionary animated cartoons in American film. This cartoon is, quite frankly, not worthy of his talent or effort.

This is a pattern that recurs through Avery's career. Minor films precede major works; masterpieces are followed by half-assed also-rans. Avery was not a consistent creator of gems. By his nature, he couldn't be. A constant, fearless experimenter, each film an object-lesson in how much he could get away with (both with the studio brass and paying audiences), Avery had to take mis-steps.

More so than Chuck Jones or Bob Clampett, Avery walked off metaphorical cliffs, and courted abject failure, so that he could excel in his cinematic and comedic gifts.

I Only Have Eyes For You is exactly the kind of cartoon producer Leon Schlesinger wanted. It exploited a hot song (and a genuinely fine one—it's become a solid part of the Great American Songbook), and, on its surface, did nothing out of kilter. It could have been made by any of the units at Schlesinger's studio.

Avery would keep making such cartoons throughout his stay at Schlesinger's. There will be four more of these song-driven cartoons in the next year. They are replaced by the troublesome string of topical spot-gag cartoons in 1939. Your humble host looks forward to covering those cartoons as he would a spoonful of syrup of ipecac.

Porky the Wrestler: Minor but Meaningful Sports Shenanigans Welcome Mel Blanc to the Avery Universe

RELEASE DATE:
1/9/1937 (according to the Grand Cartoon Database, IMDb and most other Internet sources)

DVD/BLU-RAY AVAILABILITY:
Porky Pig 101 (WHV 5-DVD set)

An as-good-as-it-gets version of this cartoon can be seen HERE (thanks for providing this, Devon Baxter!)

Avery and his unit continue to coast (but do so well) in this unaccountably rare and fairly minor cartoon. One deeply inspired sequence, worthy of a Jacques Tati, and an early vocal appearance by Mel Blanc--soon to finalize the Termite Terrace Dream Team with his great voice work and wit--makes this cartoon worthy of the name of Fred Avery.

This is one of the earlier Schlesinger cartoons to have been censored. One scene, or shot, was removed sometime in the 1940s. No one knows exactly why. Popular speculations include racial material (which seems unlikely, as racial stereotypes were vibrantly alive in the '40s) and a topical celebrity or sports caricature that no longer made sense, when and if this cartoon was reissued.