Category: Looney Tunes cartoons

Mouse and Garden (1960, Friz Freleng)

Mouse and Garden has some bad animation… shockingly bad. The cartoon’s about Sylvester and his sidekick, Sam, fighting over a mouse. The animation on Sam (an orange cat) and the mouse is awful. Freleng apparently didn’t care about appearing three dimensional.

Actually, a lot of the gags work in two dimensions, as does most of Freleng’s composition. Garden is a bore to watch.

Sylvester looks a little better, like the animators had good reference materials. Not so for the annoying Sam–the character’s weak and a terrible pair for Sylvester.

Maybe if the mouse had any personality the cartoon might work better, but Freleng sort of ignores it until the final gag. Gag might be too strong a word to describe it. Final attempt at humor.

Mel Blanc’s characterization of Sylvester is so strong it’s hard to dislike Garden entirely, but there’s nothing else good about the cartoon at all.

1/3Not Recommended

CREDITS

Directed by Friz Freleng; animated by Gerry Chiniquy, Arthur Davis and Virgil Ross; music by Milt Franklyn; edited by Treg Brown; produced by John W. Burton; released by Warner Bros.

Starring Mel Blanc (Sylvester) and Daws Butler (Sam).

RELATED

Hook, Line and Stinker (1958, Chuck Jones)

I don’t get it.

I haven’t seen a Road Runner cartoon since I was a kid, but watching Hook, Line and Stinker, I couldn’t figure out the appeal.

Oh, Jones’s direction is outstanding and the animation is great, but it’s a long series of gags. They’re not laugh out loud funny, but some of them are amusing–especially in Stinker‘s case, this long complicated one at the end. But there’s no other point….

Stinker‘s an exercise in craftsmanship, a cartoon boiled down to the gags and those gags drawn out to extremes.

And, even though Wile E. Coyote would undoubtedly eat the Road Runner, one can’t help but feel sorry for him. The whole cartoon is centered around laughing at the poor coyote. At least the Road Runner isn’t stuck-up; he’s clearly a birdbrain.

Again, Jones and his animators do a great job. Just a pointless one.

1/3Not Recommended

CREDITS

Directed by Chuck Jones; written by Michael Maltese; animated by Ken Harris, Richard Thompson and Ben Washam; edited by Treg Brown; produced by John W. Burton; released by Warner Bros.

RELATED

By Word of Mouse (1954, Friz Freleng)

I feel like By Word of Mouse should be better. It turns out it’s a Sylvester cartoon–not without good gags–but the concept deserves more.

A German mouse heads to the U.S. to visit a relation; free market capitalism–well, American consumerism, wows him and the two cousins find a professor (also a mouse) to explain it all. The explanations for the viewer too, of course.

But this cartoon takes place in the fifties and it’s unclear if the German mouse is from the West or East (presumably West). German just doesn’t seem the right nationality for the concept to work.

Freleng’s direction is good, the style is charming, and the economics lesson is just right for a younger audience.

Still, Word doesn’t really have an ending… Sylvester ruins the mouse’s trip and he heads back. Or maybe has other adventures, it’s unclear.

It’s likable, but completely doldrum.

2/3Recommended

CREDITS

Directed by Friz Freleng; written by Warren Foster; animated by Ted Bonnicksen, Gerry Chiniquy, Arthur Davis and Ben Washam; edited by Treg Brown; music by Milt Franklyn; produced by Edward Selzer; released by Warner Bros.

Starring Mel Blanc (Sylvester / Hans / Uncle / Aunt / Elevator Operator / Mice Children).

RELATED

A-Haunting We Will Go (1966, Robert McKimson)

Expository dialogue in a cartoon? I’ve never heard anything so silly before… in A-Haunting We Will Go, the witch introduces Speedy Gonzales. Unfortunately, she does not cook him.

Strangely (and sadly since the character dynamic is amusing), Daffy’s nephew doesn’t get an introduction.

The stuff with Daffy and his nephew isn’t bad–and the animation on the exterior scenes is quite good–but June Foray’s witch is exceedingly annoying. Except when she turns Speedy Gonzales into her physical clone, then Haunting becomes some weird gag about a Mexican drag queen. You’d think an anti-defamation league would have complained.

Bill Lava’s music is bad and McKimson’s approach seems more informed by “The Jetsons” than anything else.

It’s unfortunate, as the opening with Daffy and his nephew is quite good. It’s probably the best twenty or thirty seconds I’ve ever seen from McKimson.

But then Haunting plummets fast and far.

1/3Not Recommended

CREDITS

Directed by Robert McKimson; animated by Warren Batchelder, George Grandpré, Bob Matz and Manuel Perez; edited by Al Wahrman; music by William Lava; produced by David H. DePatie and Friz Freleng; released by Warner Bros.

Starring Mel Blanc (Daffy Duck / Speedy Gonzales / Daffy’s Nephew) and June Foray (Witch Hazel).

RELATED

The Booze Hangs High (1930, Hugh Harman and Rudolf Ising)

It takes The Booze Hangs High nearly half its running time to have its first gag… but it’s worth the wait. An adorable little duckling tells its mother it needs to go number two. Without dialogue or visual followthrough, but the message is clear. And, all of a sudden, Booze starts getting better.

It starts off really rocky. Bosko, the lead, isn’t funny. Until the ducklings, the only interesting thing of note is the filmmakers seemingly not understanding bulls do not have udders.

But after the ducklings? Then Bosko feeds some pigs their slop (from a trash can) and the piglets find a liquor bottle. They proceed to get wasted. At that point, Booze gets a lot better.

Some of the problem is clearly the sound–directors Harman and Ising are still wowed with synchronized sound.

Whilethe animation detail is weak, the backgrounds are great.

Booze‘s tiring, but amusing.

The Windblown Hare (1949, Robert McKimson)

The Windblown Hare is fairly intolerable. Even if the animation wasn’t lazy–maybe Warner slashed the budget after finding out what McKimson wanted to do–there are still two and a half major problems.

First, and most surprisingly, Mel Blanc’s Three Little Pigs voices are terrible. He’s doing them as Cagney toughs and it flops. Next, the half point, is Blanc’s Big Bad Wolf. Also bad.

His Bugs Bunny is fine, though the animation on Bugs is particularly bad.

The other big problem is the writing. McKimson doesn’t realize the Wolf doesn’t even acknowledge Bugs’s presence until it becomes a plot point. It’s incredibly lazy writing.

As far as the gags go, maybe the Wolf kicking grandma out of her house (without eating her) is the best. The final gag is terrible and the cartoon doesn’t even end properly; it stops instead.

At least Bugs isn’t annoying here. Just dumb.

1/3Not Recommended

CREDITS

Directed by Robert McKimson; written by Warren Foster; animated by John Carey, Phil DeLara, Manny Gould and Charles McKimson; edited by Treg Brown; music by Carl W. Stalling; produced by Edward Selzer; released by Warner Bros.

Starring Mel Blanc (Bugs Bunny / The Three Little Pigs / The Big Bad Wolf).

RELATED

The Great Piggy Bank Robbery (1946, Robert Clampett)

Is that Porky Pig cameoing in The Great Piggy Bank Robbery? I kept expecting him to be revealed as the big villain.

The story concerns Daffy Duck getting clomped on the head and imagining himself in a Dick Tracy adventure. Now, for Tracy fans, there’s a lot to see, including some inventive takes on the villains. But it’s actually pretty tame for everyone else.

Some of the problem is the animation. Piggy looks like it was done, for the most part, on the cheap. For the first half, it’s mostly just Daffy by himself, acting wacky. In this wackiness, his body contorts to extraordinary proportions. There’s little point to it… unless Clampett was just trying to keep the cartoon active.

Since it’s clearly a dream, the payoff has to be in the dream sequence—and there are a couple decent gags—but overall, it fails.

Piggy is way too loose.

1/3Not Recommended

CREDITS

Directed by Robert Clampett; written by Warren Foster; animated by Rob Scribner, Bill Melendez, Manny Gould and Izzy Ellis; edited by Treg Brown; music by Carl W. Stalling; produced by Edward Selzer; released by Warner Bros.

Starring Mel Blanc (Daffy Duck).

RELATED

The Hep Cat (1942, Robert Clampett)

In the last minute and a half of The Hep Cat, Clampett finally comes up with some really interesting shots. The short’s a cat and dog one. It follows the standard. Dumb dog versus a mean, vain and not much smarter cat.

The titular hep cat breaks out into a song routine, but it’s not enough to separate him too much from all the rest.

They chase each other around (the dog’s smart enough to put on a pussycat puppet and tempt the cat) but at the end they end up on the city rooftops. All the animation is solid, but once they’re on the rooftops, it all of a sudden gets a lot more visually compelling.

Otherwise, there’s nothing to recommend it. The cat isn’t much of a character, even with singing and various voices, and the dog’s even less of one.

It feels long too (at six minutes).

1/3Not Recommended

CREDITS

Directed by Robert Clampett; written by Warren Foster; animated by Robert McKimson; edited by Treg Brown; music by Carl W. Stalling; produced by Leon Schlesinger; released by Warner Bros.

Starring Mel Blanc (The Hep Cat / Rosebud) and Bea Benaderet (Bird).

RELATED

Mouse Wreckers (1948, Chuck Jones)

I have some not insignificant problems with Mouse Wreckers.

First, the cartoon is almost entirely beautiful. Great backgrounds, great talking mice, almost everything. Except the mice’s victim, a cat. The animation on the cat is fine, but the design of the cat itself is awful. It frequently disrupts otherwise fine shots.

Second, the cat’s innocent. The mice go after him because he’s got awards for mouse catching. The cartoon never shows it. In fact, the cartoon shows the cat to be stupid and lovable. He drinks too much catnip, who wouldn’t love a cat like him….

For the first half, the gags the mice pull to get the cat to leave the house are weak. Wreckers is more interesting, during those scenes, in terms of the great animation on the mouse’s pulley.

But the final gag is fantastic. It saves the cartoon, probably because it’s the longest gag as well.

2/3Recommended

CREDITS

Directed by Chuck Jones; written by Michael Maltese; animated by Ken Harris, Phil Monroe, Lloyd Vaughan and Ben Washam; edited by Treg Brown; music by Carl W. Stalling; produced by Edward Selzer; released by Warner Bros.

Starring Mel Blanc (Hubie / Claude) and Stan Freberg (Bertie).

RELATED

Easter Yeggs (1947, Robert McKimson)

I’m sorry, I think I missed something… did Bugs Bunny just kill the Easter Bunny?

Or did he just maim him?

Easter Yeggs ought to be a lot better. It’s got an Easter Bunny who conspires to get out of his duties on an annual basis by acting emo, it’s got Elmer Fudd and it’s got a psychotic infant who uses a revolver as a pacifier.

So what’s wrong with it?

Oddly, a combination of weak animation and director McKimson’s reliance on live action directorial mores. McKimson actually uses an over-the-shoulder shot in Yeggs, which makes no sense. Especially since he’s going over Elmer Fudd’s shoulder when he’s not the protagonist….

McKimson’s strange approach aside, there’s some really awful animation too. At times, Bugs appears to have a potbelly. And to be about twelve feet tall.

The last two gags are really great though; they save the cartoon.

2/3Recommended

CREDITS

Directed by Robert McKimson; written by Warren Foster; animated by McKimson, Richard Bickenbach and Izzy Ellis; edited by Treg Brown; music by Milt Franklyn and Carl W. Stalling; produced by Edward Selzer; released by Warner Bros.

Starring Mel Blanc (Bugs Bunny / Easter Bunny / Bratty Kid) and Arthur Q. Bryan (Elmer Fudd).

RELATED