Turkey Toons

In honor of Thanksgiving, today we are going to look at three cartoons about Turkeys.

Our first film is a great Looney Tune cartoon staring Daffy Duck, Porky Pig, and a turkey. One thing you may notice is that the credits credit under writing was The Crew. This was of course referring to the whole Warner Brothers cartoon writing department, but the main writers for this cartoon were Michael Maltese and Tedd Pierce. This great cartoon was directed by Chuck Jones. Chuck Jones is one of the main names involved with changing Daffy Duck from his early wild unhinged version that Bob Clampett, and Tex Avery used into the later more greedy self-preservationist version. Here he has Daffy in a transitional period where he is a little of both (or a lot of both), honestly this transitional period is one of my favorite versions of Daffy. To explain a joke that has confused many cartoon fans, when hiding in the snowman, Tom Turk says about Daffy "Quisling". This is a reference to a Norwegian Prime Minster who made a deal with the Nazis. Anyway from 1944 here is Tom Turk and Daffy.

Tex Avery's MGM cartoons are considered by many (including myself) to be some of the funniest cartoons ever made. Our next film shows why this is very well. This cartoon was written by Frequent Avery collaborator Heck Allen. Heck Allen was a writer on many of Tex Avery's best cartoons. Aside for writing cartoons he would also write many western novels, often under the pen names  Will Henry, and Clay Fisher. He used these pen names because he was afraid MGM would not be happy with him moonlighting. Allen often times overlooked his own contribution to these cartoons, feeling that Avery just turned his basic ideas into the great films they became. So from 1945 here is Jerky Turkey.

Our last Turkey Toon is another MGM cartoon. This time directed by Hugh Harman. Hugh Harman had helped found the Warner Brothers cartoon studio in 1930, along with his partner Rudolph Ising. Hugh Harman directed all the Looney Tunes cartoons until he and Ising left for MGM in 1933, where they would play an important role in founding the MGM cartoon studio. The music for this cartoon would be provided by Borrah Minevitch and His Harmonica Rascals. This is the groups only foray into animation. They did work on 5 live action films though these included the features, One in a Million (directed by Sidney Lanfield, and staring Sonja Henie), Hit Parade of 1941 (directed by John H. Auer, and staring Kenny Baker), Always in My Heart (directed by Jo Graham,and staring Kay Francis), Tramp, Tramp Tramp (Directed by Charles Barton and staring Jackie Gleson), and the short Borrah Minevitch and His Harmonica School (directed by Jean Negulesco and staring themselves. So from 1940 here is Tom Turkey and His Harmonica Humdingers.

-Michael J. Ruhland