Cat and Mouse Games: The History of Tom and Jerry (Part 4)

After animation legend Chuck Jones left Warner Brothers (Where he directed some cartoon masterpieces for the Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies cartoon series), he formed (along with Les Goldman) the animation studio Sib Tower 12 Productions. Starting in 1963, this animation studio continued the Tom and Jerry series with 34 more cartoons. This is commonly referred to as "The Chuck Jones Era". However unlike the Hanna-Barbera and Gene Deitch eras, not all the cartoons were directed by Chuck Jones. Some where directed by Abe Levitow, Ben Washam, Jim Pabian and Tom Ray. While most of those cartoons had their own entertaining charm usually the best of the bunch were the ones directed by Chuck, himself.

These cartoons in many ways seem much more like Chuck Jones cartoons than Tom and Jerry Cartoons. In fact Chuck Jones admitted on various occasions that he never truly felt at home with Tom and Jerry, the way he did with his own characters. However that does not stop these cartoons from being quite entertaining. While these never reach the heights of Hanna-Babera's years with Tom and Jerry they feature truly fantastic character animation, some pretty funny gags and great music. Any short in which Dean Elliott does the music is definitely worth you're attention. In fact I'd say his music was among the highlights of this era of Tom and Jerry, and that is not in any way a put down to the other elements in these cartoons. His music is definitely of the 60's, and demonstrates only the best traits of music from that era.

The rest of the crew working on these cartoons are quite similar to Chuck Jones' Looney Tunes, and Merrie Melodies. The crew included animators like Ken Harris, Ban Washam, Richard Thompson, and Philip DeGuard, voice actors such as Mel Blanc, and June Foray, writer Michael Maltese, and as Co-director now, one of Chuck's most prominent background artists, Maurice Noble. While these cartoons are not faultless and don't reach up to the standard of Hanna-Barbera's Tom and Jerry, with a crew like this you know it has to be good.

After 1967's "Advance and Be Mechanized", Tom and Jerry would have to leave the big screen, not to come back a until 1992's "Tom and Jerry: The Movie", a very disappointing, and bland return to the big screen. However a career was waiting for our favorite cat and mouse on Television.


To Be Continued...

-Michael J. Ruhland  

Turner Classic Movies Animation Marathon on October 6th

Great news fellow animation lovers on Monday October 6th Turner Classic Movies is going to give us marathon of classic animation rarely seen on TV today. It begins at 5pm pacific time or 8pm Eastern time.

The marathon will began with some shorts from animation pioneer, and one of the greats in the history of animation Winsor McCay. Then some shorts from animation pioneer John Randolph Bray, who created the character of Colonel Heeza Liar (based off President Theodore Roosevelt). Some of the cartoons from John Randolph Bray feature animation by future Woody Woodpecker co-creator Walter Lantz (the other co-creator was Ben "Bugs" Hardaway (the name sake for Bugs Bunny)). Next up comes some cartoons from the Van Buren studio, who gave us the now forgotten "Rainbow Parade" cartoon series. Coming up next is "The Adventures of Prince Achmed" (1926), the earliest surviving animated feature film ("The Apostle" (1917), and "Without a Trace" (1918) (both directed by Argentine animation pioneer Quirino Cristiani) came before but they are considered lost today). This masterpiece of a film is directed by Lotte Reingner, Queen of Silhouette animation. The animation and story telling of this film still holds up very well today, and not only remains an animated classic, but one of the best German films from the silent era. Next up comes The Fleisher Brothers first feature length film "Gulliver's Travel". I already talked about this great movie in a previous post so I won't go that much into it now. Next up comes the 1960 anime "Magic Boy". Lastly comes "The Phantom Tollbooth" (1969) directed by animation legend (a title he received for good reason) Chuck Jones. This is one of the only two feature films by Chuck Jones (the other being "The Bugs Bunny/ Roadrunner Movie" (1979)), and it is a film worthy of the legend who created it. Hopefully you tune in as well. This promises to be a fun night.

-Michael J. Ruhland

My Little Pony: Equestria Girls Rainbow Rocks is Getting Limited Theatrical Realease

Good news fellow bronies, if you like My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic as much as I do (which is a lot), and enjoyed the first Equestria Girls Movie, the second Equestria Girls Movie is getting a limited theatrical release in the USA and Canada.

Here are the theaters and times it will be shown:

 http://www.screenvision.com/cinema-events/my-little-pony-equestria-girls-rainbow-rocks/#theaters_list

-Michael J. Ruhland

Classic Hollywood Comedy Teams Get Animated #1

Like many cartoon fans I was introduced to many classic Hollywood celebrities through classic cartoons. Here we are going to look at some uses of some celebrities who were turned into cartoon characters. We are going to look at classic Hollywood comedy teams in cartoons.

The first cartoon we will look at is "A Tale of Two Kitties"(1942). This cartoon features caricatures of Abbott and Costello here turned into cartoon cats and renamed Babbitt and Catstello. Babbitt is voiced by Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies writer Tedd Pierce. Catstello is voiced by voice actor legend Mel Blanc (Who voiced most of the main Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies male characters). These two characters were meant to be the characters of the cartoon however another character stole the show. That character was Tweety who would of course become one of the main characters of the Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies. Now Tweety was never referred to by name in this cartoon, but on his original model sheet he was called Orson, but still the character is recognizably Tweety. In his first three cartoons ("A Tale Of Two Kitties"(1942), "Birdy and the Beast"(1944) (where Tweety was first given his name), "A Gruesome Twosome"(1945)) Tweety had no feathers. This is because his original design was based off a nude baby picture of Bob Clampett, who directed those first three Tweety cartoons. Tweety was also much more sadistic in the hands of director Bob Clampett. The initial idea for Tweety was that he was a very sadistic and violent character who would fool cats by the fact that he looks and acts cute. The character would be changed to what we know him as today after Bob Clampett left Warner Brothers to start a television career (Where he created the characters of Benny and Cecil). Friz Freling would become Tweety's main director and would pair him up with Sylvester the Cat.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eFC9vnZY93k

Next up comes another cartoon based around Abbott and Costello. This time it is a 1960's television cartoon by the kings of 1960's television cartoons, William Hanna and Joseph Barbera. Here Bud Abbott is actually voiced by the real Bud Abbott, and Lou Costello (Who had passed away in 1959) was voiced by Stan Irwin. Unfortunately Stan Irwin tried too hard to sound like Lou Costello and unlike the real Lou Costello, Irwin got pretty annoying at times. The show was good enough to make up for this though. It had the great writing, music, and voice acting (not including Stan Irwin) that made Hanna-Barbera cartoons of the 1960's so great.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m_H3ZRaVGts

Now we look at another television cartoon series this time centering around The Three Stooges. This 1965 TV show "The New Three Stooges" featured both live action and animated segments. The live action segments were directed by Edward Burns (who had been on director on some of the classic 1940's and 50's live action stooge shorts), and the animated segments were directed by David Detiege (Who had been a writer for Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies during the 1960's). David Detiege was also a writer for this show. The Three Stooges (then Moe Howard, Larry Fine, and "Curly" Joe DeRitia) played themselves in this show. They both appeared in the live action segments and did their voices in the animated segments. While the animation was very cheap and crude, the show still maintained a great charm, and some of the classic humor that made The Three Stooges famous.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mJExAQHuFXU

Lastly (For this post) we are going to look at a classic early Looney Tunes cartoon from 1933 staring Looney Tunes first main character the now forgotten Bosko. Bosko came to being when Hugh Harmon and Rudolf Ising left Walt Disney and made a pilot film for a new cartoon series. The pilot film was called "Bosko the Talk-ink Kid"(1929). Obviously talkie films were new at this time. When shown to producer Leon Schlesinger it was accepted and a new series called Looney Tunes was formed in the year 1930. When Merrie Melodies was created in 1931, Hugh Harmon became the sole director of the Looney Tunes, and Rudolf Ising became the sole director of the Merrie Melodies. While many of these cartoons resembled Disney more than the what we of with these two series today, this cartoon is probably the most Looney Tunes like Looney Tunes cartoon from this era. It is also one of the best of Hugh Harmon's early Looney Tunes. It was though one of the last cartoons from the Harmon and Ising period of Warner Brother's cartoons. They would move to MGM and take the character of Bosko with them, and continue making Bosko cartoons for the next 5 years as well as creating many other great cartoons at MGM. Of course Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies would continue to be two of the best cartoon series ever made (In my opinion the two best cartoon series ever made) even without two of their founding Members. The reason this cartoon is included here  is because it features some great caricatures of Laurel and Hardy and The Marx Brothers.

http://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=bosko%27s+picture+show&FORM=HDRSC3#view=detail&mid=A86AE4163DB8AB964043A86AE4163DB8AB964043
 
Unfortunately that video is a censored version of the cartoon. If you want to see why watch the video below, and if you want to see the uncensored version look for "Looney Tunes Golden Collection Volume 6".

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C2qu9zrYCP0

-Michael J. Ruhland

Cat and Mouse Games: The History of Tom and Jerry (Part 3)

When many animation fans see Gene Deitch's name on a Tom and Jerry cartoon, they go out of their way to avoid it. So what do I think of this most hated of eras of my favorite cat and mouse duo? In all honesty I don't think it's that bad. In fact I would say I have seen much worse happen to Tom and Jerry (such as the 1980 TV show by Filmation studios, "The Tom and Jerry Comedy Show" (We will get to that monstrosity later)). Now don't get me wrong I by no means think they are as good as the Tom and Jerry cartoons from William Hanna and Joseph Barbera. There are some bad cartoons during this era (Dicky Moe, Switchen Kitten), but there were some I actually believe to be pretty good (The Tom and Jerry Cartoon Kit, Buddies Thicker Than Water, Tail in the Trap, It's All Greek To Me-ow, Down and Outing).

In 1960 since MGM's animation studio was closed, it was decided to ship the making of the Tom and Jerry series overseas. It was shipped to Czechoslovakia. Where former employee of the American animation studios, UPA and Terrytoons, Gene Deitch, had just moved in 1959 (He was a director at Terrytoons (Where he created the character of Tom Terrific), and an animator at UPA). The Job of directing had been turned over to Gene Deitch. However Gene Deitch was not a fan of Tom and Jerry. Deitch wrote "Personally, as a UPA man, I had always cited Tom & Jerry cartoons as the primary bad example of senseless violence - humor based on pain - attack and revenge - to say nothing of the tasteless use of a headless black woman stereotype house servant". Another problem that had faced this team was that many of the animators had never seen a Tom and Jerry Cartoon. Deitch also wrote, "Even if the spirit was willing to give it an honest try, the fact remained that these communist-era, isolated animators had never in their lives seen even one Tom & Jerry cartoon! I had seen more than a few, and in spite of my ideological distance, I did appreciate the perfect craftsmanship, the expressive animation, with its exquisite timing, the endless gag inventiveness, and the characters' incredible damage survival". Also plaguing them was the much smaller budget they had to work on.

Due to these cartoons being imported from a communist country MGM did all they could to hide that fact. While these were among the only Tom and Jerry theatrical cartoons to not say "Made in Hollywood, USA", there was no mentioning of where they were made. Names like  A. Booresh,
Victor Little,  S. Newman , M. Clicker  and V. Marsh appeared in the opening credits, instead of Antonín Bure_, Václav Lídl, Zdenka Najmanová, Milan Klikar, and Věra Mare_ová.



While William Hanna and Joseph Barbera made 114 theatrical Tom and Jerry cartoons, Gene Deitch only made 13. Naturally the best parts of these Tom and Jerry cartoons were things that did not relate to the previous cartoons. There was a great sense of surrealism, and strangeness to these cartoons. This sense comes from the sound effects, music, and animation. It also occasionally features a few great moments of satire, such as "The Tom and Jerry Cartoon Kit" (1962). These cartoons have their own entertaining charm (in my opinion). Even though they are very different from other Tom and Jerry cartoons and aren't as good as the Hanna and Babera classics, I enjoy them quite a bit and will continue to do so.

If you want more information about Gene Deitch's Tom and Jerry cartoons (From the man himself), or if want to know where I got the quotes from, click on this link:

http://www.awn.com/genedeitch/chapter-twentyone-tom-and-jerry-the-first-reincarnation

To Be Continued...

-Michael J. Ruhland

The Fleischer Brothers and Feature Length Animation

Max and Dave Fleischer are two names that get pushed aside too often when The Golden Age of American Animation is discussed.  However we all have at least a passing knowledge of their Popeye, Betty Boop, and Superman cartoons, and fans of silent animation might know the "Out of the Inkwell" series as among the best cartoon series of it's time. Too few people though know about their two feature length films though. Now these films were not hits at the time they were released, and they are much less known now. However these are very entertaining and important films that I believe should not be overlooked. They were in fact the first and the only American feature length animated films not made by Disney during the 1930's and 40's. They were also the first American animated films to give credit to the voice actors, a practice very uncommon in those days.
"Gulliver's Travels" (1939) began it's life (not counting the classic book) as an idea of casting Popeye as Gulliver. While this certainly would have made an excellent film, this is not the direction they would choose to go. The character of Gulliver in this film was much more realistically animated then anything that had come out of the Fleischer studio before, and was purposely in stark contrast with the more cartoony little people of Lilliput. This was achieved through rotoscoping, a device pioneered by The Fleischers for their "Out of the Inkwell" series. Rotoscoping is a term for when an animator traces over live-action film (usually filmed for the purposes of being rotoscoped), and it is normally used to achieve more realistic animation.

"Gulliver's Travels" (1939) had little to do with the classic book. We never saw Gulliver visit any island other than Lilliput. Even then great liberties were taken with the time he spent on Lilliput. However the film doesn't suffer too much from this, because it exist as it's own entity, and should not be looked at as simply an unfaithful adaption of a great book. The film maintains much of the beautiful animation, great voice acting, trademark humor, and great storytelling that makes the Fleischer cartoons such classics. It remains a very enjoyable movie, and I recommend it highly.

For some reason the Fleischers believed the character Gabby (from "Gulliver's Travels" (1939)) would be a huge hit in a cartoon series of his own. The brothers turned out to be completely wrong on this case. While I personally don't find the character that annoying (many do) he is not a particularly interesting or funny character, and was easily a fault in an otherwise great movie. Naturally this series did not become a hit, and remains as the only truly bad cartoon series the Fleischer Brothers ever made, but with how much great entertainment the brothers have given us this is easy to forgive.

For their next feature length film The Fleshiers wanted to make an adaption of the of "The Life of the Bee" by Maurice Maeterlinck. They however could not get the film rights to the book, and so a similar original story was made. "Mr. Bug Goes to Town" (1941) became the first American feature length animated film not to be an adaption of a book, despite the original intention. One of the writer's who helped create this new story was Looney Tunes/ Merrie Melodies writer Tedd Pierce, who was loaned from Warner Brothers specifically for this film. He is defiantly part of why the movie turned out so well. Pierce also provided the voice for the villain in the movie, C. Bagley Beetle. Also included in the voice cast were Pinto Colvig (Disney writer, animator and voice of Goofy), Jack Mercer (Fleischer Brothers animator, Famous Studios writer, and voice of Popeye and Felix the Cat (the 1959 "Felix the Cat" TV series not the theatrical Felix cartoons)), and many more talented voice actors.

The opening credit sequence of "Mr. Bug Goes to Town" (1941) used another animation device the Fleischers had pioneered. This device was the use of 3D backgrounds. This was accomplished by putting 2D animation cells in a 3D set, and filming it like that. This device worked great, and the depth in the backgrounds is truly amazing. Strangely though this device has rarely been used since, despite the affect it has on audiences. This might be due the complexity of this operation, or the invention of the Disney multiplane camera (A discussion for a later date), but whatever the reason it is a sad loss this device never caught on. For an example of this device in action here is a classic Popeye cartoon that uses it to great effect.

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G9bU9Mi8grQ

Despite Dave Fleischer being credited as the only director of "Mr. Bug Goes to Town" (1941). The beginning of the movie (after the opening credits) was directed by legendary animator Shamus Culhane (who animated the Hi-Ho-Hi-Ho musical number in Disney's "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs" (1937), and directed some of the best Woody Woodpecker cartoons). This scene naturally worked out very well as it gave us time to get to know the characters without ever boring the audience.

"Mr. Bug Goes to Town" turned out to be a great movie that can even be considered an improvement on "Gulliver" which should not be a surprise once you look at the great crew that worked on it. However the film had not been the hit it should have been. Some have blamed this on the film being released too close to when Pearl Harbor was bombed, other have blamed this on Paramount (The studio that distributed the Fleischer's films) not giving the film enough attention, but whatever the reason it had a terrible affect on the world of animation. The Fleisher Brothers closed their studio, and Paramount now got their cartoons from Famous Studios. A sad end to the life of one of America's greatest animation studios.

For a better discussion on the reasons "Mr. Bug Goes to Town" was a box office failure take a look at this article from Cartoon Research.com.

http://cartoonresearch.com/index.php/mr-bug-and-hoppity-go-to-town/

-Michael J. Ruhland

Surreal Art: Jan Svankmajer's "Alice" (1988) and the Auteur Theory

In this post we are going to look at a film that makes one of the greatest uses of stop motion animation. We are going to look at the 1988 film "Alice", directed (and written for the screen) by Czechoslovakian director, animator, story teller, and master surrealist Jan Svankmajer. This film was not the first time "Alice in Wonderland" had been adapted using a combination of live action and stop motion animation. This device had been used in 1949 by Lou Bunin in his film "Alice in Wonderland", not to be confused with the Disney film which was released in 1951, and featured only hand drawn animation. Even before that Walt Disney made extremely loose versions of "Alice in Wonderland" using live action and hand drawn animation in a series called the "Alice Comedies", which released it's first film "Alice's Wonderland" in 1923. However "Alice" (1988) is the best use of this device, and in my opinion the best film adaption of "Alice in Wonderland".

I pick this movie to talk about for 3 reasons:
1. It is a masterpiece
2. Too many people have not heard of it
3. I want to discuss how film theory and analysis can be very useful for discussing animated films as well as live action, and a Jan Svankmajer film is a great place to start such a discussion (despite that live action is also used, the animation in his films warrants serious discussion as much the live action).

"Alice" (1988) is a perfect film to use as proof for the auteur theory. The auteur theory was first proposed  (At least to the earliest we can trace it) in the French film magazine "Cahiers du Cinéma". This magazine had a huge influence on how film is looked at as an art form, and featured future great French live-action filmmakers such as François Truffaut, and Jean-Luc Godard as writers. The auteur theory is the belief that a film is the creative vision of the director and that the director is essentially the author of the film. An auteur director is a director whose distinctive style and personal themes can be seen in nearly all their work, and can not be mistaken for any other director. Jan Svankmajer is definitely an auteur director and "Alice" is defiantly proof of this.

Jan Svankmajer is know for (by the people he is known by) his surreal and odd ball stop-motion animation, borderline obsession with characters eating (you will know what I mean after you watch "Alice"), darkly hilarious sense of humor, exaggerated sound effects, and disturbing subconscious feel to many of his films. "Alice" contains all of these in abundance.  Svankmajer felt a film version of "Alice in Wonderland" should not be made as a fairy tale but rather as a subconscious dream. He stated "While a fairy tale has got an educational aspect – it works with the moral of the lifted forefinger (good overcomes evil), dream, as an expression of our unconscious, uncompromisingly pursues the realization of our most secret wishes without considering rational and moral inhibitions, because it is driven by the principle of pleasure. My Alice is a realized dream.". Therefore in this film Alice fully enters a Freudian dream, instead of the more fantasy based one as we have become accustomed to. Here is a very insightful interview with Jan Svankmajer to help further explain this point.

http://www.electricsheepmagazine.co.uk/features/2011/06/14/interview-with-jan-352vankmajer/

Most of this is naturally shown through the directing. The imagery and the way it is presented is more disturbing than whimsical. The mixture of live-action and animation help to make this film feel much less real. This film in fact never attempts reality it instead in every visual way possible subverts it. This makes the film truly feel like our own subconscious dream, a feat rarely paralleled in film (animation, live action or a mixture of both). This is truly a director's film, and a master piece.

-Michael J. Ruhland