Clampett & Avery--1940s?

[larriva9/11]

Excuse me if this has been stupidly asked or answered before in some such context, but I'm wondering about what kind of relationship (good/bad/whatever blood?) there might have been btw/Bob Clampett and Tex Avery after Avery left WB--particularly in light of Clampett's unabashed use of Avery motifs, most notably the wolf (Bacall To Arms et al)--would that count as brazen plagiarism, homage, or just typically Clampettesque devil-may-care pop-cultural "sampling"? And what might Avery have thought?

As I said, a stupid question.

[Douglas E.]

Excuse me if this has been stupidly asked or answered before in some such context, but I'm wondering about what kind of relationship (good/bad/whatever blood?) there might have been btw/Bob Clampett and Tex Avery after Avery left WB--particularly in light of Clampett's unabashed use of Avery motifs, most notably the wolf (Bacall To Arms et al)--would that count as brazen plagiarism, homage, or just typically Clampettesque devil-may-care pop-cultural "sampling"? And what might Avery have thought?

As I said, a stupid question.
I've been wanting to post something like this saying something alot like what you were saying. I allways found Avery's "The Cat that Hated People" very weird, and ultimately I realize that it's like a poorly timed "Porky in Wackyland." And Bcall To Arms is an unfinished Clampett realeased a full year after "The Cat that Hated People." So I think that Avery thought up the short after seeing Clampett's twist on his own work, and wanted to see what happend if he took Clampett's idea and made it into his own.

-Doug

[Leviathan]

Tex Avery apparently featured an unflattering caricature of Bob Clampett in one of his cartoons at WB, Circus Today.

[J. J. Hunsecker]

Tex Avery apparently featured an unflattering caricature of Bob Clampett in one of his cartoons at WB, Circus Today.
If I remember correctly, I don't think the character in Circus Today looks like Clampett, though he has his name. So is it really a caricature?

Clampett's own cartoons feature caricatures of himself, such as Russian Rhapsody and Porky's Hero Agency. So I don't think anyone at Schlesinger's thought that caricatures were unflattering.

However, Avery did write of Clampett that "for thirty years, I have been sickened by 'super' Clampett's false claims to characters and cartoons that you (meaning Chuck Jones), Friz and myself created" in a 1975 letter put together by Jones. This was in answer to Clampett's claims in the Barrier interview published in Funnyworld in 1969. Maybe Avery felt differently about Clampett in the 40's though, before this controversy erupted later in life.

In interviews Clampett always idolized Avery, though. Probably because Avery allowed Clampett some creative freedom as an animator. They were both interested in making funny cartoons too, as opposed to Disney type cartoons.

[J. J. Hunsecker]

I've been wanting to post something like this saying something alot like what you were saying. I allways found Avery's "The Cat that Hated People" very weird, and ultimately I realize that it's like a poorly timed "Porky in Wackyland." And Bcall To Arms is an unfinished Clampett realeased a full year after "The Cat that Hated People." So I think that Avery thought up the short after seeing Clampett's twist on his own work, and wanted to see what happend if he took Clampett's idea and made it into his own.

-Doug
I always thought that Avery's The Cat That Hated People paled in comparison to Clampett's Porky in Wackyland. Wackyland is much more anarchic and freer in terms of surrealist humor. Avery's version on the moon is much more constraint. The jokes follow a logical order and pattern -- a pair of scissors chases a piece of paper with the cat getting caught in the middle. And so it goes for each new pair introduced -- shovel chasing pail, lipstick chasing a pair of laughing lips, etc. Wackyland is more unpredictable, and the gags don't really follow any pattern or logical set-up or pay off -- like the duck mechanically chanting "mammy" across the screen for example, or the rabbit suspended on a swing attached to its ears. Yet, those weird gags are funny.

[Sogturtle]

Tex Avery apparently featured an unflattering caricature of Bob Clampett in one of his cartoons at WB, Circus Today.


Leviathan~

Welllll the CARICATURE itself is not unflattering, as it looks pretty darn exactly like Bob... Take a CLOSE look, tall and lanky, the same large-hooked nose as Clampett, big glasses like Bob... In point of fact it looks precisely like the other non-animated Clampett-caricatures...

But it's the fact of the Bob-caricature (explosively;) called "Captain Clampett") being loaded into a cannon and fired off around the world and returning with place-stamps slapped to his bottom that tells a tale of less than admiration on Tex's part even back in 1940...

[Insofar as I can remember NO other personal caricature actually IN a Warners cartoon ever showed quite as much desire to really SAY something negative about the person being caricatured...]

[Thad]

It's definitely a caricature of Bob Clampett, but Soggy's reading way too much into it. By his logic, Avery must have absolutely hated Friz, seeing as his caricature gets captured by giant cannibals in "Crazy Cruise".

[J. J. Hunsecker]

It's definitely a caricature of Bob Clampett, but Soggy's reading way too much into it. By his logic, Avery must have absolutely hated Friz, seeing as his caricature gets captured by giant cannibals in "Crazy Cruise".
Okay, My mistake. I must have been thinking of another cartoon. I seem to remember a generic looking cartoon character getting shot from a cannon in one of the late 30's WB cartoons.

And I agree Soggy read too much into it. Clampett must have hated everyone at the studio, including himself, since they are all caricatured in Russian Rhapsody.

[Pieless]

However, Avery did write of Clampett that "for thirty years, I have been sickened by 'super' Clampett's false claims to characters and cartoons that you (meaning Chuck Jones), Friz and myself created" in a 1975 letter put together by Jones. This was in answer to Clampett's claims in the Barrier interview published in Funnyworld in 1969. Maybe Avery felt differently about Clampett in the 40's though, before this controversy erupted later in life.



There's an essay by Milt Gray(that can be found here (http://www.michaelbarrier.com/Essays/Milt_Gray/Gray_on_Clampett.htm)) on Barrier's site, that says that Avery voluntarily brought up the letter in an interview, and apologized for it. I don't really know enough to know which is more credible, though.

EDIT: woops nevermind!

[Thad]

There's an essay by Milt Gray(that can be found here (http://www.michaelbarrier.com/Essays/Milt_Gray/Gray_on_Clampett.htm)) on Barrier's site, that says that Avery voluntarily brought up the letter in an interview, and apologized for it. I don't really know which is more credible myself though.

JJ is referring to a different letter that Avery wrote himself to Henry Mintz. Milt is referring to a letter (really a list of fabrications about Clampett) Jones put together and had Avery sign and add notes (like how "The White Seal" was Jones' masterpiece).

The more one looks into it this mess, it seems like Jones was just full of hot air over some kind of falling out with Clampett. (In one of the new commentaries, you can hear Clampett refer to the Warner cartoons after he left the studio as formulatic, which I'm sure Jones loved.)

[Pieless]

JJ is referring to a different letter that Avery wrote himself to Henry Mintz. Milt is referring to a letter (really a list of fabrications about Clampett) Jones put together and had Avery sign.

The more one looks into it this mess, it seems like Jones was just full of hot air over some kind of falling out with Clampett. (In one of the new commentaries, you can hear Clampett refer to the Warner cartoons after he left the studio as formulatic, which I'm sure Jones loved.)

Oh, my mistake, don't I feel silly now. :shame: Yeah, I had a feeling that was a bit too obvious, but oh well. Good to know about the other letter though, something I haven't heard about before. Anywhere online that I can read it?

EDIT: Wait, he actually specifically cites it as being the Jones letter (emphasis added):


However, Avery did write of Clampett that "for thirty years, I have been sickened by 'super' Clampett's false claims to characters and cartoons that you (meaning Chuck Jones), Friz and myself created" in a 1975 letter put together by Jones.



So am I still missing something or what?

[Thad]

Oh, my mistake, don't I feel silly now. :shame: Yeah, I had a feeling that was a bit too obvious, but oh well. Good to know about the other letter though, something I haven't heard about before. Anywhere online that I can read it?

EDIT: Wait, he actually specifically cites it as being the Jones letter (emphasis added):



So am I still missing something or what?

I must have misread JJ's post. There were two different letters though. Avery wrote some venomous comments about Clampett, but I don't knowsif he really meant it. He was pretty much an emotional wreck after his son died and his divorce.

[Sogturtle]

...For comparison, Tex affectionately caricatured his animators (and himself) in "Page Miss Glory" in 1936, much as Clampett did in "Russian Rhapsody" in 1944 or Freleng did in 1940. These are essentially affectionate tributes to the people they worked around.:)

Contrast those with that of one director (Tex) loading another director (Bob) into a cannon, adding on a biting name, and then firing the cannon and then you see there IS something altogether different from the other cases. Sorry fellers, try as you might, it's much too striking to deny!:D

Annnnnd before anybody puts themself too far out on a limb:rolleyes: let me add this... The Jones-authored letter was sent by Chuck to Tex. AVERY did NOT just sign it as some people have claimed over the years. Tex methodically went through it added HIS OWN handwritten comments about Clampett on virtually every paragraph! And THOSE were even more damning of Clampett than anything Chuck wrote. Fascinatingly, at one point in it Jones actually said that Bob made some fine cartoons at Warners!:cool:

To this I should add that Tex's comments in both letters are NOT venomous per se... He (like Jones) NEVER says that Clampett was a no-talent bum or any such character-assassination. But they do read as carefully thought out righteous indignation at Bob's repeated outlandish claims and attempts at stealing credit for character-creation and the like.

[Thad]

Gee, I don't know, Jones' "anyone who runs an interview with Bob Clampett can never run an interview with me" attitude he gave Mike Barrier certainly strikes me as venomous.

[J Lee]

Time and context, time and context...

Remember in 1969 the only two ex-Warner Bros. directors who had much of any presence in the media world outside of cartoon fanatics were Bob Clampett and Frank Tashlin, and tash was trying to run away from his first career as a mere cartoonist at about 100 mph. Chuck Jones was starting to get a little more recognition, but mainly due to his association with Dr. Suess on "How the Grinch Stole Christmas". There was passing mention of his Road Runner work, but if anything, he was lumped in at the time with Bill Melendez and his "Peanuts" TV specials -- not that there's anything wrong with that, but Tashlin had made a far bigger name in movies and Clampett over a 20-year period in television, first with his KTLA show and then with Beany and Cecil on ABC (with Bob's name figuring prominently in the title song).

Add to that the fact that until Barrier and other animation historians came around, claiming cartoon character recognition was pretty much an open market -- regular film historians didn't care, so you could embellish your resume, possibly under the idea that no one ever would care, so what's the problem? Only the people within the industry would know the truth, and embellishing show busniess credentials is pretty much as old as show business itself.

So when Avery mentions having problems "for 30 years" with Clampett, odds are he's referring to Bob's time in the spotlight from the late 40s to the late 60s. As for "Circus Today", it may have been a shot at Bob, but if so, it wasn't nearly as bad as the one Tex took at A.C. Gamer in the same cartoon. That guy'll eat anything. ;)

[Sogturtle]

....
....
... As for "Circus Today", it may have been a shot at Bob, but if so, it wasn't nearly as bad as the one Tex took at A.C. Gamer in the same cartoon. That guy'll eat anything. ;)

John~

The catch to that contention though is that neither the Gamer gag or the "Hotfoot Hogan" one happen to LOOK anything in the world like the REAL people whose last-names they sport (A.C. Gamer or young storyman Rich Hogan).:) Those appear to be simply grabbing at handy, nearby names which would be safe to use. While the Clampett "shot" with its instantly recognizaable caricature and the treatment of him remains singular.:daffy:

[J Lee]

John~

The catch to that contention though is that neither the Gamer gag or the "Hotfoot Hogan" one happen to LOOK anything in the world like the REAL people whose last-names they sport (A.C. Gamer or young storyman Rich Hogan).:) Those appear to be simply grabbing at handy, nearby names which would be safe to use. While the Clampett "shot" with its instantly recognizaable caricature and the treatment of him remains singular.:daffy:

Tim --

My point was more that when "Circus Today" came out, it's still very, very early in the game, and outside of Porky Pig, there's really nothing much worth claiming that was being produced by the Schlesinger studio that anyone's would have cared much about (proto Daffy and proto Bugs still being around, and Elmer having just been adjusted into his more familiar voice and personna). So any personality quirks Clampett had at the time might have been a source more of amusement and subject of parody than of the actual annoyance that showed up 35 years later.

That is, the personality traits that down the line would lead Clampett to make claims to Michael Barrier on things that weren't his may have been there in 1940, but there really wasn't a heck of a lot to claim at the time, and to be honest, Bob's Looney Tunes pretty much hit a brick wall in terms of advancing, due in part to having to shoehorn Porky into all his stories. Most of his 1940 work is energetic but without much focus, and (Clampett fans to the contrary) he was definitely the head of the No. 4 unit at the studio. Were it not for the decision to have all four units due color and B&W cartoons a short time later, Clampett story lines (NOT the gags) were in danger of falling down to the Ben Hardaway or even Rudy Ising level

So if there was a smack-down intended by the characture, it was done to the guy at the low end of the totem pole, more likely in bemusement than due to any credit grabbing/limelight hogging resentment.

[oceansoul]

Btw. haven't Chuck potrayed Clampett in Fresh Airedale as Shep, and Avery as the no.1 dog? (And the cat as himself?)

[Thad]

John~

The catch to that contention though is that neither the Gamer gag or the "Hotfoot Hogan" one happen to LOOK anything in the world like the REAL people whose last-names they sport (A.C. Gamer or young storyman Rich Hogan).:) Those appear to be simply grabbing at handy, nearby names which would be safe to use. While the Clampett "shot" with its instantly recognizaable caricature and the treatment of him remains singular.:daffy:

Wow, this is crazier than that guy trying to pass off his rabbit drawing as proof Ben Hardaway created Bugs Bunny.

[lonesome-lenny]

"Bacall To Arms" is an unfinished Clampett realeased a full year after "The Cat that Hated People." So I think that Avery thought up the short after seeing Clampett's twist on his own work, and wanted to see what happend if he took Clampett's idea and made it into his own.

-Doug

Bacall to Arms was released in 1946; The Cat That Hated People was released in 1948. I don't see any connection between the cartoons.

And, truth to tell, Avery's cartoon is not completely derivative of Clampett's. There's no build-up that the cat is headed to a Wackyland. The cartoon, prior to that moment, has been a series of spot-gags on the tough life of a domestic feline. The trip-to-the-moon sequence is handled with drama, peppered with a few gags. The cat (and the viewer) have no expectation of anything nutty happening on the moon.

To compare Avery's film to Porky in Wackyland only serves to show the difference in their approaches as cartoon filmmakers. Clampett sets the scene up carefully, warning the viewer "It Can Happen Here!" Avery just sends his character to the moon, in search of peace and quiet...and gives him the anarchic opposite.

Both cartoons are major works, and equally deserving of praise.

[Douglas E.]

Bacall to Arms was released in 1946; The Cat That Hated People was released in 1948. I don't see any connection between the cartoons.

And, truth to tell, Avery's cartoon is not completely derivative of Clampett's. There's no build-up that the cat is headed to a Wackyland. The cartoon, prior to that moment, has been a series of spot-gags on the tough life of a domestic feline. The trip-to-the-moon sequence is handled with drama, peppered with a few gags. The cat (and the viewer) have no expectation of anything nutty happening on the moon.

To compare Avery's film to Porky in Wackyland only serves to show the difference in their approaches as cartoon filmmakers. Clampett sets the scene up carefully, warning the viewer "It Can Happen Here!" Avery just sends his character to the moon, in search of peace and quiet...and gives him the anarchic opposite.

Both cartoons are major works, and equally deserving of praise.
I agree, I just think that Avery wanted to see what would happen if he did a Clampett idea. I don't like The Cat Who Hated People, but you're welcome to like it. :)

-Doug

[cpdavison]

Contrast those with that of one director (Tex) loading another director (Bob) into a cannon, adding on a biting name, and then firing the cannon and then you see there IS something altogether different from the other cases. Sorry fellers, try as you might, it's much too striking to deny!

How did Bobo feel about this, I wonder? :confused:

Craig D.
(Breaking his vow to steer clear of Clampett threads)

[J. J. Hunsecker]

...For comparison, Tex affectionately caricatured his animators (and himself) in "Page Miss Glory" in 1936, much as Clampett did in "Russian Rhapsody" in 1944 or Freleng did in 1940. These are essentially affectionate tributes to the people they worked around.:)
The caricatures in Russian Rhapsody are far more extreme than the Clampett caricture in Circus Today. (Images stolen from this (http://gregbrian.tripod.com/hidden/hid06.html) site.)

http://gregbrian.tripod.com/gremlins/rr06.jpg http://gregbrian.tripod.com/gremlins/rr07.jpg

[J. J. Hunsecker]

JJ is referring to a different letter that Avery wrote himself to Henry Mintz.
Thad, I've never heard of that Avery letter to Mintz. Where can I find a copy of it?

[oceansoul]

TCTHP is one of Avery's worst MGM cartoon. It could be a great one, as everything he did between 1942 and 1952, but the Wackyland imitation is totally out of place and very unsatisfying.

[Thad]

Thad, I've never heard of that Avery letter to Mintz. Where can I find a copy of it?

Soggy brought it up to me awhile ago (take that for what it's worth). IIRC, it wasn't entirely about Clampett, except that Avery wrote that he felt he was deceived into giving an interview for "Bugs Bunny Superstar", finding out that much of what he said about "A Wild Hare" was edited so it wouldn't refute Clampett's version of events.

It would be great if someone had a whole transcript.

[J Lee]

Everybody borrowed from everybody else at one time or another, some more successfully than others. Clampett is praised for his bodies out of a closest gag animated by Rod Scribner in "The Great Piggy Bank Robbery" in one of the LTCG Vol. 5 commentaries, but that was a steal from Avery's falling butlers gag in "Who Killed Who?".

The key when you steal is to do at least as well, or hopefully improve on the original. Clampett's use of the falling bodes was better than Avery's original gag; Tex's use of the Wackyland setting wasn't as good as the original, and Clampett's use of the horny wolf wasn't as good as Avery's original. And you can take this a lot further -- Avery used the magician/conductor baton gag in "Magical Maestro" far better than John Hubley did in "The Magic Fluke" and Warners directors would often steal from themselves and make virtually the same cartoon over again a year or two apart ("It's Hummer Time" and "Early to Bet" or "Tree for Two" and Dr. Jeckyl's Hide" for example). And of course so much was borrowed from old radio shows or silent comedies where the original source material is unknown to most people.

So borrowing from yourself or from another director was a pretty common occurance during the Golden Age. Whether or not it was appreciated by all is another story (in this case, a story like "The Cat Concerto" and "Rhapsody Rabbit". But even Friz eventually went to work for Hanna and Barbera for a while).

[Douglas E.]

Everybody borrowed from everybody else at one time or another, some more successfully than others. Clampett is praised for his bodies out of a closest gag animated by Rod Scribner in "The Great Piggy Bank Robbery" in one of the LTCG Vol. 5 commentaries, but that was a steal from Avery's falling butlers gag in "Who Killed Who?".

The key when you steal is to do at least as well, or hopefully improve on the original. Clampett's use of the falling bodes was better than Avery's original gag; Tex's use of the Wackyland setting wasn't as good as the original, and Clampett's use of the horny wolf wasn't as good as Avery's original. And you can take this a lot further -- Avery used the magician/conductor baton gag in "Magical Maestro" far better than John Hubley did in "The Magic Fluke" and Warners directors would often steal from themselves and make virtually the same cartoon over again a year or two apart ("It's Hummer Time" and "Early to Bet" or "Tree for Two" and Dr. Jeckyl's Hide" for example). And of course so much was borrowed from old radio shows or silent comedies where the original source material is unknown to most people.

So borrowing from yourself or from another director was a pretty common occurance during the Golden Age. Whether or not it was appreciated by all is another story (in this case, a story like "The Cat Concerto" and "Rhapsody Rabbit". But even Friz eventually went to work for Hanna and Barbera for a while).
That's what I was trying to say. But "B'call" and "TCTHP" don't just borrow jokes, they borrow ideas, and do twists on them. Although it's hard to say if they succeeded in doing them (Bcall is cleary unfinished short, while Avery's short tries to bring his idea's into Clampett idea's) I thought that maybe it was a friendly homage, rather than "Rip Offs." :)

-Doug

[larriva9/11]

Given how Tex seemed to have the most "vulnerable" personality among the WB greats (also cf. the melancholia about his latter days at MGM, hiatus and all), I wouldn't be surprised if he were only persuaded by force to criticize Clampett; on his own volition, he might have preferred to leave well enough alone.

And as far as animated "digs" on Clampett go; frankly, it may reflect on how Chuck Jones might have been regarded as a prick, but I find more of a hostile nose-thumbing spirit behind how WB and DPF treated Chuck's legacy after he was fired--consider the current threads on "A-Haunting We Will Go" and "Mexican Cat Dance", or just generally the post-Jones saga of the Road Runner (not just re the Larriva shorts, but maybe even more so the Road Runner Show: desecrating old Jones scenes with the Road Runner song like this http://saturdaymorn.blogspot.com/2007/10/road-runner-show-1966.html was unforgiveable...)

[J. J. Hunsecker]

Soggy brought it up to me awhile ago (take that for what it's worth). IIRC, it wasn't entirely about Clampett, except that Avery wrote that he felt he was deceived into giving an interview for "Bugs Bunny Superstar", finding out that much of what he said about "A Wild Hare" was edited so it wouldn't refute Clampett's version of events.

It would be great if someone had a whole transcript.
Wait a minute, I did read that somewhere.

[mmtper]

Everybody borrowed from everybody else at one time or another, some more successfully than others. source material is unknown to most people......

So borrowing from yourself or from another director was a pretty common occurance during the Golden Age.

I thought I read somewhere, probably in a Clampett interview, that in the very early days of Termite Terrace Clampett & Avery would sit around and talk about their mutual admiration of the Pat Sullivan/Otto Mesmer Felix the Cat cartoons. Didn't a few of those have early versions of Wackyland?

[J Lee]

I thought I read somewhere, probably in a Clampett interview, that in the very early days of Termite Terrace Clampett & Avery would sit around and talk about their mutual admiration of the Pat Sullivan/Otto Mesmer Felix the Cat cartoons. Didn't a few of those have early versions of Wackyland?

The surrealism of some of Mesmer's Felix cartoons was cited. The dicotomy of the Warners studio in the mid-1930s was a sense of awe at the technical advances Disney was making, combined with a disdain for the types of stories he was using his staff's newly-developed skills to present to the public. The 1936-41 period really was a battle by the studio's various directors and animators to improve their technical skills while at the same time using those improved skills to make the gags work better on screen.

That's why around 1939 or so, the characters have a certain heavy feel to them in the color Merrie Melodies, because they were trying to improve their draftsmanship while figuring out how to do that with wilder gags. There's just too much detail in a lot of the characters from that period, something the Warners directors figured out by the start of 1941. But Clampett really didn't have that problem, since after Jones left the unit, his Looney Tunes didn't make any effort at all to Disney-fy -- if anything, his characters got weirder looking and more Fleischer-like in 1939-40.

It wasn't until Leon decided it was silly that Bob and Friz were making B&W cartoons and Jones was making nothing but color ones that the Clampett unit's drawing style and story construction started to improve (even before Bob took over Avery's unit) when he was finally allowed to direct Merrie Melodies. Which is why I think whatever quirks Clampett had in late 1939 when "Circus Today" was in its planning stages, any shot by Avery at those quirks would be more like an older brother giving his younger sibling a noogie on the head just to remind him of the pecking order than any attempt to lash out at some injustice. Bob's B&W cartoons of 1940 may have had more freedom than the color Schlesinger shorts did, but it's hard to believe "Paitent Porky", "The Sour Puss", "Porky's Poor Fish" or "The Chewin' Bruin" would invite much anger/jealousy among the rest the staff.

[Sogturtle]

John~

The catch to that contention though is that neither the Gamer gag or the "Hotfoot Hogan" one happen to LOOK anything in the world like the REAL people whose last-names they sport (A.C. Gamer or young storyman Rich Hogan). Those appear to be simply grabbing at handy, nearby names which would be safe to use. While the Clampett "shot" with its instantly recognizaable caricature and the treatment of him remains singular.

Tim --

My point was more that when "Circus Today" came out, it's still very, very early in the game, and outside of Porky Pig, there's really nothing much worth claiming that was being produced by the Schlesinger studio that anyone's would have cared much about (proto Daffy and proto Bugs still being around, and Elmer having just been adjusted into his more familiar voice and personna). So any personality quirks Clampett had at the time might have been a source more of amusement and subject of parody than of the actual annoyance that showed up 35 years later.

That is, the personality traits that down the line would lead Clampett to make claims to Michael Barrier on things that weren't his may have been there in 1940, but there really wasn't a heck of a lot to claim at the time, and to be honest, Bob's Looney Tunes pretty much hit a brick wall in terms of advancing, due in part to having to shoehorn Porky into all his stories. Most of his 1940 work is energetic but without much focus, and (Clampett fans to the contrary) he was definitely the head of the No. 4 unit at the studio. Were it not for the decision to have all four units due color and B&W cartoons a short time later, Clampett story lines (NOT the gags) were in danger of falling down to the Ben Hardaway or even Rudy Ising level

So if there was a smack-down intended by the characture, it was done to the guy at the low end of the totem pole, more likely in bemusement than due to any credit grabbing/limelight hogging resentment.

The surrealism of some of Mesmer's Felix cartoons was cited. The dicotomy of the Warners studio in the mid-1930s was a sense of awe at the technical advances Disney was making, combined with a disdain for the types of stories he was using his staff's newly-developed skills to present to the public. The 1936-41 period really was a battle by the studio's various directors and animators to improve their technical skills while at the same time using those improved skills to make the gags work better on screen.

That's why around 1939 or so, the characters have a certain heavy feel to them in the color Merrie Melodies, because they were trying to improve their draftsmanship while figuring out how to do that with wilder gags. There's just too much detail in a lot of the characters from that period, something the Warners directors figured out by the start of 1941. But Clampett really didn't have that problem, since after Jones left the unit, his Looney Tunes didn't make any effort at all to Disney-fy -- if anything, his characters got weirder looking and more Fleischer-like in 1939-40.

It wasn't until Leon decided it was silly that Bob and Friz were making B&W cartoons and Jones was making nothing but color ones that the Clampett unit's drawing style and story construction started to improve (even before Bob took over Avery's unit) when he was finally allowed to direct Merrie Melodies. Which is why I think whatever quirks Clampett had in late 1939 when "Circus Today" was in its planning stages, any shot by Avery at those quirks would be more like an older brother giving his younger sibling a noogie on the head just to remind him of the pecking order than any attempt to lash out at some injustice. Bob's B&W cartoons of 1940 may have had more freedom than the color Schlesinger shorts did, but it's hard to believe "Paitent Porky", "The Sour Puss", "Porky's Poor Fish" or "The Chewin' Bruin" would invite much anger/jealousy among the rest the staff.

John~

I'd agree on some and unfortunately have to disagree on some other things. Like you, I don't think for a minute that Tex was jealous of one single, solitary cartoon that Clampett had turned out while he was at the studio.

One reason for Chuck's early headlong rush into the realms of "cuteness" and slow animation has (to my knowledge) NEVER been cited elsewhere (except by yours truly:p)... And that is that he had just become a new daddy and very likely was thinking in constant "cute" terms as a result of it (plus whatever ongoing reaction he was having after getting out of the Katz-Clampett "Looney" studio where EVERYTHING had to be looney:rolleyes: ). Annnnnnd by his own admission that he and his crew were trying hard (very hard) to figure out how Disney worked (example "Good Night Elmer" which he admitted was an experiment).

This occurred immediately after Freleng had quit and Tashlin gotten canned, and those events also allowed Tex the uncontested number one spot. PLUS giving Tex and Chuck the opportunity to completely remake the kind and QUALITY of toons the MAJOR part of the studio was turning out... Hardaway and Dalton went on turning out (ahem) "old-fashioned" Merrie Melodies and odd Porkys right there alongside Avery and Jones. Meanwhile over at the Katz studio, Clampett basically fell into a bad slump (which we've discussed before), and is indeed easily seen watching most of his 1939 and onwards b&w Looney Toons. In point of fact Bob had offered the title for an article on himself in 1939 as "How to be a failure at 26":eek:. I think THAT betrays how Clampett was assessing his real situation right then...

As I mentioned a second ago, the Hardaway and Dalton unit HAD to make some of the b&w Looney Tunes (to take up the slack) and THAT was why when Freleng returned he had to make some as well. And then to keep things equitable (and not have it look like Friz was being punished for his quitting earlier) a few were apportioned out to Avery and Jones as well... All this even as Clampett went on slogging out his all black and whites (okay save 2 color Merrie Melodies that were thrown to him like you'd throw a dog a bone). Bob's 4th rate status was painfully obvious to anybody paying any attention. And so it just doesn't make sense that Tex would kick a guy when he was down that far... Unless it had NOTHING to do with Clampett's status...

I THINK it all has much more to do with two things, one of which is definite, the other possible but arguable (due to lack of evidence)...

The definite one comes out in the letters written in the Seventies where at one point Tex SERIOUSLY chides Chuck that he hadn't been protecting his trash can from Clampett (back in the old days):eek:. In other words Avery was clearly saying that Bob would come in to the studio after they were all gone and swipe material from out of their trash cans!!:eek::eek: This sounds comical but it obviously was known to Tex and Chuck back in 1938-'41 and that they viewed it as idea-theft even then... That is PROBABLY the REAL explanation for the sudden appearance of Avery's brand new-just-debuted rabbit (aka Bugs Bunny) in that weird cameo role in Clampett's 1940 "Patient Porky"...

The second and quite possibly arguable reason MAY be this... Tex knew about the intended Jones-Clampett directorship at the Katz studio... And when it simply became the CLAMPETT directorship (after those first 5 toons) it MAY well have riled Avery quite a bit. And that THAT combined with the ongoing theft of drawings and ideas-on-paper was enough to make him want to shoot Bob out of a cannon.

And lastly, Tex never had an equal caricature-gag (as in "Circus Today") aimed at Jones (or the returned Freleng), nor at the imminently tempting Hardaway and Dalton... Avery was known to be on good terms with all of them, both while at the studio and afterward. Which makes this one aimed at Clampett so very, very pointed!

And to Craiggy~ Good joke-attempt!:D But since "Bobo" Cannon was the ONLY animator besides Chuck Jones to ever escape Katz-Clampett's I have a strong feeling that "Bobo" would've helped light the fuse on the cartoon cannon (no relation:p).

I left this out... "The Cat That Hated People" is generally rated as a terrific cartoon. I checked Imdb and Bcdb and found that it gets a 7.7 rating at Imdb and a 9 star rating at Bcdb. Both Joe Adamson and lil ol' moi;) consider it to be tops!:cool:

[David Gerstein]

I thought I read somewhere, probably in a Clampett interview, that in the very early days of Termite Terrace Clampett & Avery would sit around and talk about their mutual admiration of the Pat Sullivan/Otto Mesmer Felix the Cat cartoons. Didn't a few of those have early versions of Wackyland?Sort of. Offhand, FELIX DINES AND PINES (1927), ASTRONOMEOWS (1928) and FELIX WOOS WHOOPEE (1930) come to mind.
A cartoon that even more strongly anticipates Wackyland is Oswald Rabbit's MARS (1930), right down to the music when Oswald lands on Mars and the initial panorama over the bizarre landscape, with strange creatures barking and howling. Missing from Universal's modern-day holdings and only rediscovered recently, MARS was a lost film for many years, so its relevance may not have been noted (or remembered) before.

[lonesome-lenny]

I've gotta say that I'm shocked at the intense dislike for The Cat That Hated People on this board. Wow! I rate it very highly in the Avery canon. It is a beautiful example of the Hollywood cartoon at its wildest and most baroque. The big-budget MGM look; the angular, expressive character design and animation; the brilliant opening set-up, with all those gags about how a cat don't get no respect; the majestic Scott Bradley score (especially in the rocket-ship sequence); and the stuff on the moon is brilliant, IMHO. The cat's solution for getting back to Earth is right out of a Messmer Felix cartoon; and the (literally) flag-waving ending is curiously affecting.

I don't see the cartoon as an imitation of Clampett. Such wackiness clearly existed in the animated world BEFORE Bob Clampett helmed a cartoon. If anything, TCTHP is a fond look back at Avery's earliest days in the animation field, when he pitched wild gags to the Bill Nolan Oswalds.

Please reconsider this great cartoon. Watch it on its own merits. Don't pollute it with comparisons to other directors' work.

[Douglas E.]

I've gotta say that I'm shocked at the intense dislike for The Cat That Hated People on this board. Wow! I rate it very highly in the Avery canon. It is a beautiful example of the Hollywood cartoon at its wildest and most baroque. The big-budget MGM look; the angular, expressive character design and animation; the brilliant opening set-up, with all those gags about how a cat don't get no respect; the majestic Scott Bradley score (especially in the rocket-ship sequence); and the stuff on the moon is brilliant, IMHO. The cat's solution for getting back to Earth is right out of a Messmer Felix cartoon; and the (literally) flag-waving ending is curiously affecting.

I don't see the cartoon as an imitation of Clampett. Such wackiness clearly existed in the animated world BEFORE Bob Clampett helmed a cartoon. If anything, TCTHP is a fond look back at Avery's earliest days in the animation field, when he pitched wild gags to the Bill Nolan Oswalds.

Please reconsider this great cartoon. Watch it on its own merits. Don't pollute it with comparisons to other directors' work.
Did you read my last post? I said I don't like the cartoon. You do. We don't need any further debate. I'm just trying to be nice. :)

-Doug

[J Lee]

John~

I'd agree on some and unfortunately have to disagree on some other things. Like you, I don't think for a minute that Tex was jealous of one single, solitary cartoon that Clampett had turned out while he was at the studio.

One reason for Chuck's early headlong rush into the realms of "cuteness" and slow animation has (to my knowledge) NEVER been cited elsewhere (except by yours truly:p)... And that is that he had just become a new daddy and very likely was thinking in constant "cute" terms as a result of it (plus whatever ongoing reaction he was having after getting out of the Katz-Clampett "Looney" studio where EVERYTHING had to be looney:rolleyes: ). Annnnnnd by his own admission that he and his crew were trying hard (very hard) to figure out how Disney worked (example "Good Night Elmer" which he admitted was an experiment).

This occurred immediately after Freleng had quit and Tashlin gotten canned, and those events also allowed Tex the uncontested number one spot. PLUS giving Tex and Chuck the opportunity to completely remake the kind and QUALITY of toons the MAJOR part of the studio was turning out... Hardaway and Dalton went on turning out (ahem) "old-fashioned" Merrie Melodies and odd Porkys right there alongside Avery and Jones. Meanwhile over at the Katz studio, Clampett basically fell into a bad slump (which we've discussed before), and is indeed easily seen watching most of his 1939 and onwards b&w Looney Toons. In point of fact Bob had offered the title for an article on himself in 1939 as "How to be a failure at 26":eek:. I think THAT betrays how Clampett was assessing his real situation right then...

As I mentioned a second ago, the Hardaway and Dalton unit HAD to make some of the b&w Looney Tunes (to take up the slack) and THAT was why when Freleng returned he had to make some as well. And then to keep things equitable (and not have it look like Friz was being punished for his quitting earlier) a few were apportioned out to Avery and Jones as well... All this even as Clampett went on slogging out his all black and whites (okay save 2 color Merrie Melodies that were thrown to him like you'd throw a dog a bone). Bob's 4th rate status was painfully obvious to anybody paying any attention. And so it just doesn't make sense that Tex would kick a guy when he was down that far... Unless it had NOTHING to do with Clampett's status...

I THINK it all has much more to do with two things, one of which is definite, the other possible but arguable (due to lack of evidence)...

The definite one comes out in the letters written in the Seventies where at one point Tex SERIOUSLY chides Chuck that he hadn't been protecting his trash can from Clampett (back in the old days):eek:. In other words Avery was clearly saying that Bob would come in to the studio after they were all gone and swipe material from out of their trash cans!!:eek::eek: This sounds comical but it obviously was known to Tex and Chuck back in 1938-'41 and that they viewed it as idea-theft even then... That is PROBABLY the REAL explanation for the sudden appearance of Avery's brand new-just-debuted rabbit (aka Bugs Bunny) in that weird cameo role in Clampett's 1940 "Patient Porky"...

The second and quite possibly arguable reason MAY be this... Tex knew about the intended Jones-Clampett directorship at the Katz studio... And when it simply became the CLAMPETT directorship (after those first 5 toons) it MAY well have riled Avery quite a bit. And that THAT combined with the ongoing theft of drawings and ideas-on-paper was enough to make him want to shoot Bob out of a cannon.

And lastly, Tex never had an equal caricature-gag (as in "Circus Today") aimed at Jones (or the returned Freleng), nor at the imminently tempting Hardaway and Dalton... Avery was known to be on good terms with all of them, both while at the studio and afterward. Which makes this one aimed at Clampett so very, very pointed!

And to Craiggy~ Good joke-attempt!:D But since "Bobo" Cannon was the ONLY animator besides Chuck Jones to ever escape Katz-Clampett's I have a strong feeling that "Bobo" would've helped light the fuse on the cartoon cannon (no relation:p).

I left this out... "The Cat That Hated People" is generally rated as a terrific cartoon. I checked Imdb and Bcdb and found that it gets a 7.7 rating at Imdb and a 9 star rating at Bcdb. Both Joe Adamson and lil ol' moi;) consider it to be tops!:cool:

Tim --

My feeling has been that Jones and Clampett were kind of the ying and yang to Tex's cartoon id during his stint at Warners. While he would later deride his mouse trilogy as being "cutesy-cutesy ... almost a Jones", a certain sweetness did creep into Avery's cartoons from time to time all the way up to the 1950s that was clearly out of the Jones universe, even if he's linked far closer in terms of style to Clampett. You can defintely make a case that Clampett's cartoons suffered within a year after Jones departure, because he helped give the 1937-38 Looney Tunes a story structure the ones from mid-1939 to the end of 1940 lacked (on the other hand, the first three years of Chuck's Merrie Melodies suffered from a lack of Bob or Tex's desire for wild gags, which may have been more deliberate on Jones' part, but still resulted in a lot of dull cartoons).

While it's hard to think that Avery would feel threatened by a wastepaper-basket scrounging Bob Clampett in 1939, if so it would be because Clampett was doing cartoons in the same general universe as Avery at times, as far as their love of crazy gags. But even though they had been apart for only a year, by mid-1939 there's no way anything dreamed up for a Chuck Jones cartoon could have made its way into a Bob Clampett Looney Tune without sticking out like a sore thumb (which is why everyone this side of Spumco laughs at the idea that Bob had anything to do with the creation of Sniffles). And if Bob was "borrowing" Avery gags, he wasn't using them very well, since his crazy characters did things for no other reason than to just be crazy, which was a novel idea in 1937, but was running out of gas two years later (Tex would come back to it with Screwy Squirrel, but that seems to have been as much to take a shot at the Haman-Ising Disney-wannabe mindset at MGM in the early 1940s as anything else).

So while there could have been some acrimony in the vein of the Maltese-Pierce writing breakup in the mid-40s, I think at the time it would have been looked on more in bemusement, possibly worth of a comic rebuke using a canon and travel stickers, but not on the line of open hostilities. Thirty years later, when there was so much people loved about Warner Bros. cartoons and the characters the studio had created, those small actions and the credit claiming Bob took during his years as the studio's best-known directior obviously made the actions of the late 30s seem a lot less funny to both Avery and Jones.

[J. J. Hunsecker]

I've gotta say that I'm shocked at the intense dislike for The Cat That Hated People on this board. Wow! I rate it very highly in the Avery canon. It is a beautiful example of the Hollywood cartoon at its wildest and most baroque...I don't see the cartoon as an imitation of Clampett. Such wackiness clearly existed in the animated world BEFORE Bob Clampett helmed a cartoon. If anything, TCTHP is a fond look back at Avery's earliest days in the animation field, when he pitched wild gags to the Bill Nolan Oswalds.

Please reconsider this great cartoon. Watch it on its own merits. Don't pollute it with comparisons to other directors' work.
I don't think most people here dislike Avery's The Cat That Hated People. I certainly like it. But the topic of this post was if Avery was influenced by Clampett's more surreal cartoons. So a comparison between styles would be obvious in this debate, and I don't see it as anything wrong.

For me, Avery's Cat cartoon is just a little tamer than Clampett's Wackyland. They just had different styles. (Which is why I don't think cartoons like Farm Frolics should be on the Clampett disc of volume 5 LTGC DVD. It seems like it was obviously an Avery cartoon that Clampett finished when Avery left the studio.)

[J. J. Hunsecker]

Also, I think you guys are reading A LOT into a caricature that was included in Circus Today.

[J. J. Hunsecker]

You can defintely make a case that Clampett's cartoons suffered within a year after Jones departure, because he helped give the 1937-38 Looney Tunes a story structure the ones from mid-1939 to the end of 1940 lacked (on the other hand, the first three years of Chuck's Merrie Melodies suffered from a lack of Bob or Tex's desire for wild gags, which may have been more deliberate on Jones' part, but still resulted in a lot of dull cartoons).
I disagree with that statement. I think it was the opposite. I think Jones' literalism held back Clampett's wildness during their few years together. Once Jones left the Clampett unit, Clampett's cartoons became much funnier, and he made some bona-fide classics of the late 30's -- Porky in Wackyland and The Daffy Doc for instance. I also think Porky in Egypt and Naughty Neighbors are really funny.

Bob's B&W cartoons of 1940 may have had more freedom than the color Schlesinger shorts did, but it's hard to believe "Paitent Porky", "The Sour Puss", "Porky's Poor Fish" or "The Chewin' Bruin" would invite much anger/jealousy among the rest the staff.
I don't think that's quite fair. All the directors in the late 30's and in 1940 did their fair share of bad cartoons. Like you said before, it was a learning period for the crew as they tried to improve their skills. Avery's cartoons in '38 and '39 look quite ugly (before McKimson joined his unit). Outside of Thugs With Dirty Mugs and A Wild Hare, can you name a really good Avery cartoon from this period? His timing gets slow, and he wasted his talent on "spot-gag" cartoons, which were cheaters. (And he made a lot of them in that period.) Hell, Freleng made more Avery-esque cartoons during that time than Avery did, such as Confederate Honey and You Ought To Be In Pictures.

[J Lee]

I disagree with that statement. I think it was the opposite. I think Jones' literalism held back Clampett's wildness during their few years together. Once Jones left the Clampett unit, Clampett's cartoons became much funnier, and he made some bona-fide classics of the late 30's -- Porky in Wackyland and The Daffy Doc for instance. I also think Porky in Egypt and Naughty Neighbors are really funny.


I don't think that's quite fair. All the directors in the late 30's and in 1940 did their fair share of bad cartoons. Like you said before, it was a learning period for the crew as they tried to improve their skills. Avery's cartoons in '38 and '39 look quite ugly (before McKimson joined his unit). Outside of Thugs With Dirty Mugs and A Wild Hare, can you name a really good Avery cartoon from this period? His timing gets slow, and he wasted his talent on "spot-gag" cartoons, which were cheaters. (And he made a lot of them in that period.) Hell, Freleng made more Avery-esque cartoons during that time than Avery did, such as Confederate Honey and You Ought To Be In Pictures.

J.J. --

While I agree that Jones held back Clampett's wild side, my point was that what Clampett's cartoons from mid-1939 through the end of 1940 were lacking to a great deal was a solid story structure. Bob's characters did wild things, but too many times they were wild for no reason other than for the wildness itself. That's the difference between his cartoons of that period and what he started doing from mid-42 on -- in the later cartoons the wild reactions came out of the situations the characters were in, and as a result, were 10 times more effective because you could care about those characters.

Part of the problem was having to work with Porky in every cartoon. When Jones left, Bob was able to come up with a few great cartoons like "Wackyland" but the well really started to run dry after about a year in trying to figure out stories that included the character. So you ended up with hyper little ducks, homicidal crazy cats and self-aggrandizing flying fish, which sound better on paper than they actually ended up looking and acting on-screen. Hardway and Dalton made more of an effort to make Porky more central to their cartoons of the period, but those had problems from the other end, in that they were dull, and that was the same problem Jones had over on the Merrie Melodies. His cartoons were plot-heavy and gag-short, which made most of them dull. But his one Daffy cartoon, "Daffy Duck and the Dinosaur" -- where the character forced Chuck into a faster paced style -- is more memorable than Bob's work with the character during the same period, after "Porky and Daffy", because you can identify and care about the characters due to the stronger story line.

Admittedly, Avery had his share of dull cartoons in 1939-40, but he had pretty much worked through his story problems two years earlier. His Fitzgerald parody infatuation hid that to a great extent in 1939-40, since those stories were meant to be disjointed. Tex's other cartoons of the period were more focused than Clampett's in getting the story from Point A to Point B, but the struggles to move to a more Disney like drawing style was like a dead weight on a lot of the cartoons during that period. Even in the good ones, like "Thugs with Dirty Mugs", "Hamatuer Night" or even the spot gag "Screwball Football" (where the game format forces the story towards it's incredibly un-PC ending) the drawing style isn't anywhere near as loose as what Avery's cartoons had been featuring a year earlier. They were better drawn, but they also were slower -- though not as slow as Jones' were -- appearently since the animators couldn't handle a faster style yet and still make their drawings work.

Avery was basically doing in his cartoons what Clampett would do in 1941-42, both before and after he inherited Tex's crew, which was slowing down the pacing while working to improve the stories and improve the animation -- there's no question the skill level of Clampett's original crew looks a heck of a lot better before he left at the end of 1941 than it did just a year earlier. That's why (as I argued with Steve Worth several years ago) Chuck Jones could do almost a point-for-point remake of Clampett's 1941 cartoon "Porky's Pooch" but could never do a remake of any of Bob's cartoons from two years earlier or two years later. And the stronger story structure during the Jones period and just after is why several other of Bob's cartoons during the 1937-early 1939 period could be remade as color cartoons, because those stories would still hold up 7-8 years later, even with Freleng's revised version of Daffy substituting for the original looney one or for Gabby Goat in a couple of the remakes.

[Douglas E.]

They just had different styles. (Which is why I don't think cartoons like Farm Frolics should be on the Clampett disc of volume 5 LTGC DVD. It seems like it was obviously an Avery cartoon that Clampett finished when Avery left the studio.)
That's to true. I think some of the Black and White shorts on the 4th disc (Such as Eatin' of the Cuff,) should've been on the Clampett disc. And then Warners could put stuff like Patient Porky on the Black & White Disc.

-Doug

[Thad]

(Which is why I don't think cartoons like Farm Frolics should be on the Clampett disc of volume 5 LTGC DVD. It seems like it was obviously an Avery cartoon that Clampett finished when Avery left the studio.)

"Farm Frolics" was definitely a pure-Clampett picture. It's one of the two color cartoons made by his black-and-white unit (John Carey, Vive Risto, Norm McCabe, etc.), the other being "Goofy Groceries". So Clampett could make a dud just like the rest of them.

For the record, "The Cagey Canary", "Wabbit Twouble", "Aloha Hooey", and "Crazy Cruise" were the cartoons started by Avery and finished by Clampett.

[Thad]

Also, the Clampett disc on the latest Golden Collection is great! Like the Tashlin disc last year, it's an accurate representation of the filmmaker's career. In this case, it shows that Clampett's color cartoons were usually great, while his black-and-white cartoons certainly were not.

[lonesome-lenny]

Outside of Thugs With Dirty Mugs and A Wild Hare, can you name a really good Avery cartoon from this period?

Cinderella Meets Fella; Hamateur Night; The Bear's Tale; The Penguin Parade; Porky's Preview: there's five top-notch WB Averys from the 1938-1940 period. Toss in Of Fox And Hounds for good measure.

Dismissing Avery's WB period has been a tendency of animation students--at least since Joe Adamson's Avery book in the early '70s. Many ardent admirers of animation have chosen to write them off as sophomore efforts, given the brilliance of his best MGM work. Those Warners Averys have a great deal to offer, if one is patient with them, and if one views them as important developmental chapters in the life and art of a great movie-maker.

To make an analogy, they are the equivalent of Buster Keaton's two-reelers; the MGM cartoons are the equivalent of Keaton's best silent-era feature films. Vital Averyian concepts are explored, worked out, and experimented with in these cartoons.

In some cases, one can see the seeds of later brilliance. Compare The Sneezing Weasel with Slap-Happy Lion, or Of Fox and Hounds with the George and Junior cartoons. Heck, compare the Lantz Oswald, Grandma's Pet, with Magical Maestro. The ideas were there from the get-go with Avery. As he refined his concepts, they just got better in the delivery. They were the same basic ideas as he'd had in the 1930s.

IMHO, Avery hit a peak in his 1938-39 cartoons. Cinderella/Fella, Thugs/Mugs and Hamateur Night are masterpieces that hold their own with any of his finest MGM work. The first two make brilliant use of Avery's meta-cartoon concept. They break down the fourth wall with a battering ram, and ingeniously blur the distance between screen and spectator. They are also beautiful pieces of atmospheric film-making, with great use of color, mood and the tools of '30s commercial cinema. Thugs rivals any A-list Warners picture in its vivid, innovative visual style, editing, and use of filmic tools. Ditto Cinderella.

I agree that those spot-gag cartoons, while revolutionary in their time, are pallid things today--aside from moments in each of them. Avery's weakest tendency was this spot-gag routine. It never quite worked; not in the Warners cartoons; not at MGM. Those early '50s Droopy cartoons with Spike are some of his least appealing efforts. Avery excelled when he had a narrative--no matter how tenuous--to guide him.

In fact, I can't think of a single spot-gag cartoon from the golden age of animation that I actually like. Not until Frank Tashlin refocused the concept into the "blackout" format of Fox & The Grapes did anyone make hay with the string-of-gags concept.

[J Lee]

I don't know why Keith Scott decided to speculate on the commentary that "Farm Frolics" was an Avery cartoon. Not only is the timeline wrong -- the cartoon was released in May of 1941 and Avery didn't even leave the studio until July -- but Clampett was also doing black and white spot gag cartoons during the same time period, like "Porky's Snooze Reel" and "Meet John Doughboy". Are those also Avery cartoons?

Also one addendum to my post above -- I did forget to give Clampett props for his work with Daffy in "The Daffy Doc", which came out just before Jones' first Daffy short. But what makes it work as a complete cartoon is Bob's decision to give Daffy 30 seconds of lucidness in the middle of the picture, when he vents his outrage over being tossed from the operating room and vows to get a paitent of his own, which justifies the second half of the cartoon where he's trying to cut into Porky. Compare that with "Patient Porky" two years later, when the cat decides to open Porky up just for the madcap fun of it. There's no rationale for doing it other than to do it, which makes the cat a very unsympathetic character. As a viewer you'd really like to see Porky do to the cat what he did to Daffy at the end of "You Ought To Be In Pictures" or several other cartoons.

[Douglas E.]

Also, the Clampett disc on the latest Golden Collection is great! Like the Tashlin disc last year, it's an accurate representation of the filmmaker's career. In this case, it shows that Clampett's color cartoons were usually great, while his black-and-white cartoons certainly were not.
I agree that The Clampett disc is great, but I still would like to see Eating of the Cuff on that disc.

-Doug

[Thad]

John, I understood what you were saying, and certainly agree. There's still a little Jones influence in Clampett's 1938-39 shorts, mostly in terms of character and story structure. Take those scenes in "Porky's Tire Trouble" of Flat Foot Flooky. That kind of stuff just wasn't in the black-and-white Clampett's shortly after. Just mostly lame Fleischer knock-offs.

It's interesting that Avery, Clampett, and Jones (less so) all really came into their own in the same year, 1942. Such a pivotal year for animation!!!

[Sean Gaffney]

I've noticed quite a few things about the directors while watching the cartoons in order by release date. Both good and bad. Clampett in 1939 and Avery in 1939-1940 really suffer from this, as you get pummelled by their workmanlike shorts, with very few breaks for the classically inspired idea.

On the other hand, Freleng's return in 1940, watched after the dregs of 1939, really leaped out at me as a quantum step forward for him as a director. His cartoons of that year seem miles ahead of the others.

This is also why I love The Haunted Mouse and The Trial of Mr. Wolf so much. They stand out as part of the larger body of work around them.

[J. J. Hunsecker]

Cinderella Meets Fella; Hamateur Night; The Bear's Tale; The Penguin Parade; Porky's Preview: there's five top-notch WB Averys from the 1938-1940 period. Toss in Of Fox And Hounds for good measure.
Porky's Preview is indeed a good cartoon, but it's from 1941, not 1940! Personally I don't care for Cinderella Meets Fella, Hamateur Night, and The Penguin Parade. I never liked Egghead or the spot-gag cartoons. Of Fox and Hounds is a little slicker, but I think the character of the fox is unappealing. It seems like Avery was trying to create another Bugs Bunny, but fell short. I'll give you A Bear's Tale, though.

[J. J. Hunsecker]

"Farm Frolics" was definitely a pure-Clampett picture. It's one of the two color cartoons made by his black-and-white unit (John Carey, Vive Risto, Norm McCabe, etc.), the other being "Goofy Groceries". So Clampett could make a dud just like the rest of them.

For the record, "The Cagey Canary", "Wabbit Twouble", "Aloha Hooey", and "Crazy Cruise" were the cartoons started by Avery and finished by Clampett.
Farm Frolics just doesn't feel like a Clampett cartoon. A lot of the jokes remind me of Avery's approach during that period, especially the gag about the mouse with big ears. (The only gag that reminds me of Clampett's style is the Eddie Cantor horse.) Maybe Clampett was trying to emulate Avery with this cartoon?

[J. J. Hunsecker]

Also, the Clampett disc on the latest Golden Collection is great! Like the Tashlin disc last year, it's an accurate representation of the filmmaker's career. In this case, it shows that Clampett's color cartoons were usually great, while his black-and-white cartoons certainly were not.
You can say that about any of the director's work. Tashlin's color cartoons of the 40's are certainly better than his black and white Porky cartoons of the 30's, too. (Porky's Romance is a classic, though.) All the travelogue parodies and spot-gag cartoons were bad (in my opinion) no matter who directed them. (Why did they make so many!?)

Clampett's best cartoons have appeared on earlier DVD collections, such as The Great Piggy Bank Robbery, Book Revue, Kitty Kornered, A Corny Concerto, A Gruesome Twosome, Falling Hare, Tortoise Wins By A Hare, Draftee Daffy, Porky in Wackyland etc. That didn't leave much for volume 5.

Out of the 15 cartoons on the Clampett disc I like about 7 -- The Bashful Buzzard, The Old Grey Hare, The Wacky Wabbit, The Wise Quacking Duck, Wagon Heels, The Daffy Doc, and A Tale of Two Kitties. The rest are average, while Farm Frolics and Crazy Cruise are bad.

[J. J. Hunsecker]

J.J. --

While I agree that Jones held back Clampett's wild side, my point was that what Clampett's cartoons from mid-1939 through the end of 1940 were lacking to a great deal was a solid story structure. Bob's characters did wild things, but too many times they were wild for no reason other than for the wildness itself. That's the difference between his cartoons of that period and what he started doing from mid-42 on -- in the later cartoons the wild reactions came out of the situations the characters were in, and as a result, were 10 times more effective because you could care about those characters.
I don't think Jones had too much influence on the story structure of the early Clampett cartoons. (Wasn't Clampett's friend Ernest Gee the main writer of those cartoons?) Clampett's early cartoons with Jones as head animator were more plodding in terms of pacing, but the stories weren't anymore structured than ones like Porky in Wackyland or Porky in Egypt. Basically a situation is established for gags to follow. Both Porky's Badtime Story and Wackyland have simple set-ups, with jokes built around them, it's just that Wackyland is more freewheeling and funnier. Only Get Rich Quick Porky and Porky's Party have what could be considered plots. Again, it's only the latter one that's funny.

[Douglas E.]

I hope that this thread closes soon. There are to many debates and the simple answer is: J.J. Hunsucker doen't like Avery's/Tashlin's Late 30's cartoons. Other members do, some more than others. Everyone here has diffrent tastes, and so rather than debating about who's right and who's wrong, we should simply respect everyones opinion.

-Doug

[J. J. Hunsecker]

I hope that this thread closes soon. There are to many debates and the simple answer is: J.J. Hunsucker doen't like Avery's/Tashlin's Late 30's cartoons.
Whatchu talkin' 'bout, Willis? I like the late 30's Avery/Tashlin cartoons just fine. I just think that all the directors made their fair share of slow, crude or dull cartoons in the late 30's, not just Clampett -- so stop pickin' on the poor guy!

For the record, here are all my favorite cartoons from '37-40:

PORKY'S ROAD RACE
SHE WAS AN ACROBAT'S DAUGHTER
PORKY'S ROMANCE
PORKY'S DUCK HUNT
UNCLE TOM'S BUNGALOW
LITTLE RED WALKING HOOD
PORKY'S DOUBLE TROUBLE
PORKY AT THE CROCADERO
INJUN TROUBLE
PORKY'S PARTY
PORKY AND DAFFY
PORKY IN WACKYLAND (My favorite of the late 30's WB cartoons)
PORKY IN EGYPT
THE DAFFY DOC
DAFFY DUCK IN HOLLYWOOD
CRACKED ICE
THUGS WITH DIRTY MUGS
WISE QUACKS
NAUGHTY NEIGHBORS
CONFEDERATE HONEY
YOU OUGHTA BE IN PICTURES
A WILD HARE
BEDTIME FOR SNIFFLES

[J Lee]

I don't think Jones had too much influence on the story structure of the early Clampett cartoons. (Wasn't Clampett's friend Ernest Gee the main writer of those cartoons?) Clampett's early cartoons with Jones as head animator were more plodding in terms of pacing, but the stories weren't anymore structured than ones like Porky in Wackyland or Porky in Egypt. Basically a situation is established for gags to follow. Both Porky's Badtime Story and Wackyland have simple set-ups, with jokes built around them, it's just that Wackyland is more freewheeling and funnier. Only Get Rich Quick Porky and Porky's Party have what could be considered plots. Again, it's only the latter one that's funny.

Jones' desire for acting in the Disney sense had a great deal of infulence on Clampett's early cartoons. His dialoguless scenes (as Barrier notes in his book) demanded that the character be shown in some sort of thought process the audience could relate to, which in turn demanded that there be some sort of linear logic in the script. On the other hand, there are a number of Clampett shorts, especially from the 1939-40 period, where it's impossible to get inside the character's insane head, and therefore impossible to connect with the character.

Jones' obsession with patomime and Disney-like acting made for some deadly Merrie Melodies when he didn't put enough gags in to support his animation, while Clampett's cartoons were never dull, but without any reason for those crazy characters to act the way they did, they also weren't very memorable. Tex's spot gag cartoons might be disjointed, but there were usually at least one or two gags per picture that were worth recalling.

As for "Farm Frolics" if you look at the draftsmanship Clampett got out of his unit in that cartoon and in "Goofy Groceries", you can tell a lot more effort was expended into making them look as polished as the Merrie Melodies coming out of the other units, especially compared to the Looney Tunes that had come out from Bob's crew just prior to those cartoons. Mimicing an Avery spot gag cartoon was probably a good way for his animators to get the hang of drawing up to the level of what was expected in the McKimson-influeced color cartoons, and the spot gags allowed for slower pacing, which meant you could practice doing better looking drawings without having to worry about making those drawings do a lot of wild moves, the way Clampett had his animators moving his crazier characters in the B&W Looney Tunes before 1941. And he followed up "Farm Frolics" with "A Coy Decoy", which took Daffy out of the full-time nuthouse and used Freleng's better looking duck for the first time but also was a lot slower overall than anything else he had ever done with the duck (and it's the slow-to-fast-to-slow pacing that makes Daffy's wild run during his solo number more effective).

Watching Bob's 1941 shorts really is like watching a group lesson in animation, since his cartoons from mid-1940 to the time he left for Avery's unit were radically different in design and pacing. How far he would have gone with it if he hadn't gotten McKimson and Scribner is open to question, but my guess is he would have had McCabe, Carey Risto and the others in the unit doing similar cartoons by 1942 to what he eventually ended up with after getting Tex's crew.

[J. J. Hunsecker]

Jones' desire for acting in the Disney sense had a great deal of infulence on Clampett's early cartoons. His dialoguless scenes (as Barrier notes in his book) demanded that the character be shown in some sort of thought process the audience could relate to, which in turn demanded that there be some sort of linear logic in the script. On the other hand, there are a number of Clampett shorts, especially from the 1939-40 period, where it's impossible to get inside the character's insane head, and therefore impossible to connect with the character.

Jones' obsession with patomime and Disney-like acting made for some deadly Merrie Melodies when he didn't put enough gags in to support his animation, while Clampett's cartoons were never dull, but without any reason for those crazy characters to act the way they did, they also weren't very memorable. Tex's spot gag cartoons might be disjointed, but there were usually at least one or two gags per picture that were worth recalling.

As for "Farm Frolics" if you look at the draftsmanship Clampett got out of his unit in that cartoon and in "Goofy Groceries", you can tell a lot more effort was expended into making them look as polished as the Merrie Melodies coming out of the other units, especially compared to the Looney Tunes that had come out from Bob's crew just prior to those cartoons. Mimicing an Avery spot gag cartoon was probably a good way for his animators to get the hang of drawing up to the level of what was expected in the McKimson-influeced color cartoons, and the spot gags allowed for slower pacing, which meant you could practice doing better looking drawings without having to worry about making those drawings do a lot of wild moves, the way Clampett had his animators moving his crazier characters in the B&W Looney Tunes before 1941. And he followed up "Farm Frolics" with "A Coy Decoy", which took Daffy out of the full-time nuthouse and used Freleng's better looking duck for the first time but also was a lot slower overall than anything else he had ever done with the duck (and it's the slow-to-fast-to-slow pacing that makes Daffy's wild run during his solo number more effective).

Watching Bob's 1941 shorts really is like watching a group lesson in animation, since his cartoons from mid-1940 to the time he left for Avery's unit were radically different in design and pacing. How far he would have gone with it if he hadn't gotten McKimson and Scribner is open to question, but my guess is he would have had McCabe, Carey Risto and the others in the unit doing similar cartoons by 1942 to what he eventually ended up with after getting Tex's crew.
Jones' desire for pantomime and Disney like animation may have affected Clampett's pacing on his cartoons, but not necessarily the stories or plotting.

Audiences like the insane characters -- Daffy Duck, Harpo Marx, and Woody Woodpecker were big hits with the public. Avery is the one who introduced the insane antagonist into the animated cartoon, Clampett just followed his lead. I don't think audiences need to connect to a character in order to enjoy them.

I'm pressed for time, but I'd like to address some of the other issues you've brought up in your post at a later date. I agree with you last paragraph, though.

[J. J. Hunsecker]

Hey Seattlechef,

I thinks it's rude to air private emails on this forum. You obviously did it as a form of revenge against Thad.

[Douglas E.]

Whatchu talkin' 'bout, Willis? I like the late 30's Avery/Tashlin cartoons just fine. I just think that all the directors made their fair share of slow, crude or dull cartoons in the late 30's, not just Clampett -- so stop pickin' on the poor guy!

For the record, here are all my favorite cartoons from '37-40:


I'm not trying to. I love the shorts from the late 30's as well. (Particiuly Clampett.) It's just the way you expressed it, it sounded like you only like 40's stuff. Sorry for any confusion.

My Favorites From the Late 30's:
-She Was An Acrobats Daughter
-Little Red Walking Hood
-Daffy Duck and Egghead
-Daffy Duck in Hollywood
-A Bear's Tale
-Cinderalla Meets Fella
-Hamateur Night
-Cross Country Detours

-Now that summer is gone
-Cracked Ice
-Have You Got Any Castles?
-Porky's Double Trouble
-Porky the Fireman
-Wholly Smoke

-The Daffy Doc
-Porky's Party
-Porky & Daffy
-Porky in Wackyland
-Porky In Eygpt
-Porky's Five And Ten
-Rover's Rival

-Porky's Hare Hunt
-Hare-Um Scare-Um
-Katnip College
-Dog Gone Modern

-Doug

[SEATTLECHEF]

Hey Seattlechef,

I thinks it's rude to air private emails on this forum. You obviously did it as a form of revenge against Thad.
His insult was completely unprovoked and his public comment is in complete contradiction to the comments he's made to me. I think it important that people be held responsible for their words, two-faced is two-faced wether that be on the internet or in person. Why shouldn't the truth be known?

[SEATTLECHEF]

Wow, this is crazier than that guy trying to pass off his rabbit drawing as proof Ben Hardaway created Bugs Bunny.

Thad, what a rude unprovoked comment. I'm confused because your previous emails to me portray a completely different attitude and view. Why the sudden rudeness and abrupt change? If this forum is not the appropriate venue then I'll post your comments on my blog, along side the statements from Mel Blanc and Virgil Ross and others can decide for themselves. Your hypocrisy will not be tolerated.

[larriva9/11]

I hope that this thread closes soon.

I wouldn't say it should be closed--however, remember that I was thinking more about the years after Avery left for MGM.

Oh, and re "The Cat That Hated People", remember that the surreal moon segment wasn't a dominating raison d'etre a la "Wackyland" (or even "Tin Pan Alley Cats"). To me, it "works" in the same way that the fast orchestral instrumental break "works" in Richard Harris's "MacArthur Park"--I guess. (Interesting measure of Avery's approach, though, in that it isn't so explicitly "Clampettesque" as Clampett's wolf is "Averyesque".)

[Thad]

Seattlechef-

I've admitted to you that I've changed my mind on your 'theory' long before my comment (which is based on your brazen intolerance of animation history). I'm sorry telling you what you don't want to hear and me being right has upset you so terribly.

If you want to continue this conversation, please do so privately for the sake of the others here. (I just had to reply publicly to remarks calling me 'two-faced'.... ROFFLES)

[SEATTLECHEF]

Seattlechef-

I've admitted to you that I've changed my mind on your 'theory' long before my comment (which is based on your brazen intolerance of animation history). I'm sorry telling you what you don't want to hear and me being right has upset you so terribly.

If you want to hurl more insults at me, please do so privately for the sake of the others' sanity here. (I just had to reply publicly to remarks calling me 'two-faced'.)

Your initial comments were 180 degrees opposed to your recent snide remark.
If you like, we can review them.
My theory is not intolerant of history rather it provides a much simpler and more elegant solution than the convoluted misplaced apostrophe theory that prevails.
The recollections of Virgil Ross and Mel Blanc and Martha Sigall, along with the physical characteristics of the drawing, are much more powerful indicators of the history of events than the vacillating opinion of a student critic.
Perhaps it's frustrating to you that someone outside your cyber social circle has untangled the Gordian Knot of animation history. Baseless criticism is easy, plausible solutions often times require independant thought. It's really not that complicated. Hardaway's single drawing was chosen from among many. It became known around the Termite Terrace as Bug's Bunny, simple.
Obviously I just had to reply to an off topic public insult that completely contradicts your previous lengthy statements.

[Tom Stathes]

Based on a quick review of this thread, I'm going to ask that the discussion/argument stops here. Everyone has made their point and the board members can make their own educated opinions based on what's already been said.
Any further discussion should be conducted through PMs and emails.
If not, I'll have to close the thread.

[oceansoul]

You can say that about any of the director's work. Tashlin's color cartoons of the 40's are certainly better than his black and white Porky cartoons of the 30's, too. (Porky's Romance is a classic, though.) All the travelogue parodies and spot-gag cartoons were bad (in my opinion) no matter who directed them. (Why did they make so many!?)

Clampett's best cartoons have appeared on earlier DVD collections, such as The Great Piggy Bank Robbery, Book Revue, Kitty Kornered, A Corny Concerto, A Gruesome Twosome, Falling Hare, Tortoise Wins By A Hare, Draftee Daffy, Porky in Wackyland etc. That didn't leave much for volume 5.

Out of the 15 cartoons on the Clampett disc I like about 7 -- The Bashful Buzzard, The Old Grey Hare, The Wacky Wabbit, The Wise Quacking Duck, Wagon Heels, The Daffy Doc, and A Tale of Two Kitties. The rest are average, while Farm Frolics and Crazy Cruise are bad.

I agree, that the real greats are on the earlier set. I like though Wagon Heels and The Bashful Buzzard on this one (didn't get them however). A Tale of Two Kitties annoys me, Old Grey Hare is just average, Wise Quacking Duck is very far from a top-notch Daffy cartoon (bit too over the top) and Wacky Wabbit is just plain unfunny.

[larriva9/11]

I don't know if this blasphemy's dawned on anyone else, but it just dawned on me today that there's an odd Avery/Clampett counterpoint about Peter Griffin and Glen Quagmire on "Family Guy".

I wouldn't be surprised if it's dawned on Seth McFarlane as well.

[Fibber Fox]

All the travelogue parodies and spot-gag cartoons were bad (in my opinion) no matter who directed them. (Why did they make so many!?)

I imagine, J.J., back then it didn't seem like "so many" as they were only seen in theatres, as opposed to constant exposure on TV (and now on DVD).

They were likely made because enough people liked them, therefore exhibitors liked them, therefore more were made.

It seems to me they'd be easier for a director to make than some other cartoons, too. You don't need to structure a story, you just glue together some gags on the same topic and end it with the climax of a running gag.

FF

[J. J. Hunsecker]

It seems to me they'd be easier for a director to make than some other cartoons, too. You don't need to structure a story, you just glue together some gags on the same topic and end it with the climax of a running gag.

FF
I think the fact that they were easier for the director to make is the main reason why we see so many in a short period of time at Warners (late 30's, early 40's). Avery once admitted to Joe Adamson that he made those type of cartoons when he was in a bind for a story and couldn't come up with anything else in time. (He also said the Red/Wolf cartoons were labored over.) The spot-gag cartoons were used as a crutch, so to speak.

[larriva9/11]

No different from comics like "Archie's Jokes", et al.

[Jack G.]

Avery once admitted to Joe Adamson that he made those type of cartoons when he was in a bind for a story and couldn't come up with anything else in time.Perhaps if Avery accepted story ideas once in a while from his writers
instead of trying to do it all he might of avoided that spot gag stuff.

[Sogturtle]

Perhaps if Avery accepted story ideas once in a while from his writers
instead of trying to do it all he might of avoided that spot gag stuff.

Masked Stinker~

Well, Tex not only accepted story/gag ideas from his Schlesinger story crews but he actually SAT IN with them... So there's ample room there for credit/blame for all.;) And we shouldn't forget that the 'spot-gag' cartoons were being made at the same moment as Chuck's very, very earnest early ones, so the writers MIGHT just have viewed Tex's free-wheeling approach as a welcome respite and outlet for gags that wouldn't get into Jones' toons...

It was at MGM where Tex would have just a lone writer and thus the burden of the entire story and gags would fall on him. The storyman MIGHT conceive something plot-wise but the humor was Tex's responsibility.

[Matt the Y]

It was at MGM where Tex would have just a lone writer and thus the burden of the entire story and gags would fall on him. The storyman MIGHT conceive something plot-wise but the humor was Tex's responsibility.

That certainly explains why the humor in Avery's MGM films is always much more consistently laugh-out-loud funny and entertaining in the same vein with each passing cartoon than those that he directed at Warners. Only Avery's landmark sense of humor and "vision" could be that uncannily reliable!

[J. J. Hunsecker]

Perhaps if Avery accepted story ideas once in a while from his writers
instead of trying to do it all he might of avoided that spot gag stuff.
Well, Sogturtle already explained it all, but I'd like to point out that the quote I paraphrased from the Adamson book was about Avery's MGM days --when he only had Heck Allen as a writer. Allen admitted he really didn't do much on those cartoons; that he just tried to give them some structure. He also mentioned that he would periodically get fired from MGM and that Tex would get him hired back, since Avery liked him so much.

As stated before, Avery had a pool of writers at Warners. I get the feeling that the reason he made so many spotgag cartoons there is because the first one probably got a big reaction from audiences and the WB crew latched onto it as an easy laugh getter. It's much more difficult to write an actual story.

[Speedy Boris]

I much prefer Avery's work at MGM to his work at WB, though there were a few cartoons of his at WB I enjoyed- particularly "Tortoise Beats Hare" and "Little Red Walking Hood".

About Clampett: Certainly not every cartoon he directed was gold, and that goes for any director. But when his cartoons hit, they hit hard. "The Great Piggy Bank Robbery" is excellent, as is "Kitty Kornered", among others.

[Jack G.]

It was at MGM where Tex would have just a lone writer and thus the burden of the entire story and gags would fall on him. The storyman MIGHT conceive something plot-wise but the humor was Tex's responsibility.So, Tex didn't become the "one-man band" until the MGM days?

Oh well, the spot gag cartoon is pretty uninteresting on the whole no matter who directed.
I much prefer Avery's work at MGM to his work at WB, though there were a few cartoons of his at WB I enjoyed- particularly "Tortoise Beats Hare" and "Little Red Walking Hood".Well, Tex had simply improved over time.
When I look at what the other Warner units were doing at the same time Tex was there,
I think everybody's on roughly on the same level.
Tex got better with time, and so did the others.

[Matt the Y]

So, Tex didn't become the "one-man band" until the MGM days?

Oh well, the spot gag cartoon is pretty uninteresting on the whole no matter who directed.

True but Tex probably directed the very best cartoons of that mediocre sub-genre. Even in his early WB days, "The Isle of Pingo-Pongo", "Screwball Football", "Cross Country Detours", and "Ceiling Hero" are brilliant classics, IMHO.

[Jack G.]

True but Tex probably directed the very best cartoons of that mediocre sub-genre. Even in his early WB days, "The Isle of Pingo-Pongo", "Screwball Football", "Cross Country Detours", and "Ceiling Hero" are brilliant classics, IMHO.I haven't seen those, but hope to in the future.

[J. J. Hunsecker]

True but Tex probably directed the very best cartoons of that mediocre sub-genre. Even in his early WB days, "The Isle of Pingo-Pongo", "Screwball Football", "Cross Country Detours", and "Ceiling Hero" are brilliant classics, IMHO.
Tex Avery SAVED Warner Bros. Without him, the studio would have continued to be a third rate operation. They would have continued to make pale copies of Harmon-Ising cartoons. Avery broke through that staleness. There would have been no Daffy or Bugs (sorry, Seattlechef) without him.

[captchucky]

Tex Avery SAVED Warner Bros. Without him, the studio would have continued to be a third rate operation. They would have continued to make pale copies of Harmon-Ising cartoons. Avery broke through that staleness. There would have been no Daffy or Bugs (sorry, Seattlechef) without him.

I'm not sure about that. I think the Tashlin cartoons would have still been funny without any Tex Avery influence.

[SEATTLECHEF]

Tex Avery SAVED Warner Bros. Without him, the studio would have continued to be a third rate operation. They would have continued to make pale copies of Harmon-Ising cartoons. Avery broke through that staleness. There would have been no Daffy or Bugs (sorry, Seattlechef) without him.

I don't necessarily disagree with you. I think as I did when introducing the drawing that several people contributed to the evolution and life of the character.
Without Avery the character might not have survived infancy. I have the sense that Avery might have done more to further the life of the character than anyone else, more than I'm able to articulate.
My contentention has simply been that the drawing by Hardaway is Bugs' Bunny. The moment in time that the character "stood upright, not afraid, cocky, calm, cool, not going anywhere" (as remembered by Jones); the drawing of a "tough little stinker" referenced to create the voice (described by Blanc), the drawing that was chosen from among many and became known around the Termite Terrace as Bugs' Bunny (as described by Ross) are one in the same. The possesive apostrophe did not originate inadvertantly, and it did not originate because the sole responsibility for the character was Hardaway's. Bugs' Bunny was the bunny that Bugs drew.

[J. J. Hunsecker]

I'm not sure about that. I think the Tashlin cartoons would have still been funny without any Tex Avery influence.
Maybe. Tashlin was a good gagman and he did help develope the cartoon style at Warners. However, he started directing shortly after Avery already started the revolution, so to speak, so we'll never know for sure. Tashlin's first couple of cartoons aren't really humorous, either. It isn't until Porky's Romance (his 5th cartoon?) that he made something that equalled the Avery cartoons.

[J. J. Hunsecker]

I don't necessarily disagree with you. I think as I did when introducing the drawing that several people contributed to the evolution and life of the character.
Without Avery the character might not have survived infancy. I have the sense that Avery might have done more to further the life of the character than anyone else, more than I'm able to articulate.
My contentention has simply been that the drawing by Hardaway is Bugs' Bunny. The moment in time that the character "stood upright, not afraid, cocky, calm, cool, not going anywhere" (as remembered by Jones); the drawing of a "tough little stinker" referenced to create the voice (described by Blanc), the drawing that was chosen from among many and became known around the Termite Terrace as Bugs' Bunny (as described by Ross) are one in the same. The possesive apostrophe did not originate inadvertantly, and it did not originate because the sole responsibility for the character was Hardaway's. Bugs' Bunny was the bunny that Bugs drew.
I don't want to get on this merry-go-round again, so I'll make this brief. Everyone acknowedges that Hardaway created an embryonic version of what evolved into Bugs Bunny. Charlie Thorson drew the design, and labled it "Bugs' Bunny".

The moment Jones is talking about refers to A Wild Hare, not Hare-um Scare-um. Here's how Jones states it in his memoir, "Ah-ha! Life begins! A baby finally born and the long gestation period is fully justified in:
A Wild Hare (July 1940), directed by Tex Avery."

Also, Mel Blanc was referring to A Wild Hare too when he mentioned the "tough little stinker", since he also mentioned that he put a Brooklyn and Bronx accent together for the character. The rabbit in Porky's Hare Hunt and Hare-um Scare-um does not have the New York accent. He has a goofy voice with a laugh that predates Woody Woodpecker.

The burden of proof falls on you to prove that the Hardaway drawing you have is a model that inspired the modern Bugs Bunny. A theory is not enough.

[Matt the Y]

Maybe. Tashlin was a good gagman and he did help develope the cartoon style at Warners. However, he started directing shortly after Avery already started the revolution, so to speak, so we'll never know for sure. Tashlin's first couple of cartoons aren't really humorous, either. It isn't until Porky's Romance (his 5th cartoon?) that he made something that equalled the Avery cartoons.

I dunno. I thought Tashlin's "Porky in the Northwoods" [1936] was pretty funny, well-timed, and fast-paced.

[captchucky]

Maybe. Tashlin was a good gagman and he did help develope the cartoon style at Warners. However, he started directing shortly after Avery already started the revolution, so to speak, so we'll never know for sure. Tashlin's first couple of cartoons aren't really humorous, either. It isn't until Porky's Romance (his 5th cartoon?) that he made something that equalled the Avery cartoons.

Yeah, I don't want to take anything away from Avery. He started it, after all. But I have the feeling if he hadn't started it, it would have been Tashlin. I like the idea of historical what-ifs. We, of course will never know for sure, but considering the quality of Warner's writing staff and their constant lifting of gags from the radio, I have to think that their cartoons would still have been funny, even without Tex.

Of course, I could be completely wrong and Warner's could have ended up like Columbia after Tashlin was there. That thought sends shivers down my spine.

[Douglas E.]

It's strange how topics can completely change. When this thread was started, we were discussing about how Clampett's "Bcall to Arms" beared a resemblence to Avery's MGM shorts, and now were debating whether or not Tashlin's 30's shorts were good or bad. As I stated earlier in this thread, I hope this gets locked.

-Doug

[Thad]

Of course, I could be completely wrong and Warner's could have ended up like Columbia after Tashlin was there. That thought sends shivers down my spine.

I don't think that's really fair. Unlike the Warner staff, the majority of the staff throughout Columbia's 1940s run were notoriously incompetent with a few exceptions (though even when they were competent, the results were normally mediocre at best). A real potboiler as far as golden age animation studios go.

[Fibber Fox]

As I stated earlier in this thread, I hope this gets locked.


Others seem to be getting something out of this conversation. Why do you want their discussion spoiled? If you don't like a thread, don't read it.

I agree with J.J. about Tashlin. From everything I've read, he was more concerned about cinematic effects than humour. I don't think he would have been the one to develop humourous cartoons if Tex hadn't. Clampett is my guess.

FF

[Douglas E.]

Others seem to be getting something out of this conversation. Why do you want their discussion spoiled? If you don't like a thread, don't read it.

FF
I'm not trying to spoil other peoples debates, but I think that this conversation should be in a seprate thread.

-Doug

[captchucky]

I don't think that's really fair. Unlike the Warner staff, the majority of the staff throughout Columbia's 1940s run were notoriously incompetent with a few exceptions (though even when they were competent, the results were normally mediocre at best). A real potboiler as far as golden age animation studios go.

No, I don't actually think Warner's would have gone that way. Their staff really was very good, which was my original point, that even if Avery had never worked there, Warner Bros. cartoons would have probably still been the funniest in the business.

[J. J. Hunsecker]

I don't think that's really fair. Unlike the Warner staff, the majority of the staff throughout Columbia's 1940s run were notoriously incompetent with a few exceptions (though even when they were competent, the results were normally mediocre at best). A real potboiler as far as golden age animation studios go.
Also, the ones that were competent disdained the typical Hollywood slapstick cartoon -- the Hubley/Sommer cartoons in particular. They remain interesting experiments in stylization, but they are far from entertaining.

[Ray Pointer]

I don't think that's really fair. Unlike the Warner staff, the majority of the staff throughout Columbia's 1940s run were notoriously incompetent with a few exceptions (though even when they were competent, the results were normally mediocre at best). A real potboiler as far as golden age animation studios go.

"Incompetent"? They did produce some well animated cartoons. THE FOX AND THE GRAPES is the most outstanding exception I can think of. But much of the product looked like a Warners' imitation with the exception of the concepts, characters, and in some cases the direction and timing.

Tashlin was certainly a competent director at Warners'. Seeing some of the FOX AND CROW cartoons recently, the only thing I can say is that the stories are inconsistent in quality, WAY DOWN YONDER IN THE CORN being one of them. This was produced under Dave Fleischer's tenure as Producer. It has been documented that his two year stay there was based on his being out of touch with the sentiments of the younger crew. So his ways were seen as "old fashioned". Yet there does not seem to be any indication of his influence in the cartoons produced under his period there that made there really comedic as the cartoons he supervised in his own studio with his brother. So who can you blame for being incompetent? The writers, the directors, or, the producers?

[Thad]

Tashlin's "The Fox and Grapes" is the only real exception to the rule. I think a lot of it also had to do with the fact that the studio had a different head just about every season, so it was hard to set a style or look. Even Tashlin's other cartoon at Columbia, "The Tangled Angler", is horrible.

[J. J. Hunsecker]

Tashlin's "The Fox and Grapes" is the only real exception to the rule. I think a lot of it also had to do with the fact that the studio had a different head just about every season, so it was hard to set a style or look. Even Tashlin's other cartoon at Columbia, "The Tangled Angler", is horrible.
In interviews Tashlin said he only directed one cartoon at Columbia, The Fox and the Grapes. Maybe he forgot about The Tangled Angler, or he only produced it.

I agree that Tashlin's cartoon was the exception, and his running of the studio is its high point. There are only a handful of Columbia cartoons I would call good. The rest my have some points of interest, but they are uneven in quality -- and most aren't funny. They also made some of the most lackluster cartoons, like Tangled Travels and Mass Mouse Meeting. Once Emery Hawkins leaves the studio, the quality of the animation falls.

A lot of Columbia cartoons are ugly to look at too, especially the ones produced by Ray Katz and Henry Binder. Clampett said it would have taken a year to turn that studio around.

[Ray Pointer]

In interviews Tashlin said he only directed one cartoon at Columbia, The Fox and the Grapes. Maybe he forgot about The Tangled Angler, or he only produced it.

I agree that Tashlin's cartoon was the exception, and his running of the studio is its high point. There are only a handful of Columbia cartoons I would call good. The rest my have some points of interest, but they are uneven in quality -- and most aren't funny. They also made some of the most lackluster cartoons, like Tangled Travels and Mass Mouse Meeting. Once Emery Hawkins leaves the studio, the quality of the animation falls.

A lot of Columbia cartoons are ugly to look at too, especially the ones produced by Ray Katz and Henry Binder. Clampett said it would have taken a year to turn that studio around.

As I recall, most of the 40s product was rather pedestrian and mostly dull inspite of the production values including nice backgrounds, good animation, and well recorded sountracks including very good sound effects and musical scores. In spite of all this, there wasn't much that was funny about them. One can only wonder why Harry Cohn let them continue only to say that they must have been brought in at cost, which was a major issue at Columbia, which was a very cost-conscious studio with a "stay in the black" policy as long as King Cohn was on the throne. But this does not explain the "incompetent" claim. It would seem the problem was more a matter of attracting the right collection of talent with a studio head with the ability to do this. From all accounts it appears that the problem was with the management. So in this respect, it seems that nothing has changed in 60 years. It's still the same old battle between artistic creativity and hard-headed business practices. If the cartoons under Katz and Binder were ugly, I'd say that much of what we have today is far more ugly. And today, we have more suits in the process, which may say a lot.

[SEATTLECHEF]

I don't want to get on this merry-go-round again, so I'll make this brief. Everyone acknowedges that Hardaway created an embryonic version of what evolved into Bugs Bunny. Charlie Thorson drew the design, and labled it "Bugs' Bunny".

The moment Jones is talking about refers to A Wild Hare, not Hare-um Scare-um. Here's how Jones states it in his memoir, "Ah-ha! Life begins! A baby finally born and the long gestation period is fully justified in:
A Wild Hare (July 1940), directed by Tex Avery."

Also, Mel Blanc was referring to A Wild Hare too when he mentioned the "tough little stinker", since he also mentioned that he put a Brooklyn and Bronx accent together for the character. The rabbit in Porky's Hare Hunt and Hare-um Scare-um does not have the New York accent. He has a goofy voice with a laugh that predates Woody Woodpecker.

The burden of proof falls on you to prove that the Hardaway drawing you have is a model that inspired the modern Bugs Bunny. A theory is not enough.

If you're dizzy you should step off.
The embryonic version was CO-DIRECTED (most accurately, co-supervised), that means it was not entirely Hardaway's baby.
Thorson drew a design that was rejected, his Biography clearly states that; " His biggest claim to fame came at Warner Bros. in 1938, when he was asked to design a rabbit for a cartoon to be directed by Cal Dalton and Ben "Bugs" Hardaway's team. Thorson labeled his model sheet "Bug's Bunny." Ironically, Thorson's design was considered to look too cute and innocent for the bunny's sarcastic personality, so Bugs was redesigned" (from the book Cartoon Charlie) Also, the model sheet is not a first step, it would reference a concept drawing.

Jones states that he does not remember exactly when it occured, but at some point; "Hardaway's film, Porky's Hare Hunt, featured a rounded nervous rabbit, crouched, always ready to leap for an exit; but "the Bugs that evolved," Chuck Jones remarks, "stood upright, a guy who's not going to go anyplace—sure of himself."[6] The Hardaway Bugs, though, did utter one enduring line: "Of course you realize this means war." As 1938 audiences would have known, it's a steal from Groucho Marx. (from A Flurry of Drawings and retold similarly in the Barrier interview)

You're incorrect regarding Blanc. The statement by Blanc referenced a drawing, he said, "they showed me a drawing, he was supposed to be a tough little stinker". This interview and another similar are on my blog, there was also the appearence on Letterman (which is on YouTube).

The burden of proof regarding the theory that the Hardaway drawing became known around the Termite Terrace as Bugs' Bunny is no greater than the burden of proof required to validate any of the opposing theories. There exists corraberating testimony from more than one contemporary and loads of circumstance as well as an artifact, that all support the theory The theory just makes more sense than the others and of course there is the drawing. I'll also keep it brief. The drawing speaks for itself, if you care to listen.

[J. J. Hunsecker]

Seattlechef,

Yeah, you got me dizzy, alright.

Ironically, Thorson's design was considered to look too cute and innocent for the bunny's sarcastic personality, so Bugs was redesigned"
Hardaway's Hare-um Scare-um features the Thorson design. Jones' Elmer's Candid Camera and Elmer's Pet Rabbit look a little more streamlined. Avery's rabbit for A Wild Hare was designed by Robert Givens, and redone by Robert McKimson.

Your quote from the Thorson biography never states that Thorson's design was changed specifically for the Hardaway cartoon.

Jones states that he does not remember exactly when it occured, but at some point; "Hardaway's film, Porky's Hare Hunt, featured a rounded nervous rabbit, crouched, always ready to leap for an exit; but "the Bugs that evolved," Chuck Jones remarks, "stood upright, a guy who's not going to go anyplace—sure of himself."[6]

Again, Jones never says that the upright, sure rabbit was by Hardaway. In fact the only mention of Hardaway by Jones is the direct opposite of what you claim. He credits the crouched, crazy rabbit to Hardaway.

The statement by Blanc referenced a drawing, he said, "they showed me a drawing, he was supposed to be a tough little stinker".
Blanc never said the drawing was by Hardaway. You assumed that it was. The Hardaway rabbit wasn't "a tough little stinker", he was a crazy, annoying, goofy character. The tough stinker didn't appear until A Wild Hare.

The burden of proof regarding the theory that the Hardaway drawing became known around the Termite Terrace as Bugs' Bunny is no greater than the burden of proof required to validate any of the opposing theories.
It was the Thorson model sheet that became known as Bugs' Bunny. That's what all those animators are referring to, not the drawing you have. Plus, if everyone was enamored of that Hardaway drawing you have, then why didn't any of the other directors use that design for their own rabbit cartoons?

[SEATTLECHEF]

Seattlechef,

Yeah, you got me dizzy, alright.


Hardaway's Hare-um Scare-um features the Thorson design. Jones' Elmer's Candid Camera and Elmer's Pet Rabbit look a little more streamlined. Avery's rabbit for A Wild Hare was designed by Robert Givens, and redone by Robert McKimson.

Your quote from the Thorson biography never states that Thorson's design was changed specifically for the Hardaway cartoon.



Again, Jones never says that the upright, sure rabbit was by Hardaway. In fact the only mention of Hardaway by Jones is the direct opposite of what you claim. He credits the crouched, crazy rabbit to Hardaway.


Blanc never said the drawing was by Hardaway. You assumed that it was. The Hardaway rabbit wasn't "a tough little stinker", he was a crazy, annoying, goofy character. The tough stinker didn't appear until A Wild Hare.


It was the Thorson model sheet that became known as Bugs' Bunny. That's what all those animators are referring to, not the drawing you have. Plus, if everyone was enamored of that Hardaway drawing you have, then why didn't any of the other directors use that design for their own rabbit cartoons?

1)It wasn't Hardaway but Hardaway/Dalton. Givens offered a model sheet showing how the character should move, he did not create the concept drawing.
2) Correct but Thorsen's design was rejected.

3) Jones convieniently can't remember the chronology. Jones was and still is often times described as vindictive and not past claiming credit for things he didn't do.

4) Absolutely, 100% incorrect. You haven't done the reading. Blanc most certainly does state that Hardaway drew the first picture. That's fact, I've posted the interview that states such, I'd be happy to email it to you. Again, the crazy annoying goofy personality is a result of Dalton, that was his personality not Hardaway's, listen to the Monohan interview.

5)They did use the model that Hardaway drew, that's why those at the termite Terrace named it after its creator, Hardaway. That's why his drawing was chosen and the character changed from screwy to cocky and confident, like Hardaway. I say he drew it toward the end of '38 or just beginning of '39, before A Wild Hare and before he left Warner's.
Come on, Thorson's model sheet known as Bugs' Bunny? You and I both know that doesn't make any sense. The Bunny that Bugs drew became known as Bugs' Bunny, that makes sense.

[Thad]

It's hilarious you don't know when to drop your brazen revisionist theories.

It won't do you any good to hijack every thread to focus on your insane theory that any sixth grader with a copy of Maltin's book can punch holes through with a piece of styrofoam.

It's not Bugs Bunny, it was obviously inspired by the character. It probably wasn't done by Ben Hardaway either, who was notorious for being a poor artist and his lame sense of humor (read Shamus Culhane's book).

If you're a distant relative of Hardaway, you're not doing him any favors with this propaganda.

I doubt you've even watched the cartoons in question, or even have an interest in animation history. Otherwise, why would all of your posts be about this issue?

The answer is there in the films themselves, and the answer is you're wrong.

[Matt the Y]

3) Jones convieniently can't remember the chronology. Jones was and still is often times described as vindictive and not past claiming credit for things he didn't do.

I thought it was Clampett who was always reported for claiming credit for things he never did, not Jones.

[larriva9/11]

I'm not trying to spoil other peoples debates, but I think that this conversation should be in a seprate thread.

-Doug

As the person who started this thread, I agree, i.e. let's concentrate on the Clampett/Avery matter, keep Ben Hardaway and the genesis of Bugs out of it.

Oh, and besides the "Bacall To Arms" et al Avery Wolf character, there's also the matter of "Draftee Daffy"'s premise coming straight from "Dumb-Hounded"...

[larriva9/11]

I don't want to hijack threads,
Then, don't.

My posts obviously have a focus because I'm trying to understand a particular
issue. My ego does not compel me to espouse on every topic.
Then set up a separate thread, and redirect those you're arguing with to said thread. Please.

[SEATTLECHEF]

Then, don't.

Then set up a separate thread, and redirect those you're arguing with to said thread. Please.

Sorry, duly noted.

I'm new to this and am having a hard time ignoring some things that I probably shoul ignore, especially when someone mentions my name.
(I'm getting dejavu from a previous thread.)

Again, I apologize.

[millsie]

I thought it was Clampett who was always reported for claiming credit for things he never did, not Jones.That's what I thought too.

[Sogturtle]

I thought it was Clampett who was always reported for claiming credit for things he never did, not Jones.

That's what I thought too.

You're both correct! Neither Jones, Avery, Freleng or McKimson ever tried to claim credit for what the other directors had done. They were all VERY good about that!:cool:

There has been some criticism that the storymen got snubbed somewhat by Chuck in his remembering. But the problem with that is it has always been very, very hard to know how much credit to assign to the Warner directors or the storyman for each cartoon since the director ultimately controlled the final content.

[Leviathan]

You're both correct! Neither Jones, Avery, Freleng or McKimson ever tried to claim credit for what the other directors had done. They were all VERY good about that!:cool: .

FWIW, In Chuck Reducks, there are these "timelines" of Daffy, Elmer ducoumenting their evolutions. The early Daffy and Egghead are given sceintific names of "Fredaverii", and the Fat Elmer is given a sceintific name of "Clampeterus"

[J. J. Hunsecker]

You're both correct! Neither Jones, Avery, Freleng or McKimson ever tried to claim credit for what the other directors had done. They were all VERY good about that!:cool:

Uh, Chuck took credit for Charlie Dog, when in fact Little Orphan Airedale was a remake of Clampett's Porky's Pooch. (Chuck later amended his story that he rescued Charlie Dog from Clampett.)

[Matt the Y]

Uh, Chuck took credit for Charlie Dog, when in fact Little Orphan Airedale was a remake of Clampett's Porky's Pooch. (Chuck later amended his story that he rescued Charlie Dog from Clampett.)

One might also argue that Charlie Dog is Chuck's take on a similar character that was originated by Clampett (for the record, the dog prototype character's name in "Porky's Pooch" is Rover). But I agree that the genesis of the character can be found in Clampett's hands; however, Jones did put his own stamp on that character's personality nonetheless.

[J. J. Hunsecker]

One might also argue that Charlie Dog is Chuck's take on a similar character that was originated by Clampett (for the record, the dog prototype character's name in "Porky's Pooch" is Rover). But I agree that the genesis of the character can be found in Clampett's hands; however, Jones did put his own stamp on that character's personality nonetheless.
Oh, I agree. Charlie Dog is a more defined character than Rover, all similarities aside. What bothers me is Jones's revisionist history -- most of which had become the established history of the Warner Studio -- as if nothing existed at that studio prior to 1948. It's only through such historians as Leonard Maltin, Jerry Beck, Mike Barrier, et al, that we get a more rounded picture of the studio's history.

[Matt the Y]

Oh, I agree. Charlie Dog is a more defined character than Rover, all similarities aside. What bothers me is Jones's revisionist history -- most of which had become the established history of the Warner Studio -- as if nothing existed at that studio prior to 1948. It's only through such historians as Leonard Maltin, Jerry Beck, Mike Barrier, et al, that we get a more rounded picture of the studio's history.

I don't quite follow you. When has Jones ever tried to disguise or hide altogether the pre-1948 history of the Warners cartoons? I've never really gotten that impression. Mind you, I'm not trying to start an argument; I'm just trying to see your side of the spectrum.

[larriva9/11]

Okay, not hide; maybe more like shifting the centre of gravity t/w the Jones "golden age". Which is only a natural self-serving impulse, mind you.

Though if there's a later Chuck Jonesian parallel to Clampett's borrowings from Avery, I'm tempted to view the "Barbary Coast Bunny" incarnation of Nasty Canasta as, in its way, Chuck's response to Jubalio Wolf...

[J. J. Hunsecker]

I don't quite follow you. When has Jones ever tried to disguise or hide altogether the pre-1948 history of the Warners cartoons? I've never really gotten that impression. Mind you, I'm not trying to start an argument; I'm just trying to see your side of the spectrum.
Jones always referred to the golden age of Looney Tunes as occurring between 1948-1963. (How he could consider the stuff from the early 60's golden is beyond me.) Some of Jones's best cartoons may have been directed during those years, but it conviently leaves out the classics of his contemporaries, most of whom directed their best work in the 40's.

In interviews, he mostly talked about the cartoons he made in the 50's (understandable since many of his classic came from that era), and when he talked about the other directors at Warners it was always Freleng and McKimson. People like Avery, Tashlin, Clampett and Davis barely got a mention. He also once said that Clampett contributed the least of anyone to the history of the studio.

In other examples of revisionsim, Jones used to tell several funny anecdotes regarding the history of the studio, and while they may have been entertaining, they were also of dubious authenticity. Such as Leon's lisp being the inspiration for Daffy's voice. (Daffy didn't really lisp in Porky's Duck Hunt, and in all records of Leon's voice he doesn't have a noticable pronounced lisp.) Yet Jones has told that story a hundred times in interviews, embellishing it throughout the years. It's now become one of the lores about the studio, and ahs even appeared in cartoon history books.

Then there are all the terrible things Jones intimated that Clampett did, including that Clampett was fired or forced to leave from the Warner Studio. Yet Jones hid the fact that he himself was actually fired in 1962 from the studio.

I'm not writing this to put Jones down -- I think he's one of the greatest directors of cartoons -- but to show that he was sometimes guilty of the same thing leveled at the other artists at Warners.

[Matt the Y]

Jones always referred to the golden age of Looney Tunes as occurring between 1948-1963. (How he could consider the stuff from the early 60's golden is beyond me.) Some of Jones's best cartoons may have been directed during those years, but it conviently leaves out the classics of his contemporaries, most of whom directed their best work in the 40's.

In interviews, he mostly talked about the cartoons he made in the 50's (understandable since many of his classic came from that era), and when he talked about the other directors at Warners it was always Freleng and McKimson. People like Avery, Tashlin, Clampett and Davis barely got a mention. He also once said that Clampett contributed the least of anyone to the history of the studio.

In other examples of revisionsim, Jones used to tell several funny anecdotes regarding the history of the studio, and while they may have been entertaining, they were also of dubious authenticity. Such as Leon's lisp being the inspiration for Daffy's voice. (Daffy didn't really lisp in Porky's Duck Hunt, and in all records of Leon's voice he doesn't have a noticable pronounced lisp.) Yet Jones has told that story a hundred times in interviews, embellishing it throughout the years. It's now become one of the lores about the studio, and ahs even appeared in cartoon history books.

Then there are all the terrible things Jones intimated that Clampett did, including that Clampett was fired or forced to leave from the Warner Studio. Yet Jones hid the fact that he himself was actually fired in 1962 from the studio.

I'm not writing this to put Jones down -- I think he's one of the greatest directors of cartoons -- but to show that he was sometimes guilty of the same thing leveled at the other artists at Warners.

Sadly, as much as I adore Chuck Jones, I'm actually inclined to agree with you on a lot of this! In defense to this story, Jones HAS mentioned Avery quite a bit in his stories of the studio (He did have more respect toward Avery as a director than many other contemporaries he worked with so that's probably it) but it did always baffle me as to why he neglected to mention so many other directors, in particular (surprise, surprise), Bob Clampett. And, yes, I myself have recently found out this year that the whole story involving Daffy Duck's famous "lithp" being inspired by Leon Schlesinger's voice is strictly b.s., yet everyone takes Chuck's word for it as gospel truth... yet strangely enough, Jones himself said that it was Cal Howard's idea to model Daffy's lisp off of Schlesinger's!!!!! Did Cal Howard himself ever get wind of this story of Jones' and try to dispute or refute Jones' name-dropping of him? And, yes, I have, of course, considered it rather chicken s--- of Jones not to ever bring up the fact that he WAS fired from Warners in the early 1960's for his brief sojourn to UPA without the studio's permission. At the same time, I can't say I blame him; he was probably sorely bitter about the whole ordeal (in fact, I MYSELF am sorely bitter that the studio fired my OWN personal favorite director) but it takes a man to admit his fallibility.

And that's the thing about fallibilities... everybody has them. Even Clampett, even Jones..... everybody!

[larriva9/11]

Jones always referred to the golden age of Looney Tunes as occurring between 1948-1963. (How he could consider the stuff from the early 60's golden is beyond me.)

Though certain of Jones' pet series (notably the Road Runner) held their own into the early 60s--and I can also see how he'd regard stuff like "Now Hear This" as part of said golden age...

[Leviathan]

In interviews, he mostly talked about the cartoons he made in the 50's (understandable since many of his classic came from that era), and when he talked about the other directors at Warners it was always Freleng and McKimson. People like Avery, Tashlin, Clampett and Davis barely got a mention.

While things have definitely improved for Clampett in recent times, can we honestly say Tashlin and Davis get any more recognition now, especially outside this very forum?

And things have actually beome worse for Tex Avery, since the current dominant school of thought is "Bob Clampett and Chuck Jones both pushed Animation to whole new levels, and, oh yeah, that Avery guy did something or another"

[J. J. Hunsecker]

While things have definitely improved for Clampett in recent times, can we honestly say Tashlin and Davis get any more recognition now, especially outside this very forum?

And things have actually beome worse for Tex Avery, since the current dominant school of thought is "Bob Clampett and Chuck Jones both pushed Animation to whole new levels, and, oh yeah, that Avery guy did something or another"
If these cartoons were still aired on television, I think the other directors would get their share of credit. (Tashlin does an entire disc devoted to him, though. That's something.)

If WB would release a DVD of Avery's MGM cartoons, his status would rise again.

[mmtper]

[QUOTE=J. J. Hunsecker]
In other examples of revisionsim, Jones used to tell several funny anecdotes regarding the history of the studio, and while they may have been entertaining, they were also of dubious authenticity. Such as Leon's lisp being the inspiration for Daffy's voice. (Daffy didn't really lisp in Porky's Duck Hunt, and in all records of Leon's voice he doesn't have a noticable pronounced lisp.) Yet Jones has told that story a hundred times in interviews, embellishing it throughout the years. It's now become one of the lores about the studio, and ahs even appeared in cartoon history books.


I hate to butt in, but Jones wasn't the only one:

"But we were not hampered by any front office interference, because Leon Schlesinger had brains enough to keep the hell away and go aboard his yacht. He used to lithp a little bit and he'd say, 'I'm goin' on my yachtht.' He'd say, 'Whatth cookin', brainth? Anything new in the Thtory Department?'"

That's Michael Maltese, quoted by Joe Adamson in Tex Avery: King of Cartoons, p.125.

[Sogturtle]

One might also argue that Charlie Dog is Chuck's take on a similar character that was originated by Clampett (for the record, the dog prototype character's name in "Porky's Pooch" is Rover). But I agree that the genesis of the character can be found in Clampett's hands; however, Jones did put his own stamp on that character's personality nonetheless.

Matt the Y~

I'd blanked out (briefly) on "Porky's Pooch" (even though I know it well).:o Yikes!:eek:

I don't think there's any arguing the voice Mel Blanc used for Clampett's 'Rover' in "Porky's Pooch" (1941) and for Jones' Charlie Dog in "Little Orphan Airdale" (and the sequels) is essentially the same...

And the personality of the starring dog characters is similar. EXCEPT that there seems to be something cold and unlikable about 'Rover' whereas 'Charlie Dog' has a lovable "gee I adore you so much I'll die on your grave" quality to him:p . This marked deepening of the character's personality really separates Charlie from his predecessor of 6 years before.
Then there's the issue of 'Rover' looking like a nondescript holdover from Thirtie's drawing styles in comparison to the fairly elegantly designed 'Charlie'. Obviously Jones (plus Maltese and Pierce) threw out the original dog design in favor of a more appealing Forties design...

"Porky's Pooch" gives no hint that Clampett ever really conceived of his 'Rover' as being anything more than a one-shot foil for Porky, whereas 'Charlie Dog' in his debut cartoon shows such deep characterization that it is no surprise that Jones made a brief series of cartoons with him.

And watching the two toons nearly back to back shows that "Little Orphan Airedale" is not a scene-by-scene remake at all. It does share a couple of gags ("and I'm affectionate";) ) with "Porky's Pooch", plus the opening plot-device of a minor dog character encountering his long-time friend who is the canine trying to get himself adopted by Porky. But after a few seconds that plot-device is forgotten (till at the end of "Little Orphan Airedale" when Jones ends the dog's tale;)) and returns to the seat of Porky's car.

The real key would be to know whether it was Maltese and Pierce who initiated the story and gags or Jones... Obviously SOMEONE had recently re-watched the old Clampett toon and appropriated aspects of the character and gags.


**On the issue of Chuck Jones NOT talking about his peer-directors...**

I've brought it up before that Jones wrote two near-adoring tribute articles, one about Tex Avery and the other about Friz Freleng:cool: . He spared virtually no praise of the two men in those brief articles.
And like I mentioned a few days ago, in the Jones-Avery letter about Bob Clampett, Jones actually DID come out and say that Clampett made some "FINE" cartoons.:cool: And of course with the degree of anger/bitterness/hurt that he felt towards Clampett it really was best that he not talk about him in interview (or in his books).

As to why Chuck didn't talk about Tashlin or Davis is really unknowable.... But one has to take into consideration both of those men were Chuck's fellow-directors for only two years (Tashlin's first two-year directorial stint ended just before Jones started directing). It MAY simply be that he didn't have enough exposure to their comparative handful of cartoons to adequately judge them.

The one that is much more disheartening is Bob McKimson... But then Friz had a pretty dim view of McKimson and that MAY have been shared by Chuck. So why diss somebody who you liked as a person, especially after they're dead... It's interesting that Jones (like Freleng) would revive the Tasmanian Devil in a limited edition cel ! That almost could be interpreted as a type of tribute to McKimson.

As to why Jones didn't talk about his firing by Warners... Bob Clampett to his dying-day never admitted that he also was sacked. Do you REALLY want to go and tell that you got yourself fired from YOUR DREAM job after years there because of stupidity on your part?:eek: Keep in mind that Chuck was virtually the longest-serving employee at Schlesinger/Warner cartoons! And with that record to get yourself FIRED after all those years!?!?:eek: Chuck's daughter Linda in 1998 told me face to face (and very agitatedly) when I asked about the degree of Chuck's involvement in "Gay Purr-ee" that her mother honestly wrote most of it and that her father did NOT direct it at all. But the onscreen credit of him as co-writer did him in at Warners. Sooooo Chuck had ample reason to hate Jack L. Warner. And it's easy to hate someone and not 'fess up to your own share of the blame. Or to just sweep in under the rug and pretend it never happened.

[J. J. Hunsecker]

[QUOTE]

I hate to butt in, but Jones wasn't the only one:

"But we were not hampered by any front office interference, because Leon Schlesinger had brains enough to keep the hell away and go aboard his yacht. He used to lithp a little bit and he'd say, 'I'm goin' on my yachtht.' He'd say, 'Whatth cookin', brainth? Anything new in the Thtory Department?'"

That's Michael Maltese, quoted by Joe Adamson in Tex Avery: King of Cartoons, p.125.
Well, that shows that Leon had a slight lisp, not that he was the inspiration for Daffy Duck's voice.

Jones even embellished that anecdote as years went on, suggesting on one occasion that the crew all feared the premier of Porky's Duck Hunt because Leon would know they had ridiculed him. Then it turns out Leon loves it and asks how did they ever come up with such a ridiculous voice? The story sounds too good to be true.

[J. J. Hunsecker]

**On the issue of Chuck Jones NOT talking about his peer-directors...**

I've brought it up before that Jones wrote two near-adoring tribute articles, one about Tex Avery and the other about Friz Freleng:cool: . He spared virtually no praise of the two men in those brief articles.
And like I mentioned a few days ago, in the Jones-Avery letter about Bob Clampett, Jones actually DID come out and say that Clampett made some "FINE" cartoons.:cool: And of course with the degree of anger/bitterness/hurt that he felt towards Clampett it really was best that he not talk about him in interview (or in his books).

As to why Chuck didn't talk about Tashlin or Davis is really unknowable.... But one has to take into consideration both of those men were Chuck's fellow-directors for only two years (Tashlin's first two-year directorial stint ended just before Jones started directing). It MAY simply be that he didn't have enough exposure to their comparative handful of cartoons to adequately judge them.

The one that is much more disheartening is Bob McKimson... But then Friz had a pretty dim view of McKimson and that MAY have been shared by Chuck. So why diss somebody who you liked as a person, especially after they're dead... It's interesting that Jones (like Freleng) would revive the Tasmanian Devil in a limited edition cel ! That almost could be interpreted as a type of tribute to McKimson.

As to why Jones didn't talk about his firing by Warners... Bob Clampett to his dying-day never admitted that he also was sacked. Do you REALLY want to go and tell that you got yourself fired from YOUR DREAM job after years there because of stupidity on your part?:eek: Keep in mind that Chuck was virtually the longest-serving employee at Schlesinger/Warner cartoons! And with that record to get yourself FIRED after all those years!?!?:eek: Chuck's daughter Linda in 1998 told me face to face (and very agitatedly) when I asked about the degree of Chuck's involvement in "Gay Purr-ee" that her mother honestly wrote most of it and that her father did NOT direct it at all. But the onscreen credit of him as co-writer did him in at Warners. Sooooo Chuck had ample reason to hate Jack L. Warner. And it's easy to hate someone and not 'fess up to your own share of the blame. Or to just sweep in under the rug and pretend it never happened.
The thing to keep in mind is that Jones wrote those memoirs late in life. In most interviews he gave there is very little mention of them. (To be fair, it would make sense since he was asked about his own career.) Jones mellowed out later in life, even his animosity towards Clampett subsided slightly.

In the Barrier interview, the other animator Jones talked about most, besides himself, was Walt Disney. Jones obviously felt Disney was very important to the development of animation. He mentioned Avery briefly as the creator of Daffy and Bugs, but didn't go into much detail. Clampett, by contrast, had a lot to say about Avery and greatly admired him. (Though he would try to glom some credit for Avery's A Wild Hare for himself.)

It's odd Jones hardly mentioned Tashlin, since he seemed to have been influenced by Tashlin's example. Jones used the type of camera angles and compostions in his early cartoons that Tashlin was known for. Of course, Tashlin's The Fox and the Grapes influenced Jones' Road Runner cartoons, too.

The few compliments Jones gave towards McKimson usually involved the latter's great draftsmanship and some of the animation he did while in Jones's unit. Otherwise, he has mostly critical comments about McKimson's directorial efforts. (I believe he remarks on the design for Sylvester Jr. in one of his memoirs, and he once mentioned that McKimson had the habit of having his characters say aloud what they were about to do physically.) I tend to agree with Jones's analysis of McKimson's cartoons, though.

As for Davis, Jones didn't like him for some reason. (Scribner didn't like Davis, either. I wonder why...?)

Jones' firing from Warners had been documented in Barrier's Hollywood Cartoons, "Chuck Jones left the studio then, but the stimulus for his departure was not the decision to close. In 1961 Jones and his wife, Dorothy, sold a screenplay to UPA for a...feature called Gay Purr-ee...Warner Bros. learned of Jones's involvement the next year when it became the film's distributor, and there followed sharp disagreement over whether it had authorized Jones to moonlight in that way. On 23 July 1962 -- after he had been on an unpaid leave of absence for several weeks -- Jones signed an agreement ending his almost thirty years of employment by Warner Bros." (emphasis added)

Clampett's departure from Warners was a little more nebulous. There are rumors that he left under less than happy circumstances and not of his own volition, but nothing that can be proved. Some of the rumors contradict each other. In one, Jones said the management was unhappy with Clampett's cartoons, while in another he said Clampett faked a heart attack to get out of his contract. How could both be true? Clampett wouldn't need to try and break his contract if the management wanted to fire him. Needless to say, Clampett denied these allegations and said he left of his own will. Unfortunately, there is no documented proof either way.

It's understandable that a person wouldn't want it known about a job dismissal, but it makes Jones look like a hypocrite for spreading the rumor about Clampett while hiding the fact of his own firing from the public.

[Thad]

Clampett's termination was really most likely due to his failure to meet deadlines. This is well highlighted in Barrier's book with quotes from his animators Bob McKimson, Bill Melendez, and Phil Monroe.

[Daffysleftfoot]

As for Davis, Jones didn't like him for some reason. (Scribner didn't like Davis, either. I wonder why...?)


Jones had overheard Art Davis saying that he preferred Friz's cartoons to Chuck's cartoons. From that moment on, Jones gave Davis the cold shoulder.

I read that somewhere.

[J. J. Hunsecker]

Jones had overheard Art Davis saying that he preferred Friz's cartoons to Chuck's cartoons. From that moment on, Jones gave Davis the cold shoulder.

I read that somewhere.
There was a Davis interview in the now defunct Animato magazine, where he mentioned that. I've never heard Jones's side of that story, though. Was that really the reason he disliked Davis? It seems petty if it was.

[Daffysleftfoot]

What I typed is all I know of the situation.

It must have happened sometime after Davis was a diretor though. I remember reading about how Art was so absolutely nervous whenever he'd give a storyboard pitch. He wouldn't even know if a pitch went well until Jones stood up and stated "That is a great cartoon." Jones couldn't have disliked Davis at this point.

[J. J. Hunsecker]

What I typed is all I know of the situation.

It must have happened sometime after Davis was a diretor though. I remember reading about how Art was so absolutely nervous whenever he'd give a storyboard pitch. He wouldn't even know if a pitch went well until Jones stood up and stated "That is a great cartoon." Jones couldn't have disliked Davis at this point.
Jones was defending writers Lloyd Turner and Bill Scott, not Davis, when he made those comments. Scott and Turner would be the ones pitching the story, and Jones made that comment because Davis was always unsure of Scott's and Turner's writing.

[mmtper]

[QUOTE=J. J. Hunsecker]
Well, that shows that Leon had a slight lisp, not that he was the inspiration for Daffy Duck's voice.



Yeah, but when you have to hear an important powerful guy with a slight lisp speak day after day after day, that little lisp can grow into a big rasberry. Did you ever listen to Rudy Giuliani give a speech?:rolleyes: ;)




Jones even embellished that anecdote as years went on, suggesting on one occasion that the crew all feared the premier of Porky's Duck Hunt because Leon would know they had ridiculed him. Then it turns out Leon loves it and asks how did they ever come up with such a ridiculous voice? The story sounds too good to be true


By what picture does Daffy have a pronounced lisp? Is it Daffy Duck in Hollywood?I


It's understandable that a person wouldn't want it known about a job dismissal, but it makes Jones look like a hypocrite for spreading the rumor about Clampett while hiding the fact of his own firing from the public.


If Jones truly did this I agree, he shouldn't have done that. Interestingly, I read somewhere that Jones had made some harsh off-the-record comment about Clampett, then followed it with "I know this makes me sound bad..." Gosh, the guy just couldn't help himself. As far as Jones's WB firing, Sogturtle's reference to Jones's daughter's agitation when the subject was brought up may be significant: this wasn't just an ordinary everyday studio firing because Jones's late wife was also involved in the situation, and perhaps this was a source of some anguish in the Jones family, rendering the subject taboo.:(

[J Lee]

There really isn't much of a lisp, if any, for Daffy in "Porky's Duck Hunt". In fact, where the lisp is first really noticable isn't in Daffy's voice but in the one Avery gave Egghead in his debut cartoon, which actually makes the story about everyone being afraid of being fired make more sense -- it's one thing to put your boss' speech impediment into a mallard that wildly torments your stuttering pig character; putting him into a schmeel who gets thrown out of his boarding house and then ends up as a manure sweeper on a dude ranch is considerably more risky, and the next time Tex used both characters, he gave Egghead a Joe Penner voice and transferred Leon's lisp into the duck.

In other words, the story about using Leon's lisp may be true, but recalled incorrectly, with "Egghead Rides Again" being the cartoon that the staff was worried about, and not "Porky's Duck Hunt".