Are you an Avery Fan or Clampett Worshipper?

[tristar]

Any fan of classic animation should be able to tell you who Tex Avery or Bob Clampett is. There are many Kricfalusians who believe Clampett was God and that everything he created, produced or supervised is, was and always will be pure gold. Then we have the Avery fans who love all his cartoons at MGM, Warners and the like.

I am part of the latter group. While Clampett did in fact make some great cartoons, most of them range from 1942-1946 when Clampett hit his stride. Clampett was a director for only a decade, and only four years of his tenure should be described as 'masterpieces'. Avery, on the other hand, hit his stride around 1940 and was brilliant right till the end of his tenure in 1956.

In my opinion, "Beany and Cecil" was immensely overrated. The show wasn't funny, suffered from bad timing, bad animation, and did we HONESTLY have to hear Clampett's name TWICE in the theme song? Avery, on the other hand went off to create animated commercials. Sure, I wouldn't call them masterpieces, but at least they're enjoyable.

So, I'd have to say that I fall into the 'Avery fan' category.Sure these are just my opinions, so I'd love to hear yours.

-Morty

P.S. Let's just keep things civil here, all right?

[Matthew Hunter]

What, do I only get to choose from two cartoon directors now? I like both Avery and Clampett, ditto Jones, Freleng, McKimson, Tashlin, Davis, etc.!

[bj_wanlund]

I safely fall into both camps: Avery was at his very best at MGM, while Clampett was at his best at WB.

I appreciate both directors for what they were: Clampett wasn't as zany as Avery (not by a long shot), but Avery wasn't half as insane as Clampett was.

I guess I'm not making sense.

BJ

[Geezil]

I like cartoons.

[Leviathan]

If you like both directors, then by all means like both directors. Don't show partisan favoritism towards one or another because some deranged looney (*coughJohnKcough*) told you so.

[The "Chase"]

What happens when I choose "Neither, Jack King is King"? :p

Acting seriouly now, I'll go with both. The only thing I'm adding is that you should make your own opinion, or become netural or else the flame wars ain't going to be enjoyable to read (I can go all day on this).

[nickramer]

It's like comparing to apples to oranges. I like them both.

[Brandon Panther]

and did we HONESTLY have to hear Clampett's name TWICE in the theme song?
It's been years since I've heard the Beany & Cecil theme song, but I am certain that Clampett's name is only heard once at the end.

Let's go sailing with Beany and the crew.
Cecil the Seaskick Sea Serpent
and Uncle Captain too.
Dishonest John will never learn that crime shall never pay
Cause Cecil the Seasick Sea Serpent always saves the day

Loveable, gullible harmless armless
Ten feet tall and wet.
Cecil the seasick sea serpent
We're certain you won't forget
So come on kids let's flip our lids,
higher than the moon
Now here's Beany and Cecil in A BOB CLAMPETT CARTOOOOO-OOOOOON!

And I like both Avery and Clampett.

[David Gerstein]

Lovable, gullible, harmless, armless
Ten feet tall and wet.
Cecil the seasick sea serpent
We're certain you won't forgetYou're remembering the lyrics as heard in the 1980s John K revival (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zKyrmn5jVt4&feature=related) (though I think it's "whose slurp you won't forget"; not absolutely sure, however, as the singing is hard to understand).
In the original series, it's

...Cecil the seasick sea serpent
Created by Bob Clampett

Thus the other instance of Clampett's name being in the song.

[Bugsy-Kun]

I like both. Avery give freedoms to Warner and kick the butt where MGM and lantz really needed and Clampett directed some nice cartoons often animated by the best animators like Bob McKimson and Rod Scribner.

Or else, i like cartoons from various directors like Jones, Freleng, Tashlin but maybe less about the own McKimson shorts.

[Glowworm]

I like em both-truthfully both were very unique-and although many cartoonists try to copy them due to being inspired by them-their cartoons will always pale compared to the originals.

[J. J. Hunsecker]

I like both Avery and Clampett as directors. Avery deserves a lot of credit for basically creating Bugs and Daffy, and the "rowdy" style at Warners, however, I give a slight edge to Clampett. Sure he wasn't a director as long as Avery was, but Clampett's cartoons always made me laugh the most, and the animation in his color cartoons is amazing. Avery has good animation in his cartoons, too (especially in the wild takes) but nobody can top Clampett's cartoon for distortion and exaggeration (thanks to Scribner). I also think Avery really reached his stride when he went to MGM. It's a neck and neck race, but for me Clampett is ahead by a nose.

By the way, I don't care for Beany & Cecil either, but Clampett didn't direct those. He only wrote the outlines and produced them. It's the same for the puppet show, Time For Beany. So I can't condemn him for that. We should only compare the animated theatrical cartoons both men directed.

One more thing...John K is also an Avery fan, he just loves Clampett's cartoons more.

[Thad]

Is this all you people talk about?

[oceansoul]

Tex Avery definately. I'm not a huge fan of his WB cartoons, but he did create Bugs and Daffy, directed some really memorable shorts (I Love to Singa most notably), and had the biggest influence of the studio. In MGM he was a brilliant one, nearly all of his cartoons were masterpieces (the 40s cartoons are better though), and I love his 4 Lantz cartoons as well.

I'm a fan of some (mostly from 45-46) cartoons of Clampett, but he was really not as good as Avery, and quite a bit overrated. I think the guy hit the stride in 45, and not in 42.

[J Lee]

This kind of goes back to the message board debate a decade ago, though back then it was a battle between Jones and Clampett (since John K has mellowed on all things Chuck over the past few years, it's OK for his accolytes to tolerate Jones' work again -- it's Freleng who's now in their crosshairs and can do no right).

And I feel the same way about any Avery-Clampett debate that I felt about the Clampett-Jones battle -- I'm not going to take sides and start to dislike one or the other's cartoons just because some other people are trying to pump up a director by tearing down the other(s). IMHO, Avery had the better run of cartoons overall between 1937-41, in part because Clampett was stuck having to put Porky in all his Looney Tunes, while Bob's cartoons overall were better from 42-46, in part because Tex was trying to recreate the Warner Bros. atmosphere in a group made up mostly of people who were looking towards Disney and not the Schlesinger studio as the cartoons to emulate.

[oceansoul]

while Bob's cartoons overall were better from 42-46, in part because Tex was trying to recreate the Warner Bros. atmosphere in a group made up mostly of people who were looking towards Disney and not the Schlesinger studio as the cartoons to emulate.

So you believe that cartoons like Blitz Wolf, Who Killed Who, Red Hot Riding Hood, Swing Shift Cinderella, Northwest Hounded Police, Screwball Squirrel etc don't reach the level of the Clampetts color cartoons in that era? :confused: :confused:

Yes, former MGM directors, like Harman and Ising followed Disney more than Schlesinger, but as soon as Avery arrived in the studio (in Harman's place IIRC) everything had been turned around, and what Avery did in this particular era was pure magic.

[Scuz Fink]

I like them both:D.Different styles of directing.

[J Lee]

So you believe that cartoons like Blitz Wolf, Who Killed Who, Red Hot Riding Hood, Swing Shift Cinderella, Northwest Hounded Police, Screwball Squirrel etc don't reach the level of the Clampetts color cartoons in that era? :confused: :confused:

Yes, former MGM directors, like Harman and Ising followed Disney more than Schlesinger, but as soon as Avery arrived in the studio (in Harman's place IIRC) everything had been turned around, and what Avery did in this particular era was pure magic.

You'll notice I said "overall". Tex's work during his first four years at MGM is a battle between trying to do wild WB stuff and Metro's ties to H&I and Disney -- the only animator he had when he arrived at Culver City that knew what he was trying to do was Irv Spence. The others seemed to want to tone down Tex's extremes and keep the cartoons closer to the pseudo-Disney work Hugh and Rudy had favored.

Avery did do some great early cartoons at MGM, and when he could use the Disney influences to his advantage ("Red"), so much the better. But there's still a certain 'anchored' feeling to cartoons like "Dumb Hounded" or "Who Killed Who?" -- they're just not as light on their feet as either what Clampett was doing at that time or what Avery would have done if he made those same cartoons 2-3 years later ("Dumb Hounded" is more plodding than "Tortoise Beats Hare" from two years earlier, even with the improved reaction shots later in the cartoon, and of course, Tex did re-do the cartoon three years later as "Northwest Hounded Police").

But even with those flaws, I'd much rather watch a 1942-45 Avery short than the 1939-41 stuff Clampett produced at Warners, though I consider Bob's '41 cartoons to basically b his on-screen display of how he adapted his desire for wild cartoons into stories that made the wildness part of the plot and the characters' identities, and not just a bunch of escapees from a mental asylum (and for what it's worth, Tex did a much better job putting his original Daffy into a squirrel's costume than Bob did trying to squeeze the duck into a cat suit or a fish outfit).

[J. J. Hunsecker]

So you believe that cartoons like Blitz Wolf, Who Killed Who, Red Hot Riding Hood, Swing Shift Cinderella, Northwest Hounded Police, Screwball Squirrel etc don't reach the level of the Clampetts color cartoons in that era? :confused: :confused:
I have to second what J Lee said. I also feel that Avery's early years at MGM are a struggle to get the animators on board with his vision of what a cartoon should be. The first few years of his MGM output his cartoons do have a sluggish (for Avery, that is) pacing to them. I love Blitz Wolf, Red Hot Riding Hood, and Dumb Hounded. I love the slickness and volume of the animation, but it's a little too influenced by by Harman & Ising -- "anchored" is a great description. Sometimes the acting is a little too self conscious. Meanwhile, Clampett's cartoons were getting faster, with better "cartoonier" acting, thanks to Scribner and McKimson. Starting with cartoons released at the end of 1942 (such as A Tale of Two Kitties and Eatin' Off the Cuff), Clampett's cartoons are already razor sharp. Avery's cartoons of the mid to late 40's catch up, as Bad Luck Blackie, King Size Canary, Wags to Riches, and Little Rural Riding Hood are faster (or "lighter" as J Lee said), with better pacing and timing, and funnier, more exaggerated posing. More impossible gags are in them, too. Avery just had to work out the literalness of his animators for a few years.

:red: :sowhite:

[Fibber Fox]

I have to second what J Lee said. I also feel that Avery's early years at MGM are a struggle to get the animators on board with his vision of what a cartoon should be. The first few years of his MGM output his cartoons do have a sluggish (for Avery, that is) pacing to them.

JJ, are Avery's early MGM cartoons really any slower paced than his Warners cartoons? If that's the case, could the animators really be disconnected from what he wanted? Avery would have timed the cartoon and handed out the scenes accordingly.

F. Fox

[J Lee]

JJ, are Avery's early MGM cartoons really any slower paced than his Warners cartoons? If that's the case, could the animators really be disconnected from what he wanted? Avery would have timed the cartoon and handed out the scenes accordingly.

F. Fox

Barrier, in his book, says that Avery was overly deferential to his animators in the early going at MGM, in the same way he slowed down the pace of his WB cartoons in 1940-41 at times to take advantage of Bob McKimson's arrival in his unit.

In McKimson's case, he had been at the studio for years and knew where it and where Tex was trying to go. His ainmation is detailed and percise, but not overly so to where the details detract from instead of enhancing the animation (maybe the lines on Elmer's forehead in the death scene from "A Wild Hare" qualify, but his other work for Tex used only as many lines and were needed, and the characters had a lighter and faster feel than what Warners had been doing a year earlier, or what a lot of the animation over at Metro for Avery would feel like a year later).

Also at MGM, Quimby had an odd divergence on what he wanted and how much leeway he'd allow Avery to do it. He pulled Hanna-Barbera out of the Ising unit in order to try and create more cartoons in the Warners' vein in 1940, which is also why he hired Tex, but Avery told Joe Adamson that when he arrived at Culver City, Quimby warned him "We don't want any of that Warner Bros. rowdyism here."

Given that warning, and his recent dust-up with Leon and/or J.L. that led to his departure from the Schlesinger studio, it's no surprise Avery wouldn't come in and try to impose his will and his cartoon sensabilities right away on a bunch of animators either with more senority at Metro or just recently arrived off the Disney lot.

[J. J. Hunsecker]

JJ, are Avery's early MGM cartoons really any slower paced than his Warners cartoons? If that's the case, could the animators really be disconnected from what he wanted? Avery would have timed the cartoon and handed out the scenes accordingly.

F. Fox
That's an interesting point, and I hadn't thought about it. Avery did slow down his cartoons starting in the late 30's. By the 40's, it's even slower. Mike Barrier posits, according to his book, that McKimson pushed Avery in that direction in the 40's. He claims the same thing happened at MGM with Avery's layout man Berny Wolf and model sheet designer Claude Smith. Barrier writes that Wolf "claimed to have exercised significant control over the cartoons timing and staging under Avery's general guidance..." (I have no idea if Barrier is correct, I'm just stating what I read in his book.) So it may have taken Avery some time before he felt confident enough to shake these influences.

*EDIt* J Lee, I see you've beaten me to the punch.

[Fibber Fox]

J & JJ, thanks both for your comments. Interesting analysis.

J. Lee mentioned the "rowdyism" quote from Mike Maltese to Joe Adamson. I had always presumed Quimby was referring to the off-screen shenanigans in the animation room, considering he hired Avery because he *wanted* Warners style cartoons on screen.

F. Fox

[larriva9/11]

In the case of Beany & Cecil, maybe it'd be better to substitute "Jay Ward" for "Avery" in the thread title...

[J Lee]

J & JJ, thanks both for your comments. Interesting analysis.

J. Lee mentioned the "rowdyism" quote from Mike Maltese to Joe Adamson. I had always presumed Quimby was referring to the off-screen shenanigans in the animation room, considering he hired Avery because he *wanted* Warners style cartoons on screen.

F. Fox

He wanted Warners-style cartoons. He just didn't want the Warners-style atmosphere they were created under, which was anthema to the buttoned-down corporate style of MGM in the 30s and 40s.

Adamson and others in their books on the Marx Brothers go through the dislike Louis B. Mayer had for the team because of their antics, and how they were left without a supporter at the studio when Irving Thalberg died during the production of "A Day at the Races". Avery was walking into a similar situation at the cartoon studio, and certainly didn't have the clout of Groucho, Chico and Harpo, to the point that any effort to create WB-type cartoons was going to have to be done within the system (Remember Quimby's also the one who allegedly told Avery during the making of "Blitz Wolf" that they wanted to be careful with their propaganda cartoons because. "we don't know who's going to win the war." That's an atmoosphere that makes it hard to come in and just change things overnight, especially after you've already burned your bridges at Warners and have nothing but Columbia, Universal or industrial market films left to direct if you tick Fred off).

[oceansoul]

I have to second what J Lee said. I also feel that Avery's early years at MGM are a struggle to get the animators on board with his vision of what a cartoon should be. The first few years of his MGM output his cartoons do have a sluggish (for Avery, that is) pacing to them. I love Blitz Wolf, Red Hot Riding Hood, and Dumb Hounded. I love the slickness and volume of the animation, but it's a little too influenced by by Harman & Ising -- "anchored" is a great description. Sometimes the acting is a little too self conscious. Meanwhile, Clampett's cartoons were getting faster, with better "cartoonier" acting, thanks to Scribner and McKimson. Starting with cartoons released at the end of 1942 (such as A Tale of Two Kitties and Eatin' Off the Cuff), Clampett's cartoons are already razor sharp. Avery's cartoons of the mid to late 40's catch up, as Bad Luck Blackie, King Size Canary, Wags to Riches, and Little Rural Riding Hood are faster (or "lighter" as J Lee said), with better pacing and timing, and funnier, more exaggerated posing. More impossible gags are in them, too. Avery just had to work out the literalness of his animators for a few years.

:red: :sowhite:

I respect your opinions guys, but I believe this is a bit of one dimensional viewpoint in cartoons. Razor-sharp timing and exaggeration are important aspects, but cartoons need a lot more things to work well (in this case better, since we talk about to great directors). Cartoons need a solid and sensible plot, good soundtrack, memorable and clever dialogs, revolutionary gags etc. And IMHO this is where Tex Avery wins.

Clampett basically mastered his nonsensical wacky, or in your words, impossible universe in his color cartoons, but rarely put revolutionary and groundbreaking gags in the shorts he made. His dialogs were very predictable at times, and some of them are dated by now. His cartoon plots were not even close to Tex Avery, even in his greatest ones. Actually he used plots only as excuses to express the nonsense wackyness and exaggerated animation.

Just look at the well-celebrated Great Piggy Bank Robbery (indeed a great cartoon!): instead of building up the Duck Twacy plot cleverly, he just used some WTF moments (like Daffy punching himself to fall in a dream) to jump from a scene to another. In most Tex Avery cartoons at MGM, you see a cleverly built-up plot, mostly from a well-known fairy tale, and all of them finished with an unpredictable and stunning punchline (Who Killed Who is a briliant example for this).

And btw. "influenced by Harman and Ising" shouldn't be a bad thing, if it's used correctly. I don't think too many people can do such a marvellous thing, like Peace on Earth. It's not "anchored" if you put more sensible plots, animation ang gags in your cartoons. But we have different taste of course, and I respect your opinion as well. :)

PS: Before you believe I'm a Clampett-basher, just FYI at least 4 Clamp cartoons are there in my top20 favourite of all time.

[Speedy Boris]

Both are great, but I'm more of a Tashlin man myself. :)

[FleischerFan]

I am always a little perplexed as to why this has to be an either/or kind of discussion.

I think most fans of classic cartoons love and revere both men for making huge contributions to the field of animation.

My personal taste tends more towards Avery. I think Avery had more influence on his contemporaries. His style influenced all of Warner Brothers and then MGM. And the more modern live action films The Mask and Who Framed Roger Rabbit both used Avery, not Clampett as their model.

It is worth remembering that Clampett worked under Avery's supervision, not the other way around.

But humor is highly subjective. I enjoy the cartoons of Bob Clampett and he easily makes the short list of great directors.

BTW - between Jay Ward & Beany & Cecil, there is really no contest. Beany & Cecil are good but Rocky & Bullwinkle is great!

[Leviathan]

FleischerFan,

You just can't LIKE the work of the directors anymore. You have to pick out every miniscule way in which Avery (or whoever) was inferior to Clampett, real or imagined. And how Friz Freleng was Satan.

Or else you'll be branded an idiot who's not fit to like Grim Natwick or Art Babbit's shoe like a REAL historian.

[AndrewGilmore]

I love 'em both.

[Jack G.]

Both are great.

This isn't a race where someone has to come in first or last.

Having said that I prefer Tex for gags and Bob for character.

Tex's interest was exploring funny scenarios - What would happen if 3 animals got a hold of a bottle of Jumbo Grow?

Bob found his voice in expressing his characters emotions.

I do think it's harder to do funny scenarios instead of just putting a strong character into a situation.
Which is why Tex felt pressure coming up with ideas.

[J. J. Hunsecker]

I respect your opinions guys, but I believe this is a bit of one dimensional viewpoint in cartoons. Razor-sharp timing and exaggeration are important aspects, but cartoons need a lot more things to work well (in this case better, since we talk about to great directors). Cartoons need a solid and sensible plot, good soundtrack, memorable and clever dialogs, revolutionary gags etc. And IMHO this is where Tex Avery wins.

Clampett basically mastered his nonsensical wacky, or in your words, impossible universe in his color cartoons, but rarely put revolutionary and groundbreaking gags in the shorts he made. His dialogs were very predictable at times, and some of them are dated by now. His cartoon plots were not even close to Tex Avery, even in his greatest ones. Actually he used plots only as excuses to express the nonsense wackyness and exaggerated animation.

Just look at the well-celebrated Great Piggy Bank Robbery (indeed a great cartoon!): instead of building up the Duck Twacy plot cleverly, he just used some WTF moments (like Daffy punching himself to fall in a dream) to jump from a scene to another. In most Tex Avery cartoons at MGM, you see a cleverly built-up plot, mostly from a well-known fairy tale, and all of them finished with an unpredictable and stunning punchline (Who Killed Who is a briliant example for this).
Since animation is one of the most important aspects of an animated cartoon, I think exaggeration and sharp timing are very important. But I was only giving my reasons as to why I preferred Clampett over Avery, slightly. (Both are great.)

As for plots, hardly any of the great classic cartoons use them, and they aren't necessary to make a great cartoon. Most classic cartoons set up a theme (say, bulldog finds cute cat, adores it, but will get in trouble if he brings it home) follow it up with a series of related gags (Bulldog tries to hide cat from mistress, causing mistress to think dog has gone insane) and ending it with a topper, or tying the story together.

Who Killed Who is not an example of a clever plot. It's a series of nonsensical gags, one after the other, like in Clampett's Porky in Wackyland. Clampett also had his share of plotted cartoons based on fairy tales, like Coal Black and de Seben Dwarfs, or on the Dr. Seuss book Horton Hatches the Egg.

[Keith Paynter]

A lot of posts in only a couple of days!

My opinion is that both have their good cartoons, both have their bad cartoons.

Avery's "anything for a gag" approach is not necessarily the common definition of Avery style - the MGM years' "extreme double-take" is probably Avery's most generally known characteristic, although the two for me are not mutually exclusive - I also think Avery broke the "fourth wall" more often than any of his contemporaries.

When hitting their best years, both had great timing and humour and an individual stamp on their appearances, be it Preston Blair for Avery or Rod Scribner for Clampett (after taking over Avery's unit at Schesinger).

[Fibber Fox]

As for plots, hardly any of the great classic cartoons use them, and they aren't necessary to make a great cartoon. Most classic cartoons set up a theme (say, bulldog finds cute cat, adores it, but will get in trouble if he brings it home) follow it up with a series of related gags (Bulldog tries to hide cat from mistress, causing mistress to think dog has gone insane) and ending it with a topper, or tying the story together.

You're right about overall lack of plots, JJ, but in the case of Feed the Kitty, that's still a plot. It may not be an elaborate plot, but it is a plot nonetheless. It has a discernable beginning, middle and end, the same as any novel. In Avery's case, Bad Luck Blackie has a more structured plot than, say, Of Fox and Hounds, which is what you describe above. The cartoon could keep going but it just kind of ends.

Since animation is one of the most important aspects of an animated cartoon,

I guess that kind of leaves out Quick Draw McGraw, doesn't it? :)

F. Fox.

[Keith Paynter]

I guess that kind of leaves out Quick Draw McGraw, doesn't it? :)

Olé!

[ScrewBallDaffy]

Eh... I don't care for either of them but if I have to choose between the lesser of two evils it would have to be Tex Avery for his more sane, less annoying characters and cartoons.

[Chooch]

I guess that kind of leaves out Quick Draw McGraw, doesn't it? :)

Fibber Fox, definitely (no hard feelings...:shame: ).

But, Quick Draw McGraw, IMO..... NOT!

[Matthew Hunter]

If you ever watch the Warner cartoons in chronological order, it's truly amazing to see the turnaround once Avery joined the studio. Most of the cartoons from 1934 were downright terrible, but things picked up considerably around 1935, and it's not just in Avery's work, but in EVERYBODY'S. Even the Friz Freleng Merrie Melodies, with their cutesy plots, started to get interesting. For example, there's a gag in "The Little Dutch Plate" that only someone like Avery could have come up with, as the bird in a cuckoo clock gets fed up with the little statue at the top conking him on the head, and guns him down with a machine gun to end an otherwise docile cartoon! That kind of thing didn't happen prior to Avery's tenure.

Clampett sort of followed Avery's lead, and borrowed a lot of ideas from him, including the "travelogue" spoof idea and the irreverent personalities of the characters. I think Clampett's love of the absurd and random was his own, though, and he knew how to create enduring personalities. If you look at "My Green Fedora" from 1935, though directed by Friz, Clampett and Chuck Jones are both credited for the animation, and it's easy to see both their influences on it...the clearly Jones-driven and genuinely frightening animation of the weasel, and the baby rabbit doing a Joe Penner laugh to mock his older brother's singing, for no other reason except that he CAN (a Clampett trademark.)

I think it's very narrow-minded to say that just one director was the most important, since they were all borrowing and learning from one another. Tex Avery specialized in gags, Friz Freleng had the comic timing, Bob Clampett had the strong characters and absurdist humor, Chuck Jones had a polished animation style and a real gift for giving depth to characters' personalities. If you watch the cartoons in sequence from 1935-1938 or so, before Bugs Bunny even existed, you'll see that it was all there from the start. We may all have different opinions on which of these great artists appeals to us more, but to absolutely worship one or the other or say that they were more important than the rest is idiotic.

[Matthew Hunter]

You're right about overall lack of plots, JJ, but in the case of Feed the Kitty, that's still a plot. It may not be an elaborate plot, but it is a plot nonetheless. It has a discernable beginning, middle and end, the same as any novel. In Avery's case, Bad Luck Blackie has a more structured plot than, say, Of Fox and Hounds, which is what you describe above. The cartoon could keep going but it just kind of ends.



I guess that kind of leaves out Quick Draw McGraw, doesn't it? :)

F. Fox.

Not really. Quick Draw McGraw was a great character in his own right. Those early Hanna-Barbera cartoons are deceptive. I used to be in the camp that said they were poorly animated and lame cartoons...until I started watching more of them on Boomerang. At first look, yeah, the animation is choppy...but there's rarely a wasted pose. What killed Hanna-Barbera later on was the reused animation and streamlining of everything. When they were doing Quickdraw, Huckleberry, Yogi Bear and co., they used fewer drawings than, say, a classic MGM or Warners cartoon, but they still got the idea accross. In fact, I'd venture to say that if they'd had a Disney-proportions budget for a Quick Draw McGraw cartoon, it wouldn't have worked. The writing, Daws Butler's voice work, and the rapid timing forced on them by the low budget made that stuff work in its own way. If "El Kabong" hit a bandit with his guitar in full-blown, beautiful Disney animation, it would no doubt look nice, but it would be overkill. All they needed was "Elllll Kabong!" "Whoosh!" "KRAKKIIINGGG!" all in 4 or 5 quick poses. They're some of the only limited-animation cartoons that still managed to be artful and engaging. I'd watch an early Yogi or Quick Draw short over a lot of stuff made today!

[J. J. Hunsecker]

You're right about overall lack of plots, JJ, but in the case of Feed the Kitty, that's still a plot. It may not be an elaborate plot, but it is a plot nonetheless. It has a discernable beginning, middle and end, the same as any novel. In Avery's case, Bad Luck Blackie has a more structured plot than, say, Of Fox and Hounds, which is what you describe above. The cartoon could keep going but it just kind of ends.

F. Fox.
Well, those cartoons have stories (as opposed to the stream-of-conscious meanderings of some of the early 30's cartoons), but they don't have elaborate plots. I guess I'm splitting hairs. Feed the Kitty has a story without too much plotting -- the set up is established in the first minute of the cartoon, while most of the middle is made up of farcical gags relating to hiding the kitty Pussyfoot from Marc Anthony's mistress. However, near the end of the cartoon, the situation is elaborated on by having Marc Anthony mistakenly think Pussyfoot is in jeopardy, and it's resolution.

It's sort of like the Monty Python film The Holy Grail. It doesn't have a lot of plotting, but rather a theme -- King Arthur and his knights on a quest for the Holy Grail -- and a series of skits pertaining to the theme about people and places they encounter on their journey. Most of the skits don't advance the plot per se, but they are funny and you feel like you've seen a plotted out story, when it really isn't. You could remove almost any one of those skits from the "story" and the movie would still make sense. It's only first and third act that contain elements of plot -- how King Arthur meets his knights on his journey in the beginning, and how he loses them towards the end when he finally reaches the castle said to contain the Grail. Most of the second act contains humorous skits about the various knights mistaking certain areas for the locale of the Grail, and how they are sidetracked in their efforts to recover it.

[bj_wanlund]

And the obvious funny line with regard to Monty Python and the Holy Grail: "Bring out your dead!" :D

I may as well expound on why I like both Avery and Clampett:

I like Avery because of the utter zaniness of the gags (one character shooting the poor moviegoer to shut him up!). Avery did such good work at MGM, but I credit him most with the "Looney Tunes style" that we all are so accustomed to.

Clampett, on the other hand, took the "Looney Tunes style" that Avery created and (after Avery left WB) took things up a notch.

Of course, Chuck Jones took things even farther than Clampett did (after his initial failings with Sniffles).

Also, I'm not one to shoot down any director, but Friz Freleng probably had the farthest way to go, and his cartoons became just as funny as Jones's or Clampett's on a good day.

BJ

[frizfrelengfan]

Wow, it's all been said before I get a chance to chime in!

I like Avery, Clampett, Jones, Freleng and Tashlin equally well. Each should be judged on his own strengths. Davis would be in this group if he directed more cartoons.

I would say that Avery was the most influential director of all of those. He transformed two studios' cartoons from "cutesy" to funny. He even brought up the quality of the Lantz studio with his last four cartoons.