Favorite Famous Studios Characters

[frizfrelengfan]

Who are your favorite Famous Studios / Harveytoons characters who did not appear in a Fleischer Studios cartoon?

I voted for Little Audrey because of her spunk and her wild imagination. I find Casper, Baby Huey, and Herman and Katnip tiresome.

[Nelson]

I had to go with "Herman And Katnip" on this poll.

[Cartman]

Buzzy the Crow:buzzy:

[Geezil]

Lulu, Herman & Katnip, Buzzy, and just the very early Audrey (a.k.a. "Lulu Lite"), in that order.

[gilligan fanati]

Little Audrey and Casper

[J Lee]

I went with Lulu and Herman and Katnip. Lulu struck the right balance between cuteness and cartoon violence that even Myron Waldman could live with, while Audrey was just a little too narcoleptic for my tastes (if they had used the 1957-59 story lines around 1949-51 instead of having Audrey fall asleep and dream in every darm cartoon, the series would have been far better).

Herman and Katnip suffered from Famous' repetition problem, but nowhere near as much as Audrey,Casper or Baby Huey in the early 1950s. A while it may have been a tad rough on the cat at times, the gags were inventive enough to offset the pain, and Dave Tendlar's cartoons had more energy that the other Famous units were putting out at the time, to offset the weak early 1950s stories.

[musicradio77]

I might as well go with Little Audrey. I don't believe this character. She was very close to Little Lulu which was another competitor to Audrey's.:audrey:

[Geezil]

I might as well go with Little Audrey. I don't believe this character. She was very close to Little Lulu which was another competitor to Audrey's.:audrey:

:confused: Care to run that by one more time slowly, Chris? Thanks.

George W. as the "this is what happens every morning before the coffee kicks in" Geezil

[Larry T]

I'll go with Baby Huey. :huey:

The Huey cartoons bordered on the demented to just plain ridiculous. Even though the storyline is basically just fill-in-the-blanks (as many Famous Studios cartoons were), there were some pretty inventive ways that Huey was set up for demise. Plus, the tastelessness of many of the aftereffects is definitely worth watching :) . Where else can you see a character so indestructible that an axe is shown literally contacting and bending his neck (and bouncing off), or a blunderbuss is pressed against the face while the payload slowly moves towards exploding its target?

A hungry fox never ended up so mangled....

My second choice, though, would have to got to Little Audrey. I dunno, there's something quite charming and childlike about her cartoons, almost in a movie-romance tone. "Audrey The Rainmaker" is definitely one of the best ones out there.

[David Gerstein]

You want to know who I voted for? That's tough, boss!
When I die, the secret will die with me!

[Thad]

I like them all except for Little Audrey and Casper.

In terms of overall quality though, Little Lulu is the best of the Famous crew, due to the plain fact that they were producing a series of funny series involving children that wasn't sugar-coated garbage. That's something no other studio achieved.

Oh and I'll always have soft spots for southern crows, retarded cats and ducks, and mice with razors. :huey::buzzy:

-Thad

[Der Captain]

Blackie the Lamb. His series ended before the Famous cartoons turned to goo.

[frizfrelengfan]

I've never seen a Blackie cartoon. That's why it wasn't in the poll. I've only seen one Buzzy cartoon ("The Stupid-Stitious Cat"), which I liked.

[Ray Pointer]

The issue with all of the Famous characters goes back to Fleischer Studios, which had a success with gimmack themed characters, yet found inventive ways of reworking the formats. Famous was not as innovative in this respect, yet made some attractive cartoons made within Paramount's budgetary requirements.

When you consider that the cartoons were seen over varying periods of time, the formula/format of Famous become more of an element with a series or character, rather than obviously repetitious. This becomes apparent through viewings on television where they are more easily compared to each other withing a period of seven minutes compared to one month or two as in the original theatrical releases. Adding to this is the fact that the audiences were not going to the movies to follow the cartoons or notice the similarities of one over the other. They came to see the feature, and many times attended other theaters without following every Paramount release. So the perception is not quite the same in this context.

[Frank]

I had to go with Little Lulu. The cartoons are entertaining but they also have a sense of innocence an well.:)

[J Lee]

The issue with all of the Famous characters goes back to Fleischer Studios, which had a success with gimmack themed characters, yet found inventive ways of reworking the formats. Famous was not as innovative in this respect, yet made some attractive cartoons made within Paramount's budgetary requirements.

When you consider that the cartoons were seen over varying periods of time, the formula/format of Famous become more of an element with a series or character, rather than obviously repetitious. This becomes apparent through viewings on television where they are more easily compared to each other withing a period of seven minutes compared to one month or two as in the original theatrical releases. Adding to this is the fact that the audiences were not going to the movies to follow the cartoons or notice the similarities of one over the other. They came to see the feature, and many times attended other theaters without following every Paramount release. So the perception is not quite the same in this context.

Famous did seem to have some sort of realization that their cartoon stories were getting repetitive in the 1950s, based on the letter Izzy Sparber sent to Art Davis in 1952, asking if he knew where Sid Marcus was working so he could offer him a job in the Paramount cartoon department (this was apparently just about the time Sid went to work for Bob McKimson at Warners). And from about the end of 1955 or so through 1959, the story ideas at Paramount were more inventive, even if the animation budgets went straight into the dumpster.