Tashlin's "Books Come to Life" Trilogy

[Leviathan]

Frank Tashlin did a trilogy of Harmon Ising-style Books come to life cartoons practically in a row between 1937 and 1938 (Speaking of the Weather, Have You Got Any Castles, and You're an Education). They follow the same formula (characters from the magazines/books/travel brouchures dance and singthe title song, and a villian that tries to wreak havoc and is thwarted), but which one of these do you think is the best.

Personally i'll give the upper hand to Have you Got Any Castles?. Seeing the Three Musketeers as the "villians" is less cliched then either the generic gangster in Weather, or the Thief of Baghdad in Education, plus unlike Weather and Education, neither the villians or the "good guys" really win out; the battle between the Musketeers and the troops of literary characters ends in a stalemate thanks to an irate Rip Van Winkle.

[Thad]

Gee, I don't know. There's some good music in them, but quite frankly, I find them all unbearable.

THAD

[Cartman]

They're all pretty good cartoons, but I think I'd go with SPEAKING OF THE WEATHER.

[fan4life]

I do like "Speaking of the Weather", though "Have You Got Any Castles" was just as innovative. The concept of books and magazines coming to life in the way that they did in these shorts really kept my attention. And like a friend of mine pointed out, these were from a time when animators actually cared about the product.

[laugh4me]

I had to think awhile to decide between Speaking of the Weather and Have You Got Any Castles? - and I'll give a slight edge to Speaking.

And both of these are full of great hidden gags! (Speaking of the Weather (http://gregbrian.tripod.com/hidden/hid01b.html) and Have You Got Any Castles? (http://gregbrian.tripod.com/hidden/hid03.html))

[Fibber Fox]

I had to think awhile to decide between Speaking of the Weather and Have You Got Any Castles? - and I'll give a slight edge to Speaking.

And both of these are full of great hidden gags! (Speaking of the Weather (http://gregbrian.tripod.com/hidden/hid01b.html) and Have You Got Any Castles? (http://gregbrian.tripod.com/hidden/hid03.html))

Speaking of 'Speaking of the Weather,' the reference to Dorothy on the one of the magazines wasn't to Dorothy Jones, was it?

FF

[mmtper]

Fond of 'em all, especially Castles, for a lot of reasons, but a major one is the musical direction. Carl Stalling & co. must've had to put in a lot of overtime on these babies.

[captchucky]

Yeah, can you imagine what the pre-planning must have been like? I can't choose the best on these. All three are amazing. ..and the idea that these were just released as standard shorts, I just can't believe it.

[lonesome-lenny]

"You're An Education," poor thing, is a butchered mess. I believe this was discussed in the LTGC4 thread. I watched part of the Tashlin disc via rental, alas--no bread for the set right now :(-- and it's got all those bizarre cuts, early dissolves, quick fades with just a glimpse of some befuddling deleted scene...

In all of Tashlin's '30s cartoons, I'm sometimes surprised by how crude the character designs and animation can be. Tashlin was an innovative filmmaker, even in his earliest cartoons, but he hung onto that Van Beuren-primitive drawing style 'til the end of the 1930s. Some of the animation in "Little Beau Porky" would fit comfortably in any 1932 Aesop's Fables cartoon.

His '40s cartoons are a different story altogether. He finally found a visual style that blended his eccentric way of drawing with the current cartoon look a la Clampett, Avery, etc.

[J. J. Hunsecker]

Gee, I don't know. There's some good music in them, but quite frankly, I find them all unbearable.

THAD
Yeah, me too.