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TCM's Cartoon Alley - June 2006
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Cartoon Alley #21 Features three Warner Bros. cartoons featuring character debuts: Walky Talky Hawky (1946), The Goofy Gophers (1947), Haredevil Hare (1948).
The roster of classic Looney Tunes characters expanded dramatically in the latter half of the 1940s. A pint-size chicken hawk named Henry (introduced four years earlier by Chuck Jones) was given a new foe in Robert McKimson's "Walky Talky Hawky" (1946) - a big blustering rooster named Foghorn Leghorn. Borrowing once again from the radio medium, the voice of Foghorn was inspired by Senator Beauregard Claghorn, Kenny Delmar's popular "Allen's Alley" character from The Fred Allen Show. Voice actor Mel Blanc later admitted to further borrowings from yet another character, a hard-of-hearing sheriff that appeared on a local California radio program. Also debuting in "Walky Talky Hawky" is the goofy Barnyard Dog who would be on the receiving end of punishment from Foggy for years to come. "The Goofy Gophers" (1947) were director Art Davis' reworking of earlier characters seen in 1942's "Gopher Goofy," directed by Norman McCabe. Mac and Tosh, as named by Davis, were prissy and proper, gleefully smacking an English watchdog as they decimate a Victory Garden. (Look out for a surprise cameo at the end of this cartoon from a Warner Bros. superstar). In "Haredevil Hare" (1948), Chuck Jones introduced another pompous character to whom Bugs Bunny would deliver a much-needed comeuppance. Bugs is shot to the Moon in a rocket test and encounters Commander X-2, a short, mouthless alien with a Napoleon complex. Later renamed Marvin Martian, this fellow is determined to destroy the Earth with his Aludium Q-36 Explosive Space Modulator. Isn't that lovely? Along for the fun is his space dog, K-9. Although Marvin only appeared in five theatrical cartoons, he has long been one of the most instantly recognizable of the classic Looney Tunes characters.
Cartoon Alley #22 Features three Paramount Popeye cartoons: Baby Wants a Bottleship (1942), A Balmy Swami (1949), Beaus Will Be Beaus (1955).
"Baby Wants a Bottleship" from 1942 was the last of the great series of Popeye cartoons produced at Fleischer Studios. This wartime outing was co-written by Popeye voiceman Jack Mercer, and is a variation on the classic 'Swee'pea in danger' theme, as the tyke crawls all over the workings of a docked Battleship. In typical fashion, Swee'pea is immune to damage, while the trailing Popeye is hammered. ("It should happen to Hitler!" he mutters). "A Balmy Swami" (1949), from the best days of the Famous Studios output, provides more 'oblivious to danger' humor as a sleepwalking Olive (hypnotized by Swami Bluto) heads for the skyscraper-under-construction (where else?) This cartoon features some cringingly classic action, as when Popeye saves Olive from walking off the building by swinging a huge grappling hook toward her, which in turn hurls her through a window! In Famous Studios' "Beaus Will Be Beaus" (1955) we are treated to a beach setting, as Olive makes the boys promise to stop fighting (as if that would ever happen). The passive-aggressive Popeye settles things in a most unusual manner: by force-feeding spinach to Bluto!
Cartoon Alley #23 Features three Warner Bros. cartoons featuring Two Curious Puppies: Dog Gone Modern (1938), The Curious Puppy (1939), Snowtime For Comedy (1941).
By the late 1930s Warner Bros. director Chuck Jones was experimenting with his approach to cartoon comedy. He was still emulating the Disney style of cute and safe animal characters, but he also began incorporating the slapstick and subtle audience interaction that he admired in such silent film comedians as Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton. The culmination of this new approach would be the brilliant "silent" Roadrunner & Coyote cartoons he would direct beginning in 1948. As a step in that direction, Jones developed a couple of silent characters, the Two Curious Puppies, in the late 1930s. In "Dog Gone Modern" (1938) the puppies are befuddled by all of the modern "conveniences" in the kitchen of a new house. The setting for "The Curious Puppy" (1939) is also mechanical: the workings of a deserted Amusement Park activated at night. Jones took a different approach in "Snowtime for Comedy" (1941), in which the slapstick arose mostly from a natural environment - although clearly the puppies weren't used to Winter! Jones was still developing as a director; the gags in these cartoons are often clumsily laid out and the laughs elusive. He would refine mechanical gags to a brilliant art form by the time he created the Coyote and teamed with writer/ gagman Mike Maltese.
Cartoon Alley #24 Features three Christmas-themed cartoons: The Shanty Where Santy Claus Lives (Warner Bros. - 1933), Bedtime for Sniffles (Warner Bros. - 1940), Good Will to Men (MGM - 1955).
Here is a wide-ranging group of cartoons from different studios and different decades, all with takes on the Christmas holiday. Rudolf Ising's "The Shanty Where Santy Claus Lives" (1933) is a typically surreal early musical outing from the Warner Bros. team. In it, an orphan is taken by Santa to a dilapidated shack full of animated toys. Santa disappears, and the toys run rampant - they almost burn the joint down, but it's all good Depression-era fun. In "Bedtime for Sniffles" (1940), director Chuck Jones treats the audience to an all-too-cute Sniffles, who is trying desperately to stay awake so that he can catch a glimpse of Santa Claus on Christmas Eve. Coffee plays a prominent role, but nothing can keep poor Sniffles' eyelids from getting heavy. "Good Will to Men" is William Hanna and Joe Barbera's CinemaScope update of the classic pacifist cartoon "Peace on Earth" (1939), directed by Rudolf Ising. Other than a Cold War update referring to the Atomic Bomb, the cartoon is a virtual frame-for-frame remake, sadly indicating that not much has changed in human nature in the intervening years, in spite of the Second World War. As with its predecessor, "Goodwill to Men" was nominated for an Academy Award.
by John M. Miller
 
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31 Days of Oscar Highlights for Feb. 10
Richard Widmark gives an Oscar® nominated Best Supporting Actor Performance as one of the screen's scariest psychopaths in Kiss of Death (1947). We're also spotlighting Gypsy (1962), Of Mice and Men (1939) and 9 more Academy Award honorees.
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