Produced and Directed by Bill Hanna and Joe Barbera.
Credits: Animation – Ken Muse, Mike Lah (uncredited); Layout – Dick Bickenbach; Backgrounds – Bob Gentle; Dialogue and Story Sketches – Charlie Shows and Dan Gordon; Titles – Art Goble; Production Supervision – Howard Hanson.
Cast: Jinks, Dixie - Daws Butler; Pixie - Don Messick.
Episode: Huckleberry Hound Show K-009, Production E-17, First aired: week of Monday, November 24, 1958.
Plot: Dixie pretends to be a ghost after Jinks bashes him with a coal scuttle. A frightened Jinks acts as a slave to Pixie until he finds out the truth and tries the ghost bit himself.
Daws Butler and Charlie Shows save this cartoon. Because the clean-up and painting work sure don’t.
People decry Hanna-Barbera’s original product for being devoid of animation and full of short-cuts. That’s understandable, given the fact they were created cheaply for television. Unfortunately, the low budgets apparently meant glaring errors couldn’t be fixed by the time the finished artwork was sent to the camera.
This cartoon has a bunch of examples. What happened to Pixie’s neck? Has he got some weird form of swelling that only affects cartoon mice? The ink-line for his head isn’t there. There’s another head-in-the-hole shot where there’s a mousey grey where there should be a wall.
The most glaring errors are in this sequence where Jinks’ arm continually passes his mouth when he pokes Dixie, but you can see his mouth through his hand. And, for a second, someone got the instructions screwed up and Jinks changed hands and lost his mouth for a few frames.
Setting that aside, it’s still a charming cartoon. The writing shows a nice relationship between between the mice and the cat. Sure, they’re playing their assigned roles in nature, but the adversaries actually care about each other. And Daws has great fun with the script, infusing extra syllables and pulling off goofy emphasis, as he is apt to do, which makes him a joy to hear.
Our cartoon starts with the mice roller-skating past the same window ten times before Jinks removes a furnace vent grate on the floor and down they go. An attempt to run away results in Pixie escaping, but Dixie is bopped with a coal scuttle.
I really like the triangular shapes on Jinks here; I’d have to check if Muse was the only animator who gave him the shape of teeth you see here. And Bick and Bob augment the background with some geometrical art.
It’s at this point where Jinks engages in the sloppy cartoon-work aforementioned then deposits the “dead” Dixie under a plant in a flowerpot on the window sill. You’ll notice in this shot, there’s a window in the background, but when they come back to it after the frames of sausage-neck Pixie (see above), the background’s different. Incidentally, I don’t know what happened with Don Messick’s voice, but during this bit Pixie sounds like the mouse professor from Little Bird-Mouse; the pitch is too low.
Jinks is worried he’s killed Dixie, so the mice conspire to scare him some more by putting a sheet on the southern mouse so he can pretend he’s a ghost. Pixie squeaks a door, rattles some chains, then rolls up a window shade as Jinks does this great shake-take. And like you’ll find in most early H-B cartoons, the take is made up of two frames alternated in a cycle in lieu of full animation. You can make an animated .gif of these and create your own Hanna-Barbera cartoon; I’ve tried it and may post them later.
This whole scene, including the take, is by Mike Lah, who takes over the animation after the sheet-clad Dixie leaves the mousehole (Dixie puns “Here ghosts” for “Here goes”). Muse is back when Jinks is in the chair saying “I’ll probably get the hot seat for this.” You can tell it’s Lah by the wide-eyed look he gives Pixie (and there’s no tongue as the mouse’s mouth moves on his face during dialogue) and the joint eyes and jagged teeth on Jinks. Lah’s versions of the characters tend to look less polished that Muse’s, but Hanna seems to have liked giving Lah scenes with fun expressions.
There’s a lot of smear animation in Pixie and Dixie cartoons, usually when someone’s starting to run off camera. But we get some here (Muse again) as Jinks tries to figure out who’s talking to him. Then the “ghost” of Dixie appears, and the guilt-ridden cat agrees to do anything the mice say. Daws is really tremendous. I love his read of “Service with a smile!” when he leaves Pixie some chocolate cake, sounding hopeful he’s appeased the “ghost.”
A nice touch is the two stray hairs on Jinks’ tail when Pixie (with all the ink-lines of his head visible this time) orders him to bark like a dog before telling him to jump out a window. Problem is the hairs keep appearing and vanishing depending on the pose.
Jinks looks in, sees the two mice laughing and realises Dixie isn’t dead. Daws channels the Mr. Kitzel character from the Jack Benny radio show and says “Hoo hoo HOO!” and then emphasizes the “b” as he turns to the audience and says “Ehhhh, soooo that is the way the cookie crum-bles.”
Jinks leaves behind a note (which is superfluously read for us by Dixie) and then does the ghost bit himself. Daws’ funniest reading may be right here, where Jinks lamely tries to impersonate a ghost. He manages to keep Jinks’ odd emphasis and stretched vowels while, at the same time, add the odd emphasis and stretched vowels like a clichéd ghost in a Boris Karloff movie. You try doing both. You can’t. Daws was a master.
And since Jinks did the meeces’ bidding when Dixie was a “ghost,” the mice pledge subservience to the cat, though they can see through the lame ghost impression as well as the viewer, and (are you surprised with this?) laugh as the camera irises out.
Bill Loose and John Seely are credited with a whole side of “Ghost” cuts in the Capitol Hi-Q library (‘L’ series, reel 39) and while “Sublime Ghost” is used fairly often in Hanna-Barbera cartoons, and several others appeared in the Looney Tune Gopher Broke, none of them appeared here.
0:00 - Pixie and Dixie opening theme (Hanna-Barbera-Hoyt Curtin).
0:26 - LAF-21-3 RECESS (Jack Shaindlin) - Jinks bashes Dixie; thinks he's killed him.
2:01 - TC 432 HOLLY DAY (Loose-Seely) - Dixie dresses up as ghost.
2:47 – ZR-49 LIGHT EERIE (Geordie Hormel) - Mice scare Jinks; Dixie promises to haunt Jinks.
4:28 - TC 201 PIXIE COMEDY (Loose-Seely) - Jinks becomes slave to mice; jumps out window.
5:52 - L-78 COMEDY UNDERSCORE (Spencer Moore) - Mice think Jinks is dead; Jinks pretends to be ghost.
7:03 – PIXIE AND DIXIE THEME (Curtin) - Mice bow to Jinks and laugh.
7:10 - Pixie and Dixie closing theme.
Sunday, 29 March 2009
Sunday, 22 March 2009
Yogi Bear – Slumber Party Smarty
Produced and Directed by Bill Hanna and Joe Barbera.
Credits: Animation – Lew Marshall, Mike Lah (uncredited); Layout – Bick Bickenbach; Backgrounds – Fernando Montealegre; Dialogue and Story Sketches – Charlie Shows and Dan Gordon; Titles – Art Goble; Production Supervision – Howard Hanson.
Cast: Narrator, Yogi – Daws Butler; Biddy Buddy – Red Coffey.
Production E-9, Huckleberry Hound Show K-002.
First Aired: week of Monday, October 6, 1958, repeated week of Dec. 29, 1958.
Plot: Yogi lets a guilt-inducing little blue duck stay in his cave while he hibernates. He regrets it and “flies” south for the winter.
Does anybody like Yakky Doodle? Really? I mean anybody besides Bill Hanna and Joe Barbera.
Maybe they had duck envy after watching Donald at Disney and said “Hey, we need one of those! But let’s make his design cuter.” But while Donald is an annoying jerk most of the time (which makes him funny), the duck that Hanna and Barbera put in seven Tom and Jerry shorts is just annoying. And instead of leaving him behind at M.G.M., they brought him along, stuck him in this cartoon and called him “Biddy Buddy.” If that wasn’t bad enough, they shoved him in a few other cartoons before giving him his own new series and a new name. And a new voice.
Biddy is played by Red Coffey, who provided a duck voice for eight M.G.M. cartoons. He was a comic hired in July 1953 to replace Hank Penny on The Dude Martin Show on KTTV in Los Angeles. In 1960, Coffey was picked by Olsen and Johnson to appear in a road-show version of their hit Hellzapoppin’ and eventually took over for Chic Johnson, who became sick. It seems probable that because of the tour, he was unable to voice Yakky so Jimmy Weldon, who voiced a duck puppet on his TV children’s show, was hired. Coffey received a credit in the Loopy De Loop cartoon This is My Lucky Day, but his name is spelled differently; he changed spellings during his career.
Regardless of who voiced him or which cartoon he’s in, the duck is easily the most grating and unsympathetic of all early Hanna-Barbera characters. This isn’t a knock at either Mr. Coffey or Mr. Weldon, whose version of the duck eventually became less pitiable and more of an innocent but hyper type. Both are fine voice artists. It’s just I like my ducks funny (like fooling Porky by having his poker buddies pretend to be his kids), not needy (like yelling “Help! Chopper!” every couple of minutes).
Our cartoon opens, as do many early H-B cartoons, with a camera pan and a narrator. This time, the pan is down a snow-covered mountain that stops on Yogi’s cave, with Daws Butler providing a calm, quiet voice. Quiet? Why not? After all, it’s hibernation time, and Yogi is getting ready to sleep. The speckled background to the right can be found in a bunch of early H-B cartoons and I’d like to know if Monte Montealegre used a roller. Yogi still has a light brown colour around the eyes and engages in more Shows-penned rhyming dialogue, such as “I’m going to hit the hay until next May, hey.”
The blue-feathered fowl knocks at Yogi’s door (why do caves have doors?) and because he’s so small, the bear can’t see him. When Biddy pipes up, Yogi does a scare-take and borrows a line from radio comedian Joe Penner: “Don’t ever do-ooo that!” Biddy asks to stay, Yogi says no, and then the bird goes into his pity routine, whinging about the cold and how he might die outside (adding in some sudden sneezes for good measure) and how Yogi doesn’t care about him. Some characters could make this funny or sympathetic. Biddy (and the later Yakky) isn’t one of them. However, the bear gives in to the guilt-trip act and lets him stay.
Yogi should have taken his own “Don’t ever do-ooo that!” advice. The duck’s just a pain. He won’t shut up. However, he can walk in mid-air, in some of the lamest animation in an H-B cartoon. Here, he just strolls across the screen, as if that’s how someone would walk across some pillows. But then we get a funny take when the blabbermouth bird tries to wake Yogi and complain about the snoring.
Biddy takes up Yogi’s bed space and the bear lands on the floor. Here, and in a few other spots, Yogi looks more like he does when Mike Lah draws him. The blanket has somehow become more pink than before. My favourite take is next when the duck is choked by the drawer-bed that opens and closes because of Yogi’s vacuum-like snoring. Now that’s funny! Unfortunately, the drawer gets sucked out and ends up around Yogi’s head.
Not only is the duck whiny, grating, unsympathetic, and deserved of a painful death, he’s also incredibly stupid. He is staying at a bear’s home. But then he sees a bear in the home, fires a rifle a bunch of times at it, then goes to tell a bear (Yogi) he shot a bear. Say what? And can someone explain why everyone in cartoons sleepwalks with their arms out like those dead people in Plan Nine From Outer Space?
The never-satisfied freeloader complains about the cold cave, so he chops some wood to build a fire. Yes, I know the duck said it was too cold for him outside, but... After Yogi loses his mouth during an aside to the audience, he tries to get some sleep, but recycled wincing animation reveals he can’t because of the chopping racket. He goes outside to get the duck to (get ready to groan) CUT it out but gets hit by a tree and an unanimated cell of Yogi slides down into the snow (Hey, at least I didn’t say he “fowled” things up).
The bear’s had enough, but instead of kicking out the duck, he uses an inner tube tied to a tree to launch himself into the sky. Biddy innocently remarks to the viewer that he didn’t know bears went south for the winter, in some jerky pose-to-pose animation. Hey, the blanket’s back to its original colour! The iris brings welcome relief as Biddy has vanished from our TV sets, only to return in Duck in Luck where the begging bird confounds yours truly, Yowp, in my second cartoon.
All the music is from the Capitol Hi-Q library; there's nothing by Jack Shaindlin from the Langlois Filmusic discs for a change. Bill Loose (or was it John Seely?) gave the waltz you hear the original name of ‘Waltz’ (it’s BMI Work #4597771 for those keeping track). It’s also heard in High Fly Guy with the baby eagle and Yogi. Frankly, I think ‘Baby Eagle Waltz’ is a better name for the tune. This cartoon is another one that ends with the sound guy fading out Geordie Hormel’s ‘Fast Movement’ in mid-cut. Coincidentally, that’s the tune which starts Duck in Luck.
0:00 - Yogi opening theme (Hanna-Barbera-Hoyt Curtin).
0:26 - TC 204A WISTFUL COMEDY (Loose-Seely) - Yogi gets set for bed; Duck asks to stay.
1:43 - TC 302 WALTZ (Loose-Seely) - Yogi gives in after kicking out sneezing duck; Duck yells in Yogi’s ear.
3:03 - TC 203 WISTFUL COMEDY (Loose-Seely) - Duck hogs bed; Yogi falls out.
4:00 - L-78 COMEDY UNDERSCORE (Spencer Moore) - Yogi’s snoring sucks out drawer with duck; Duck shoots bear “prowler.”
5:03 - L-78 COMEDY UNDERSCORE (Moore) - Duck chops tree.
6:08 - L-81 COMEDY UNDERSCORE (Moore) - Tree falls on Yogi.
6:18 - ZR-48 FAST MOVEMENT (Hormel) - Yogi flies south for winter.
7:10 - Yogi closing theme (Curtin).
Credits: Animation – Lew Marshall, Mike Lah (uncredited); Layout – Bick Bickenbach; Backgrounds – Fernando Montealegre; Dialogue and Story Sketches – Charlie Shows and Dan Gordon; Titles – Art Goble; Production Supervision – Howard Hanson.
Cast: Narrator, Yogi – Daws Butler; Biddy Buddy – Red Coffey.
Production E-9, Huckleberry Hound Show K-002.
First Aired: week of Monday, October 6, 1958, repeated week of Dec. 29, 1958.
Plot: Yogi lets a guilt-inducing little blue duck stay in his cave while he hibernates. He regrets it and “flies” south for the winter.
Does anybody like Yakky Doodle? Really? I mean anybody besides Bill Hanna and Joe Barbera.
Maybe they had duck envy after watching Donald at Disney and said “Hey, we need one of those! But let’s make his design cuter.” But while Donald is an annoying jerk most of the time (which makes him funny), the duck that Hanna and Barbera put in seven Tom and Jerry shorts is just annoying. And instead of leaving him behind at M.G.M., they brought him along, stuck him in this cartoon and called him “Biddy Buddy.” If that wasn’t bad enough, they shoved him in a few other cartoons before giving him his own new series and a new name. And a new voice.
Biddy is played by Red Coffey, who provided a duck voice for eight M.G.M. cartoons. He was a comic hired in July 1953 to replace Hank Penny on The Dude Martin Show on KTTV in Los Angeles. In 1960, Coffey was picked by Olsen and Johnson to appear in a road-show version of their hit Hellzapoppin’ and eventually took over for Chic Johnson, who became sick. It seems probable that because of the tour, he was unable to voice Yakky so Jimmy Weldon, who voiced a duck puppet on his TV children’s show, was hired. Coffey received a credit in the Loopy De Loop cartoon This is My Lucky Day, but his name is spelled differently; he changed spellings during his career.
Regardless of who voiced him or which cartoon he’s in, the duck is easily the most grating and unsympathetic of all early Hanna-Barbera characters. This isn’t a knock at either Mr. Coffey or Mr. Weldon, whose version of the duck eventually became less pitiable and more of an innocent but hyper type. Both are fine voice artists. It’s just I like my ducks funny (like fooling Porky by having his poker buddies pretend to be his kids), not needy (like yelling “Help! Chopper!” every couple of minutes).
Our cartoon opens, as do many early H-B cartoons, with a camera pan and a narrator. This time, the pan is down a snow-covered mountain that stops on Yogi’s cave, with Daws Butler providing a calm, quiet voice. Quiet? Why not? After all, it’s hibernation time, and Yogi is getting ready to sleep. The speckled background to the right can be found in a bunch of early H-B cartoons and I’d like to know if Monte Montealegre used a roller. Yogi still has a light brown colour around the eyes and engages in more Shows-penned rhyming dialogue, such as “I’m going to hit the hay until next May, hey.”
The blue-feathered fowl knocks at Yogi’s door (why do caves have doors?) and because he’s so small, the bear can’t see him. When Biddy pipes up, Yogi does a scare-take and borrows a line from radio comedian Joe Penner: “Don’t ever do-ooo that!” Biddy asks to stay, Yogi says no, and then the bird goes into his pity routine, whinging about the cold and how he might die outside (adding in some sudden sneezes for good measure) and how Yogi doesn’t care about him. Some characters could make this funny or sympathetic. Biddy (and the later Yakky) isn’t one of them. However, the bear gives in to the guilt-trip act and lets him stay.
Yogi should have taken his own “Don’t ever do-ooo that!” advice. The duck’s just a pain. He won’t shut up. However, he can walk in mid-air, in some of the lamest animation in an H-B cartoon. Here, he just strolls across the screen, as if that’s how someone would walk across some pillows. But then we get a funny take when the blabbermouth bird tries to wake Yogi and complain about the snoring.
Biddy takes up Yogi’s bed space and the bear lands on the floor. Here, and in a few other spots, Yogi looks more like he does when Mike Lah draws him. The blanket has somehow become more pink than before. My favourite take is next when the duck is choked by the drawer-bed that opens and closes because of Yogi’s vacuum-like snoring. Now that’s funny! Unfortunately, the drawer gets sucked out and ends up around Yogi’s head.
Not only is the duck whiny, grating, unsympathetic, and deserved of a painful death, he’s also incredibly stupid. He is staying at a bear’s home. But then he sees a bear in the home, fires a rifle a bunch of times at it, then goes to tell a bear (Yogi) he shot a bear. Say what? And can someone explain why everyone in cartoons sleepwalks with their arms out like those dead people in Plan Nine From Outer Space?
The never-satisfied freeloader complains about the cold cave, so he chops some wood to build a fire. Yes, I know the duck said it was too cold for him outside, but... After Yogi loses his mouth during an aside to the audience, he tries to get some sleep, but recycled wincing animation reveals he can’t because of the chopping racket. He goes outside to get the duck to (get ready to groan) CUT it out but gets hit by a tree and an unanimated cell of Yogi slides down into the snow (Hey, at least I didn’t say he “fowled” things up).
The bear’s had enough, but instead of kicking out the duck, he uses an inner tube tied to a tree to launch himself into the sky. Biddy innocently remarks to the viewer that he didn’t know bears went south for the winter, in some jerky pose-to-pose animation. Hey, the blanket’s back to its original colour! The iris brings welcome relief as Biddy has vanished from our TV sets, only to return in Duck in Luck where the begging bird confounds yours truly, Yowp, in my second cartoon.
All the music is from the Capitol Hi-Q library; there's nothing by Jack Shaindlin from the Langlois Filmusic discs for a change. Bill Loose (or was it John Seely?) gave the waltz you hear the original name of ‘Waltz’ (it’s BMI Work #4597771 for those keeping track). It’s also heard in High Fly Guy with the baby eagle and Yogi. Frankly, I think ‘Baby Eagle Waltz’ is a better name for the tune. This cartoon is another one that ends with the sound guy fading out Geordie Hormel’s ‘Fast Movement’ in mid-cut. Coincidentally, that’s the tune which starts Duck in Luck.
0:00 - Yogi opening theme (Hanna-Barbera-Hoyt Curtin).
0:26 - TC 204A WISTFUL COMEDY (Loose-Seely) - Yogi gets set for bed; Duck asks to stay.
1:43 - TC 302 WALTZ (Loose-Seely) - Yogi gives in after kicking out sneezing duck; Duck yells in Yogi’s ear.
3:03 - TC 203 WISTFUL COMEDY (Loose-Seely) - Duck hogs bed; Yogi falls out.
4:00 - L-78 COMEDY UNDERSCORE (Spencer Moore) - Yogi’s snoring sucks out drawer with duck; Duck shoots bear “prowler.”
5:03 - L-78 COMEDY UNDERSCORE (Moore) - Duck chops tree.
6:08 - L-81 COMEDY UNDERSCORE (Moore) - Tree falls on Yogi.
6:18 - ZR-48 FAST MOVEMENT (Hormel) - Yogi flies south for winter.
7:10 - Yogi closing theme (Curtin).
Tuesday, 17 March 2009
Huckleberry Hound – Skeeter Trouble
Produced and Directed by Bill Hanna and Joe Barbera.
Credits: Animation – Carlo Vinci; Layout – Bick Bickenbach; Backgrounds – Bob Gentle; Dialogue and Story Sketches – Charlie Shows and Dan Gordon; Titles – Art Goble; Production Supervision – Howard Hanson.
Cast: Huck, Narrator – Daws Butler; Mosquito – Don Messick.
First Aired: week of January 6, 1959.
Plot: Huck's attempt to enjoy a camping trip to the great outdoors is thwarted by a mosquito, assisted by skeeter buddies that even follow the beleaguered blue hound underwater (while wearing diving masks).
Today marks the anniversary of the death (in 1956) of one of the greatest radio satirists—Fred Allen. So it’s appropriate that we mark the occasion by discussing this cartoon, which features Daws Butler borrowing Fred’s voice as the narrator. Daws had a great ear. The inflections and pitch are bang on. This may be the only time Daws tried an Allen-esque voice. Why he did it, I don't know, but it may be because of the best gag in the cartoon, when Huck gets out the mosquito repellent. It features a little commercial-type rhyme, the kind Fred did on his show often. The Narrator helpfully advertises to the audience: “Just smear on this goo, and mosquitos ski-do!” Naturally, the gleeful mosquito ski-doesn’t.
Huck says little, the mosquito only buzzes and the narration seems to exist only for Daws to do Fred Allen; the action describes itself. I could easily see this as a narrator-less Barney Bear cartoon at M.G.M. in full animation.
We open with Huck driving along a scenic road in the woodsy countryside. His car’s wheels don’t move; just the background does, and there’s a really jarring cut from one moving background long shot to another. Finally, surrounded by various pleasant shades of green from the brush of Bob Gentle, who worked in the Hanna-Barbera unit at M.G.M. through the 1950s, he finds a place to camp.
Along comes a cartoon mosquito who, like every cartoon mosquito since the days of Winsor McCay, has a sole purpose in life—to sink a ravenous feeding tube into someone as soon as possible. And after a proboscis upgrade, our anti-hero does so. Now, the battle’s on.
Huck tries aforementioned repellent, advising the viewer “Skeeters hate this goop!” then doing a shake take when he’s proven wrong. There are several similar types of surprise takes where two poses are alternated back and forth several times to substitute for full animation. There's another drawing trick when Huck is snoring; lines around his mouth simulate full movement.
Night falls, and we get a nice variety of shades of dark blue through the rest of the cartoon. Huck’s sleeping bag protects him only briefly from the mosquito, who unzips the bag, draws a target on Huck’s nose, aims, and lands sharply as Carlo Vinci pulls off a nice squash effect on Huck’s nose. H-B cartoons would avoid extra drawing touches like that not too many years later.
Huck puts a bucket over his head, but the skeeter’s nose now comes equipped with a can opener (which even glistens for a second before making contact with the bucket; a thoughtful little drawing effect). The mosquito uses that sideways stomp-running cycle found in a lot of early Hanna-Barbera cartoons.
Somehow, the impact lodges the skeeter in our hero’s head (Charlie Shows uses the old see-character-through-the-open-eyes gag) and finally escapes through Huck’s nose. The mosquito lets his opinion be known about the sequence.
Huck retreats into a cabin, but the mosquito gets in simply by knocking. Huck takes care of him with a spray can of something probably legal in 1959 but not today. Unfortunately, the mosquito’s big death scene is off camera; you know in a theatrical someone would have had some fun animating that.
Better make the “death” in quotes, for the little antagonist is merely knocked out. He comes to and calls the troops with a cute little animation effect—the trumpet’s horn expands as he hits the high notes. And Carlo must have had fun animating the close-up of the attacking mosquitoes; it’s pretty elaborate for limited animation.
Here we get another one of those two-cell repeats; this time it’s a “scare” take when Huck sees the mosquito squadron above.
The swarm attacks the door, but Huck frantically hammers in their stingers like bending nails. That doesn’t stop them. They rip off the door. Huck desperately paddles across a nearby lake in an inflatable boat but one of the mosquitoes punctures it. Huck sinks to the bottom and thinks he can now get some rest. Afraid not.
Huck zooms away (his car’s wheels move this time) as Daws-as-Fred Allen bids him “good luck.”
Geordie Hormel seems to have been the popular choice of the sound cutter for this cartoon. Nine Hormel beds in the Capitol Hi-Q library (“L” series Reel 4 to be precise) seem to have found their way into various Huck cartoons and four of them are used here. Then we get two warhorses from Langlois Filmusic by Jack Shaindlin that find a place on the soundtrack during chase scenes.
0:00 - Clementine/Huck opening music (Hoyt Curtin).
0:27 - ZR-51 LIGHT ANIMATION (Hormel) - Huck sets up camp, Mosquito buzzes in.
1:24 - ZR-49 LIGHT EERIE (Hormel) - Mosquito drills Huck, Mosquito eats goop.
2:26 - LAF-5-20 TOBOGGAN RUN (Shaindlin) - Mosquito unzips Huck’s sleeping bag.
3:00 - TC-300 ZANY COMEDY (Bill Loose-John Seely) - Mosquito draws target on Huck’s nose.
3:04 - LAF-2-12 ON THE RUN (Shaindlin) - Mosquito spears Huck’s nose.
3:15 - TC-432 HOLLY DAY (Loose-Seely) - Mosquito uses can opener.
4:00 - ZR-48 FAST MOVEMENT (Hormel) - Mosquito goes in Huck’s head.
4:13 - TC-301 ZANY WALTZ (Loose-Seely) - Mosquito leaves Huck’s nose.
4:36 - L-1139 ANIMATION COMEDY (Spencer Moore) - Huck drives to cabin.
5:12 - ZR-50 UNDERWATER SCENIC (Hormel) - Huck sprays Mosquito, Mosquito trumpets in the troops.
5:59 - TC-221 HEAVY AGITATO (Loose-Seely) - Mosquito squadron attacks.
6:50 - LAF-2-12 ON THE RUN (Shaindlin) - Huck chased by Mosquito on lake bottom.
7:09 - Huck closing music (Curtin).
Credits: Animation – Carlo Vinci; Layout – Bick Bickenbach; Backgrounds – Bob Gentle; Dialogue and Story Sketches – Charlie Shows and Dan Gordon; Titles – Art Goble; Production Supervision – Howard Hanson.
Cast: Huck, Narrator – Daws Butler; Mosquito – Don Messick.
First Aired: week of January 6, 1959.
Plot: Huck's attempt to enjoy a camping trip to the great outdoors is thwarted by a mosquito, assisted by skeeter buddies that even follow the beleaguered blue hound underwater (while wearing diving masks).
Today marks the anniversary of the death (in 1956) of one of the greatest radio satirists—Fred Allen. So it’s appropriate that we mark the occasion by discussing this cartoon, which features Daws Butler borrowing Fred’s voice as the narrator. Daws had a great ear. The inflections and pitch are bang on. This may be the only time Daws tried an Allen-esque voice. Why he did it, I don't know, but it may be because of the best gag in the cartoon, when Huck gets out the mosquito repellent. It features a little commercial-type rhyme, the kind Fred did on his show often. The Narrator helpfully advertises to the audience: “Just smear on this goo, and mosquitos ski-do!” Naturally, the gleeful mosquito ski-doesn’t.
Huck says little, the mosquito only buzzes and the narration seems to exist only for Daws to do Fred Allen; the action describes itself. I could easily see this as a narrator-less Barney Bear cartoon at M.G.M. in full animation.
We open with Huck driving along a scenic road in the woodsy countryside. His car’s wheels don’t move; just the background does, and there’s a really jarring cut from one moving background long shot to another. Finally, surrounded by various pleasant shades of green from the brush of Bob Gentle, who worked in the Hanna-Barbera unit at M.G.M. through the 1950s, he finds a place to camp.
Along comes a cartoon mosquito who, like every cartoon mosquito since the days of Winsor McCay, has a sole purpose in life—to sink a ravenous feeding tube into someone as soon as possible. And after a proboscis upgrade, our anti-hero does so. Now, the battle’s on.
Huck tries aforementioned repellent, advising the viewer “Skeeters hate this goop!” then doing a shake take when he’s proven wrong. There are several similar types of surprise takes where two poses are alternated back and forth several times to substitute for full animation. There's another drawing trick when Huck is snoring; lines around his mouth simulate full movement.
Night falls, and we get a nice variety of shades of dark blue through the rest of the cartoon. Huck’s sleeping bag protects him only briefly from the mosquito, who unzips the bag, draws a target on Huck’s nose, aims, and lands sharply as Carlo Vinci pulls off a nice squash effect on Huck’s nose. H-B cartoons would avoid extra drawing touches like that not too many years later.
Huck puts a bucket over his head, but the skeeter’s nose now comes equipped with a can opener (which even glistens for a second before making contact with the bucket; a thoughtful little drawing effect). The mosquito uses that sideways stomp-running cycle found in a lot of early Hanna-Barbera cartoons.
Somehow, the impact lodges the skeeter in our hero’s head (Charlie Shows uses the old see-character-through-the-open-eyes gag) and finally escapes through Huck’s nose. The mosquito lets his opinion be known about the sequence.
Huck retreats into a cabin, but the mosquito gets in simply by knocking. Huck takes care of him with a spray can of something probably legal in 1959 but not today. Unfortunately, the mosquito’s big death scene is off camera; you know in a theatrical someone would have had some fun animating that.
Better make the “death” in quotes, for the little antagonist is merely knocked out. He comes to and calls the troops with a cute little animation effect—the trumpet’s horn expands as he hits the high notes. And Carlo must have had fun animating the close-up of the attacking mosquitoes; it’s pretty elaborate for limited animation.
Here we get another one of those two-cell repeats; this time it’s a “scare” take when Huck sees the mosquito squadron above.
The swarm attacks the door, but Huck frantically hammers in their stingers like bending nails. That doesn’t stop them. They rip off the door. Huck desperately paddles across a nearby lake in an inflatable boat but one of the mosquitoes punctures it. Huck sinks to the bottom and thinks he can now get some rest. Afraid not.
Huck zooms away (his car’s wheels move this time) as Daws-as-Fred Allen bids him “good luck.”
Geordie Hormel seems to have been the popular choice of the sound cutter for this cartoon. Nine Hormel beds in the Capitol Hi-Q library (“L” series Reel 4 to be precise) seem to have found their way into various Huck cartoons and four of them are used here. Then we get two warhorses from Langlois Filmusic by Jack Shaindlin that find a place on the soundtrack during chase scenes.
0:00 - Clementine/Huck opening music (Hoyt Curtin).
0:27 - ZR-51 LIGHT ANIMATION (Hormel) - Huck sets up camp, Mosquito buzzes in.
1:24 - ZR-49 LIGHT EERIE (Hormel) - Mosquito drills Huck, Mosquito eats goop.
2:26 - LAF-5-20 TOBOGGAN RUN (Shaindlin) - Mosquito unzips Huck’s sleeping bag.
3:00 - TC-300 ZANY COMEDY (Bill Loose-John Seely) - Mosquito draws target on Huck’s nose.
3:04 - LAF-2-12 ON THE RUN (Shaindlin) - Mosquito spears Huck’s nose.
3:15 - TC-432 HOLLY DAY (Loose-Seely) - Mosquito uses can opener.
4:00 - ZR-48 FAST MOVEMENT (Hormel) - Mosquito goes in Huck’s head.
4:13 - TC-301 ZANY WALTZ (Loose-Seely) - Mosquito leaves Huck’s nose.
4:36 - L-1139 ANIMATION COMEDY (Spencer Moore) - Huck drives to cabin.
5:12 - ZR-50 UNDERWATER SCENIC (Hormel) - Huck sprays Mosquito, Mosquito trumpets in the troops.
5:59 - TC-221 HEAVY AGITATO (Loose-Seely) - Mosquito squadron attacks.
6:50 - LAF-2-12 ON THE RUN (Shaindlin) - Huck chased by Mosquito on lake bottom.
7:09 - Huck closing music (Curtin).
Wednesday, 11 March 2009
Pixie and Dixie - Judo Jack
Produced and Directed by Bill Hanna and Joe Barbera.
Credits: Animation – Ken Muse, Mike Lah (uncredited); Layout – Bick Bickenbach; Backgrounds – Frank Tipper; Dialogue and Story Sketches – Charlie Shows and Dan Gordon; Titles – Art Goble; Production Supervision – Howard Hanson.
Cast: Pixie – Don Messick; Dixie, Jinks, Judo Jack – Daws Butler.
First aired: week of October 6, 1958.
Production E-5 (Show K-002)
Plot: Tired of being bashed on the head with a skillet by Mr. Jinks, Pixie and Dixie hire Judo Jack to teach them how to beat up the cat. Jack does so with one demonstration lesson.
Sure, this isn’t Popeye’s war-time enemy-insult cartoon “You're a Sap, Mr. Jap” or the cringe-inducing “Bugs Bunny Nips the Nips.” But just the idea of a stereotype would stop this from being made today. Judo Jack is made up of stock speech and physical traits assigned to Japanese in the popular media of yore (and even into the ‘60s, such as Joe Jitsu in the abyssmal Dick Tracy U.P.A. cartoons). There's even a quick take (by Mike Lah) where Jinks imitates Jack and takes on his facial characteristics, complete with the obligatory buck teeth, “glasses” and sentence-ending “prease.”
The cartoon opens with a typical right pan over a fun background by Frank Tipper, full of off-kilter rectangles and diamond-patterned wallpaper, all bathed in a great colour scheme. Oh, and there’s also Jinks hiding with a skillet.
Jinks uses the frying pan on Dixie, who escapes to his hole in the wall, and then Pixie decides on revenge. Pixie scrunches his shoulders and does a sideways stomp out the mouse hole. Several characters used the same kind of stomp cycle in various cartoons; there’s even a running-scared variation in Yogi Bear’s High Fly Guy.
There are some imaginative touches in this little sequence. Like in a Tom and Jerry cartoon, there’s a cute use of ordinary things as makeshift mouse furniture (a matchbook cover as a chair, a thimble as a doorbell). And when the mice are deciding what do about Jinks, Pixie is showing some emotion. He closes his eyes in pain and briefly looks up at his bump a couple of times. You just know in later H-B cartoons, an ugly character would just stand there during a bunch of talk-talk-talk.
One of the things I love about Paul Julian’s backgrounds for Friz Freleng at Warners is how he etched in the names of artists or writers as kind of an in-joke. Here’s a really rare example of it in an H-B cartoon. Look at the name of the exterminator in the Yellow Pages (click to enlarge). Fernando Montealegre was one of the original background artists at H-B and stayed for years. He had been in Mike Lah’s unit at M.G.M. when the cartoon studio closed there.
Charlie Shows gets in a throw-away line: “Nothing but mouse exterminators” that receives a perfect reading from Don Messick; the mice are non-plussed about myriads of companies that would kill them.
Some animation-saving footage follows as Dixie reads the page of the phone book that we can read for ourselves. Dixie calls Judo Jack and the fun begins.
The mice start to get instructions on judo from Jack and decide one brief lesson is all they need to tame Jinks. That proves to be a mistake. But that isn’t the big mistake. There’s a screw-up here as Jinks grabs Dixie, but when the two are talking, Pixie’s voice comes out.
But not only does Dixie magically become Pixie, Jinks magically becomes a Tex Avery character when he reaches into the hole to nab the escaped mice and grabs Jack instead. However, as this is budgeted for television, and not a fully-animated Avery theatrical, only part of the face moves.
Despite that, the best part of the cartoon is some of Jinks’ takes. But is there really a sleeper in judo? Or a pretzel hold? Or a flying spin? Well, it makes for a funnier cartoon. And it’s appropriate, perhaps, considering Judo Jack was the name of a wrestler on early TV. Of course, his real name was neither Jack (he was Charles Van Audenarde), nor was he Japanese (he was Belgian).
Lah animates the cartoon from the pretzel hold to when Jack twirls Jinks off camera. In other words, the best part.
Finally, “resson number one” is over, Jack leaves, and Jinks decides now is the time to get even with the mice by attempting “the old cheese gag.” But Dixie (with Pixie’s voice coming out of him again) dresses as a racial stereotype, complete with “prease” (and “ah so”. How could they miss “honollable” this time?) which scares the cat into running away as our mousey heroes engage in the iris-inducing laughter that would eventually end seemingly-every H-B cartoon.
Stock music fans are in for a treat—your Capitol Hi-Q favourites are here! The track is almost all by Bill Loose and John Seely, with the mandatory Toboggan Run by Jack Shaindlin from Langlois Filmusic tossed in (actually, not all Pixie and Dixies had that piece; it just seems like it). The tick-tock/pop-goes-the-weasel music of Spencer Moore’s can also be heard at the end of the creepy Warner Brothers cartoon Gopher Broke when the psychiatrist lays down next to the freaked-out pig on his couch.
0:00 - Pixie and Dixie opening theme (Joe Barbera-Bill Hanna-Hoyt Curtin).
0:27 - TC 201 PIXIE COMEDY (Loose-Seely) - Dixie, then Pixie, whapped by Jinks's skillet; look in Yellow Pages.
1:42 - TC 202 WISTFUL COMEDY (Loose-Seely) - Dixie calls Judo Jack; Jack flips Jinks.
3:03 - TC 303 ZANY COMEDY (Loose-Seely) - Jack does it again; Jack gives lessons to Pixie & Dixie.
4:23 - TC 300 ECCENTRIC COMEDY (Loose-Seely) - Dixie can't flip Jinks.
4:40 - LAF-20-5 TOBOGGAN RUN (Shaindlin) - Jinks chases Pixie and Dixie into hole; Jack bashes Jinks again.
5:20 - TC 300 ECCENTRIC COMEDY (Loose-Seely) - Jinks sleeps; Jack pulls Jinks under door.
6:30 - TC 303 ZANY COMEDY (Loose-Seely) - Jinks reaches in mouse hole.
6:45 - L-992 ANIMATION-CHILDREN (Moore) - Dixie comes out of hole disguised as Judo Jack.
6:57 - PIXIE AND DIXIE THEME (Curtin) - Jinks runs away, Meeces laugh. Iris out.
7:11 - Pixie and Dixie closing theme (Curtin).
Credits: Animation – Ken Muse, Mike Lah (uncredited); Layout – Bick Bickenbach; Backgrounds – Frank Tipper; Dialogue and Story Sketches – Charlie Shows and Dan Gordon; Titles – Art Goble; Production Supervision – Howard Hanson.
Cast: Pixie – Don Messick; Dixie, Jinks, Judo Jack – Daws Butler.
First aired: week of October 6, 1958.
Production E-5 (Show K-002)
Plot: Tired of being bashed on the head with a skillet by Mr. Jinks, Pixie and Dixie hire Judo Jack to teach them how to beat up the cat. Jack does so with one demonstration lesson.
Sure, this isn’t Popeye’s war-time enemy-insult cartoon “You're a Sap, Mr. Jap” or the cringe-inducing “Bugs Bunny Nips the Nips.” But just the idea of a stereotype would stop this from being made today. Judo Jack is made up of stock speech and physical traits assigned to Japanese in the popular media of yore (and even into the ‘60s, such as Joe Jitsu in the abyssmal Dick Tracy U.P.A. cartoons). There's even a quick take (by Mike Lah) where Jinks imitates Jack and takes on his facial characteristics, complete with the obligatory buck teeth, “glasses” and sentence-ending “prease.”
The cartoon opens with a typical right pan over a fun background by Frank Tipper, full of off-kilter rectangles and diamond-patterned wallpaper, all bathed in a great colour scheme. Oh, and there’s also Jinks hiding with a skillet.
Jinks uses the frying pan on Dixie, who escapes to his hole in the wall, and then Pixie decides on revenge. Pixie scrunches his shoulders and does a sideways stomp out the mouse hole. Several characters used the same kind of stomp cycle in various cartoons; there’s even a running-scared variation in Yogi Bear’s High Fly Guy.
There are some imaginative touches in this little sequence. Like in a Tom and Jerry cartoon, there’s a cute use of ordinary things as makeshift mouse furniture (a matchbook cover as a chair, a thimble as a doorbell). And when the mice are deciding what do about Jinks, Pixie is showing some emotion. He closes his eyes in pain and briefly looks up at his bump a couple of times. You just know in later H-B cartoons, an ugly character would just stand there during a bunch of talk-talk-talk.
One of the things I love about Paul Julian’s backgrounds for Friz Freleng at Warners is how he etched in the names of artists or writers as kind of an in-joke. Here’s a really rare example of it in an H-B cartoon. Look at the name of the exterminator in the Yellow Pages (click to enlarge). Fernando Montealegre was one of the original background artists at H-B and stayed for years. He had been in Mike Lah’s unit at M.G.M. when the cartoon studio closed there.
Charlie Shows gets in a throw-away line: “Nothing but mouse exterminators” that receives a perfect reading from Don Messick; the mice are non-plussed about myriads of companies that would kill them.
Some animation-saving footage follows as Dixie reads the page of the phone book that we can read for ourselves. Dixie calls Judo Jack and the fun begins.
The mice start to get instructions on judo from Jack and decide one brief lesson is all they need to tame Jinks. That proves to be a mistake. But that isn’t the big mistake. There’s a screw-up here as Jinks grabs Dixie, but when the two are talking, Pixie’s voice comes out.
But not only does Dixie magically become Pixie, Jinks magically becomes a Tex Avery character when he reaches into the hole to nab the escaped mice and grabs Jack instead. However, as this is budgeted for television, and not a fully-animated Avery theatrical, only part of the face moves.
Despite that, the best part of the cartoon is some of Jinks’ takes. But is there really a sleeper in judo? Or a pretzel hold? Or a flying spin? Well, it makes for a funnier cartoon. And it’s appropriate, perhaps, considering Judo Jack was the name of a wrestler on early TV. Of course, his real name was neither Jack (he was Charles Van Audenarde), nor was he Japanese (he was Belgian).
Lah animates the cartoon from the pretzel hold to when Jack twirls Jinks off camera. In other words, the best part.
Finally, “resson number one” is over, Jack leaves, and Jinks decides now is the time to get even with the mice by attempting “the old cheese gag.” But Dixie (with Pixie’s voice coming out of him again) dresses as a racial stereotype, complete with “prease” (and “ah so”. How could they miss “honollable” this time?) which scares the cat into running away as our mousey heroes engage in the iris-inducing laughter that would eventually end seemingly-every H-B cartoon.
Stock music fans are in for a treat—your Capitol Hi-Q favourites are here! The track is almost all by Bill Loose and John Seely, with the mandatory Toboggan Run by Jack Shaindlin from Langlois Filmusic tossed in (actually, not all Pixie and Dixies had that piece; it just seems like it). The tick-tock/pop-goes-the-weasel music of Spencer Moore’s can also be heard at the end of the creepy Warner Brothers cartoon Gopher Broke when the psychiatrist lays down next to the freaked-out pig on his couch.
0:00 - Pixie and Dixie opening theme (Joe Barbera-Bill Hanna-Hoyt Curtin).
0:27 - TC 201 PIXIE COMEDY (Loose-Seely) - Dixie, then Pixie, whapped by Jinks's skillet; look in Yellow Pages.
1:42 - TC 202 WISTFUL COMEDY (Loose-Seely) - Dixie calls Judo Jack; Jack flips Jinks.
3:03 - TC 303 ZANY COMEDY (Loose-Seely) - Jack does it again; Jack gives lessons to Pixie & Dixie.
4:23 - TC 300 ECCENTRIC COMEDY (Loose-Seely) - Dixie can't flip Jinks.
4:40 - LAF-20-5 TOBOGGAN RUN (Shaindlin) - Jinks chases Pixie and Dixie into hole; Jack bashes Jinks again.
5:20 - TC 300 ECCENTRIC COMEDY (Loose-Seely) - Jinks sleeps; Jack pulls Jinks under door.
6:30 - TC 303 ZANY COMEDY (Loose-Seely) - Jinks reaches in mouse hole.
6:45 - L-992 ANIMATION-CHILDREN (Moore) - Dixie comes out of hole disguised as Judo Jack.
6:57 - PIXIE AND DIXIE THEME (Curtin) - Jinks runs away, Meeces laugh. Iris out.
7:11 - Pixie and Dixie closing theme (Curtin).