Introducing The Censored 11--Or Maybe Not?

Kevin and I rarely have a disagreement, but we did have a mild one this evening, over one simple question:

In an age when even the rarest cartoons can be downloaded--legally or not--from sites such as YouTube, what exactly constitutes an "orphan toon?" One rarely seen by the public? One widely seen, but in edited form? (Such as DROOPY'S GOOD DEED or JERKY TURKEY). One that has yet to be restored--or likely, never will be? It's a question I've mulled over for quite some time, but one I've never fully addressed until now.

I had intended to post a review and synopsis of Bob Clampett's COAL BLACK AND DE SEBBEN DWARFS. Whether it's truly the greatest cartoon ever made is of course open to debate, but in your humble administrator's opinion, it's certainly the best Bob Clampett ever made, a convergence of the young Clampett's animation skills at their peak with the brashness and "can do" spirit of the years during the Second World War.

I've long felt that no blog such as this one would be complete without a discussion of the Warner's "Censored 11", the infamous list of cartoons withdrawn from general circulation by United Artists in 1968. COAL BLACK in particular has been a cause celebré for animation historians and fans alike, becoming the Toon That Will Not Die. Yet its very visibility gave Kevin certain reservations, as he says here:

Rachel:

You know, I hadn’t ever thought of even doing the “Censored 11” from Warner Brothers because I was (and am) so sure that Jerry Beck & company will eventually get to them now that the status of the Warner Brothers cartoons are sealed for adult enjoyment. I know that you wanted to discuss these, but I do see this light at the end of the tunnel, and the Warners cartoons, even at their most controversial, will no longer be “orphaned”. I was instead thinking so much of the BOSKO toons because, for some reason, I think that these will be a little harder to get to DVD, because the HAPPY HARMONIES in general are not the most beloved cartoons around, not even like the Tex Avery and the TOM & JERRY titles from Hanna-Barbera; the same goes with the CAPTAIN & THE KIDS titles.

In fact, the mere fact that a goodly portion of the censored 11 are on youtube and elsewhere illegally means that so many people know about them and are giving them a kind of pirated home that, in that sense, they are no longer orphaned.

Then again, this could also be said of most of the LOONEY TUNES BOSKO titles as well and I *DO* think that these should be discussed because there are some terrific little bits throughout the series. I still think that the 1930’s Warners cartoons will be orphaned titles because, again, they are not as high a priority on the restoration list. I like to do or, more accurately, read others’ write-ups of the BOSKO cartoons done in an enthusiastic way, but one of the reasons why I like the fact that you’ve continued this blog on your own so diligently is that your viewpoint is one of enthusiasm, not the usual “I hate Harmon/ising and their insignifigant Disney chlones” rant that I hear all too often. Yeah, I guess that we could all come up with a case for that other viewpoint, but these cartoons still remain close to my heart, sometimes for reasons I can’t quite identify. But I have shown guests the laserdisc print of “DANCE OF THE WEED” and they were absolutely impressed. Why? Because it is an impressive cartoon in every way, including its wonderful score which allows the musical instruments to add life to the images, like the violins screeching like the whirling wind that blows the dainty flowers this way and that.

If the wonderful consultants now working on cartoon collections at Warner Brothers with that familiar disclaimer on them are putting together a HAPPY HARMONIES collection as we speak, then I’ll discontinue my rant, but these are lost treasures that , to me, have so much artistic merit. Even the Milt Gross cartoons are wonderful in that there were only two made!!

So, while I hope you do write an essay on “COAL BLACK” or “TIN PAN ALLEY CATS”, obviously pointing out spots where there are reused bits of animation from other well-known Clampett cartoons, I think some of this stuff is so familiar to everyone that…

Aw heck, go ahead and give your slant on this group of films. I would love to read a clear writing on “TIN PAN ALLEY CATS” and, maybe, you can one day do a rather lengthy essay on the differences in comic retellings of the “UNCLE TOM’S CABIN” story. Actually, that could almost be a book by itself; when you think of it, just about every cartoon studio had its retake on that story. I realize that this book, by harriet Beecher Stowe, was incredibly popular, but no one ever made a live action movie of this story. There is no major motion picture around this tale of racial injustice and life in segregated times, but every cartoon studio did their incredibly shocking parody of it!! I never thought about it until just now, but yes, one could neatly examine all the parodies of this story, from Hugh & Rudy’s “ON THE TRAIL TO HALLELULIALAND” and “THE OLD PLANTATION” to Tex Avery’s “UNCLE TOM’S BUNGALOW” and “UNCLE TOM’S CABANA”. Yet, now, I wish I had the actual book in front of me as well for reference so we know just how much the story was stretched or condensed. I know there is more to the slice of life, there, than what the cartoons chose to mock.

Kevin

Though Kevin relented and eventually gave his blessing to posting reviews of COAL BLACK and other Censored 11 cartoons here, he did have a valid point, one for which I have no easy answer. Which is why I've decided to leave it up to you, the readers:

Do you want to see reviews of Censored 11 cartoons here? I'd be interested in hearing your answer, whatever it may be. Send your comments to Kevin and me here:

OrphanToons@sbcglobal.net

The best responses will be posted in a future entry--so get those nimble little fingers busy...

Tags: Censored+11, Warner+Bros., Coal+Black,
note+to+readers

Toon Gothic: The Sad Case Of FINNEGAN'S FLEA (1958)

Stills courtesy of Jerry Beck


Finnegan's Flea
Director: I. Sparber
Release Date: April 4, 1958
In short: The tragic tale of a hapless ex-con who befriends a singing flea

Let's play a game, shall we?

Try to imagine what cartoons would have been like had Alfred Hitchcock taken over an animation studio, hired Rod Serling to write the stories--maybe had Charles Addams freelance a gag or two. I can't say for sure, but I imagine they'd be much like the output of the Paramount/Famous studio from the mid-'50s to early '60s.

It's probably overly simplistic to divide classic American animation into two separate, distinct schools of thought--the "New York School" vs. the "Hollywood School"--especially since there was so much overlap between the two. There's no denying, however, that the New York studios had that certain something, that determination to see the dark, gray clouds lurking behind the bright Technicolor rainbow, that set them apart from their Disney-influenced counterparts on the other coast. To put it mildly, these people would have kept Freud's appointment calendar full for years.

What "edge" the California-produced cartoons did have came to some degree from transplanted New Yorkers like Mike Maltese and Joe Barbera, who broke Warner's and MGM respectively from their massive case of "Disney envy." (Though both MGM and Warner's did get a great deal of help from a certain Texan who shall remain nameless). Both studios developed a brassy, smart-aleck approach to cartoons--but even these were tempered a bit by California cheeriness.

Thousands of words have been written about the Fleischer studio--online and in hard copy--and their cartoons of the early '30s, which seemed part film noir, part opiate-induced haze. My favorite man to quote at times like this--Leonard Maltin--boiled down the Fleischer attitude to just three words: "gritty", "urban", and "ethnic." Even in the Popeye cartoons, one could almost see the grime coating the walls of buildings--everything was a vast array of smoky grays, dingy whites, and a generous amount of sooty black. The world the Fleischers portrayed in those cartoons was not some timeless, fairy-tale land, but one obviously affected by the Depression--shabby and worn.

Though Fleischer's successor, Famous Studios, has long had a reputation as a watered-down, emasculated version of Fleischer, more of the grittiness of the Fleischer days carried over than most people realize. If anything, it surpassed its predecessor in the area of "dark humor." One of the earliest Popeyes released by the newly-reorganized studio actually ended with Popeye murdering--unseen, thankfully--his irritating pest of a "friend", Shorty. (To the tumultuous cheers of cinema audiences, no doubt--Shorty was not the most appealing character ever created).

Critics like to point to the seemingly bland Casper The Friendly Ghost in particular to prove that Famous was Fleischer's without teeth. But dear friends, as we'll see in subsequent reviews, even our good friend Casper has a dark streak. For one thing, few people realize these days that in the earliest Casper entries, we were given glaring reminders that he was supposed to be a dead child--at least two early cartoons show him by his own tombstone. Not exactly kid-friendly. (Harvey Comics, in order to tone down this gruesome aspect of the character, later retconned Casper--he had been born a ghost. Somehow I think even a six-year-old would have a hard time accepting that as credible).

The Noveltoons and the later Modern Madcaps were generally a showcase for "one-shot"
characters, a way of "auditioning" characters that might click in series of their own (much as Warners' Merrie Melodies had once been). As such the artists and writers were given a little freer rein--whereas most of the established series degenerated into formula very quickly, the "one-shot" cartoons were a bit harder to predict. The line between "hero" and "villain" blurred, if it existed at all--particularly by the mid-Fifties. The protagonists were usually put-upon little nebbishes eager to escape their humdrum, Kafkaesque existences, who would go to the most extreme lengths to do so (one even went so far as to try to do in his nagging hulk of a wife--only to replace her with someone just as horrible).

Another example, GRATEFUL GUS--released the same year as today's spotlight cartoon--
concerns a bank teller who "borrows" some of the bank's assets and makes off for warmer climes (he took the bank's slogan "Let The 3rd National Bank Finance Your Trip" at its word). Eager to get away, he made the mistake of giving an overly cheerful little hobo a ten-spot in order to get rid of the pest, and would soon live to regret it. The hobo becomes the man's servile shadow from then on, to the man's inevitable downfall. The film's moral, if any from this period can be said to have any, is "no good deed goes unpunished." If, that is, you can call giving a homeless man stolen money a "good deed."

Today's entry, FINNEGAN'S FLEA, has been playing and replaying on the edge of my conscious mind like a persistent fever dream ever since I saw it for the first time--and, as it turns out, the last time--when I was six. Typically (and unfairly) dismissed as an inferior copy of Chuck Jones' ONE FROGGY EVENING, it goes further than Chuck would have dared. ONE FROGGY EVENING saddened me as a child. FINNEGAN'S FLEA nearly gave me post-traumatic stress disorder. If ever there were an argument that not all animation is for kids, this cartoon is Exhibit A. It plays something like an animated TWILIGHT ZONE episode--so much so one almost expects to see a caricature of Serling narrating.

So, as Serling might have said, submitted for your approval: consider the case of an ordinary man who meets an extraordinary flea...

We open with a medium shot of a shabby, unshaven-looking man behind a counter (drawn in the UPA-like style the studio had adopted by that time). He wears a battered hat and a trenchcoat held closed with a safety pin. His skin has a bluish tint. His wide eyes stare expressionlessly at the audience. A few strands of long, scraggly hair poke out from under the hat.

"Is he...dead?" an off-camera voice asks. The scene cuts to a long shot to show that we're in a neighborhood bar. The patron who asked the question is standing at the other end of the counter from the shabby, staring fellow. He's wearing a brown overcoat and hat.

"No, just frozen, he is--poor fella..." says the Irish-accented bartender, who has a round head with a small patch of hair in front, parted in the middle--a look a bit more appropriate to the 1890s than the 1950s. "Suffered a severe shock thirteen years ago on this very spot--and hasn't moved since..."

As he says this, the scene changes to a side view of the "frozen" man in question, in medium shot. An arm and a hand--the bartender's--emerges from the right of the frame and grabs the man's nose, opening his mouth. The bartender continues speaking, off-camera: "...And 'tis I who must feed him like a baby, and fetch him an occasional drop of the dew, to keep up his strength..." The bartender drops a whole pretzel into the man's mouth--presumably swallowed without chewing--and literally pours a mugful of beer down the unfortunate fellow's throat.

Cut to a long shot of the other side of the bar again. "Feed him?" says the incredulous customer. "If I wuz you, I'd throw the bum out!!"

We change to a close-up of the bartender, who looks up into the air, his hands clasped under his chin: "'Twas I--have mercy on me poor soul--who with only the best of intention, brought poor Finnegan to his present sad state." The camera pans left to poor "frozen" Finnegan, using the same shot we saw in the first few seconds. "For Finnegan was not always the poor derelict you see here...let us go back to the time of his youth, at Alcatraz..."

We dissolve into flashback as the bartender narrates. We see a long exterior shot of the infamous island prison. "...where Finnegan was doin' twenty years," the bartender continues. "To break the monotony, he got himself a hobby--knuckle-cracking. Specializin' in rhumba rhythms..." During the bartender's monologue, the scene dissolves to an interior prison corridor, and tracks closer to a cell door. It dissolves again to reveal a much healthier, pinker--and chubbier--Finnegan, whose head is completely bald. He's sitting on the floor--a fold-down bench and a sink are immediately to his right, the cell door to his left. The camera tracks closer as Finnegan cracks his knuckles--one at a time, over and over, to a lively rhumba beat--just as the bartender said. He continues this for several seconds until he hears something strange...

"The rhythm of the rhumba,
Has got a fascination..."

A baritone voice Finnegan can't locate is singing along with his knuckle-cracking rhythm. "The cell's haunted!" he says. He jumps up and braces himself against the cell door. "It's the ghost of Novak who went to the chair!" He tiptoes to the right of the screen toward the still-singing voice.

Cut to a medium shot of Finnegan creeping along the cell wall. "Is that you, Novak?" he says nervously.

The scene dissolves to show a tiny flea among the stone blocks of the cell, jumping up and down to the rhythm of the song as he sings. He's portrayed in typical cartoon fashion as a little jumping dot. As he finishes his song with a perfect vibrato, his shape changes to something like a short,
wiggling piece of spaghetti. Finnegan's hand comes into the left of the frame and picks the flea up.

Cut to a medium shot of Finnegan, who holds the flea in the palm of his hand. "A singin' flea," he says, chuckling a little. "Very clever!" (Takes it pretty calmly, doesn't he? I'd be wondering if I'd finally gone "stir crazy.") "Hey 'Charlie,' know any other songs?"

Indeed "Charlie" does--he launches into a rendition of Maurice Chevalier's "Louise" (a Paramount song, naturally. All the popular music this flea knows, by a not-too-strange coincidence, is owned by Paramount. Wonder if they had him under contract?) As the flea sings, the camera follows as he bounces away from Finnegan, who's seated on the wooden bench. As the flea sings the last word of his song, he vibrates in mid-air, turning into wiggling spaghetti again. We then cut back to Finnegan, who has his hands clasped beneath his chin as he listens adoringly.

The flashback is momentarily interrupted--with a slow dissolve, we're back at the bar, where the bartender continues his narration. The scene switches quickly from a long shot of the bartender, the patron, and Finnegan to a repeat of the "feeding" scene earlier in the picture.

"And so, with Charlie to entertain him, Finnegan forgot his cares..."

We dissolve back to the younger Finnegan in his cell, as Charlie bobs up and down singing "It's A Hap-Hap-Happy Day", sounding a bit like Al Jolson. The aforementioned song was a standard in Paramount/Famous cartoons, having been written for Fleischer's GULLIVER'S TRAVELS. Paramount/Famous used it so much it could be considered a "theme song" of sorts for that studio's cartoons.

As Finnegan sits on his bench, enraptured by Charlie's singing, an arm comes in from the right and snatches him out of frame. Charlie stops his singing and becomes still, alone in the empty cell. He jumps out of frame in the direction of the cell door. We cut to an exterior view, where the tiny flea watches Finnegan being dragged off.

"Then one fine spring morning, Finnegan walks out of prison a free man," the bartender/narrator tells us in voice-over. As he says this, we shift to a view of a guard's arm dragging Finnegan down the corridor (the arm is all we see of the guard--less to animate that way). Finnegan looks back toward his vacated cell.

"Charlie! Oh, Charlie..." he cries. We cut back to the flea sitting next to the bars on the cell door, as a tear falls.

"And so, Finnegan went back to the only trade he knew," the bartender says. In other words, pool hustling. Dissolve to the interior of a pool hall. It's very simplistically rendered--all we see are Finnegan, the table, and his mustachioed opponent against a simple red background. Finnegan's in "civilian" clothes now, in a green jacket and hat, while his opponent on the other end is wearing a brown vest and hat with a checkered shirt.

"Ah, but his hand had lost its skill," the bartender says, as we see Finnegan tearing the felt on the pool table when he tries to make his shot. Cut to the exterior, where Finnegan is the one
being "hustled"--out. He's given the "bum's rush" so quickly, his feet don't touch the ground for several seconds as he walks along.

Dissolve to a shot of Finnegan standing outside a brick building that's apparently a flophouse.

There's a sign on the building that reads ROOMS. Finnegan has his coat, now more ragged, pulled close to him. He has his hand out as a man with a white mustache comes into frame, gives him a dime, then passes out of frame. With enough money for the night, Finnegan turns around and goes inside. The camera trucks up for a quick shot of a red sign that reads BEDS 10 CENTS.

Dissolve to the interior. Beds are placed haphazardly in the large room inside--Finnegan's in the center, surrounded by a room full of snoring derelicts. He's lying sideways on a bare mattress,
fully clothed, his hat still on his head. He's using a newspaper as a "blanket." The camera trucks in closer, and the scene changes to a slightly different angle to show Finnegan asleep. As he's sleeping, we hear a voice--a familiar one--sing "It's A Hap- Hap- Happy Day." Yes, it's Finnegan's old friend Charlie...

Finnegan absently scratches himself, then wakes up to realize it's Charlie he hears. Sitting up on the mattress, he reaches into his coat.

"Charlie!" Finnegan says. We change to a close up of Finnegan cradling Charlie in his hands.

"Oh, Charlie, Charlie, how drab life has been without you!" We shift again to Charlie jumping down Finnegan's arm at the right of the screen, still singing. He hops onto Finnegan's newspaper "blanket," which just happens to be a copy of Variety. As the camera zooms in, we see a headline, TV IN NEED OF NEW TALENT.

"TV!" Finnegan says. "Charlie, this is our big chance!" He puts Charlie inside an empty matchbox and closes it.

Dissolve to the exterior of the "Less and Lesser Booking Agency". We see Finnegan through the window holding the matchbox as he approaches the booking agent's desk. This is pretty close to a direct copy of a similar scene in ONE FROGGY EVENING, if not as elaborately drawn. As with the scene in the Chuck Jones cartoon, we can see him talking, but can't hear him.

Cut to a closeup of the bald, mustached agent, who has a big cigar in his mouth. He's got his feet up on his desk and faces the audience. He has one eye open as he listens to Finnegan's spiel, which indicates he's either mildly interested or incredibly skeptical. "....And he sings, dances, talks, does impersonations....", we hear Finnegan say.

The agent completely changes his expression to one of excitement. He's much more easily convinced than Jones' hard-boiled agents. He leaps up, leans forward, looks in the general direction of the matchbox and says, "Where?"

"There!" Finnegan says just out of view, his arm pointing to the open matchbox. The agent looks again.

"Where?"
"There!"
"Who?"
"Him!"
"'Him' who?"
"Charlie!"
"The kid is not here!" the agent says.

We cut to a medium shot of Finnegan on the other side of the desk, leaning over to look at the now-empty matchbox. He checks the inside of his coat--first one side, then the other. As he's doing so, he hears a voice singing Bing Crosby's "Please", Crosby-style, complete with "buh-buh-boos." Finnegan cups one ear to hear better--Charlie's outside.

Cut to a side extreme close-up view of the agent as Finnegan comes into frame from the right.

"It's him!"
"Him who?" the agent says again.
"'Him' Charlie!"
"Where?" the frustrated agent asks as Finnegan off camera left. Cut to an exterior shot of the two of them at a window facing an alley. "There!" Finnegan says, pointing down to an area just offscreen.

We cut again to show a dachshund, on whom Charlie has obviously hitched a ride, then again to show the frantic Finnegan and the agent as they run down the street after it. Finnegan runs off-screen to the left as the agent follows. The next scene shows Finnegan holding the dachshund belly up, as the agent looks on.

Cut again to a front-view closeup of the agent. "The kid is good, yes?" Finnegan says. "There's no denyin' it, no??" The shocked agent (his pupils have shrunk to tiny dots of surprise) rapidly nods "Yes," then "No," to Finnegan's questions.

Cut to a shot of the two of them and the dog as disaster strikes--Finnegan sneezes. "Where's Charlie?" the agent asks...Alas, he's gone again.

Dissolve to another scene, apparently a considerable time later, as Finnegan prowls the city calling "Charlie!" First we see him in a "worm's eye" view, with a skyscraper looming behind him.

We then cut to a fire hydrant as a shaggy brown mutt approaches. Finnegan emerges from behind it and says, "Charlie??"

Then again to a woman at a bus stop, with a tiny long-haired dog on a leash. We only see the bottom of the woman's dress as Finnegan crawls behind her toward the dog. "Charlie??" he says.The woman's high-heeled foot comes down hard on poor Finnegan's head.

Dissolve to a dejected Finnegan as he walks through a park, his hand holding his coat closed. He hears a voice singing...

"Here we are,
Out of cigarettes..."

Cut to a bum sleeping on a park bench, from which the voice seems to be emanating. Yes, it's Charlie.

Finnegan comes into frame from the right, pulls the still groggy bum to his feet, and strips the guy's coat off. "Charlie!" he says. As we cut to a shot of Finnegan running down the street with the bum's jacket, he says, "This is it, kid! The big time!"

We fade to black and fade in to a view of the "WTV" studio building, seen from the bottom looking up. The camera zooms in closer on the sign's bright orange letters.

Fade to the interior, as we hear Charlie singing an operatic aria to a roomful of TV executives.

There are about two dozen of them seated at either side of a ridiculously long conference table, as the camera zooms in closer. There are almost no background details--just a beige wall and a blue floor.

It just occurred to me..how did a bum like Finnegan get past security with what would seem to be a cock-and-bull story about a singing flea? Did Charlie perform for the guards?

We fade to a shot of Finnegan and the agent, who are at the far end of the table with what presumably is the network president. The president is a man with a head like a football, a little brown hat perched on top. He has a scowling expression. (I think network executives are required to have scowling expressions--it's part of the job description). Finnegan is seated to the executive's left, while the agent stands. Charlie is in his blue matchbox right in front of Finnegan.


We cut to a closeup of the executive as Charlie finishes his number. As Charlie hits a high note, he jumps up in the air, and gradually comes down as the notes get lower.

Cut to the beaming Finnegan and the agent, and then back to the executive, who smiles (though oddly, he still has the scowl) and says, "Bravo! Bravo!" He applauds lightly.

"Gentlemen, a star is born..." the executive says.

Cut to a closeup of the agent. "Fifty thousand bucks a show, or we don't sign!" he says.

"Make it seventy-five," says the executive, "after all, what is money?" (This is a TV executive talking? What is he, delirious?)

Cut to a shot of Finnegan and the agent, as the executive's hand comes into frame with a contract. The elated Finnegan signs.

Cut again, to Finnegan running down the street with Charlie, on top of the world. "C'mon, Charlie! Let's celebrate!"

We cut to the interior of a bar--which, as you've probably noticed if you've seen this, is the same bar in which we open the story--as Finnegan comes into frame from the left and skids behind the counter.

"Bartender, champagne!" Finnegan says. Between the words "bartender" and "champagne" we cut from a medium shot of Finnegan and the bartender to a closeup of Finnegan, his arms spread wide in the air.

The scene changes to a closeup of a bartender, who's still wiping the glass he was cleaning when Finnegan came in. He's got a smirk on his face. "Sure, now! And where would a tramp like you be gettin' money for champagne?"

Cut back to Finnegan on the other side of the counter. "Money?" he says. "I struck it rich! I got a gold mine! Here..." he holds up Charlie's matchbox and dumps the flea out onto the counter.

Ducking down so he's peeking just over the edge of the counter, he points to Charlie.

Cut back to the bartender, who's looking toward the left of the screen in the direction of Finnegan and Charlie. "A flea?" he shouts. We cut again to see the palm of his hand come down on the counter, crushing poor Charlie.

"Charlie!" Finnegan says. It proves to be the last thing he ever utters. His dreams shattered with one swat, he stiffens like a statue and goes into catatonic shock, assuming the frozen position he had at the beginning of the cartoon.

Dissolve back to the present-day, more disheveled-looking Finnegan. The view then changes to show Finnegan, the bartender and the customer in medium shot.

"...And so, for thirteen long years, has Finnegan stood at my bar--his hopes, his future wiped out
by a swat of this stupid right hand," the bartender concludes. As he says this, we dissolve to a closeup of the bartender. On the words "stupid right hand", the bartender waves his hand, looking at it with a contemptuous expression, gritting his teeth.

We cut to a repeat of the earlier "feeding scenes", as the bartender says, "But...on the other hand, Finnegan's stomach will never be empty. I'll be seein' to that!"

With that, we leave poor Finnegan and the guilt-ridden bartender, their fates intertwined for what promises to be eternity, as the cartoon irises out.

I only have one question--how did the bartender come to know Finnegan's story? Finnegan never had time to tell him.

CONCLUDING THOUGHTS

As this cartoon is so often compared with ONE FROGGY EVENING, it's only fair I examine the differences.

While Chuck's cartoon was a tale of the perils of greed, there doesn't seem to be a moral of any
sort in FINNEGAN'S FLEA. Finnegan was just a poor schlub who found a friend and a way to improve both of their lives, only to have his one hope dashed through no fault of his own. As such, he's a more sympathetic character than Jones' unnamed construction worker, as we see he has a sensitive, compassionate side. Because Finnegan has a much easier time convincing others of the flea's talent than the money-blinded slob of Jones' cartoon did with Michigan J., we're fooled into thinking this version isn't as harsh, only to be slapped in the face by its utter cruelty in the end. As such, it has a much more profound effect psychologically, as we're driven to empathy not only for Finnegan's loss, but for the tremendous burden the bartender must carry with him. (Even if it's handled in a funny way).

It's also darker in the way it portrays Finnegan's life. Jones' construction worker had a job, which he threw away to pursue a pipe dream. Finnegan had nothing--he went from jail to a filthy flophouse and utter miserable poverty (which is potrayed with a surprising amount of realism for a simple cartoon--Finnegan's life isn't pretty). He actually looks as if he might escape it, and we end up rooting for the poor fellow even though we know how it ends. Jones' character had no hope of realizing his dreams--we knew it from the onset, even if we didn't know the outcome of the story, because we knew the guy would be done in by his own greed, and the laws of the cartoon universe. The frog would sing for no one but him, and he stubbornly refused to realize it. For the construction worker, the frog was a millstone around his neck he was gladly rid of. Finnegan lost the only friend he had, money or no money.

Jones' cartoon is an artistic masterpiece, fully animated and told entirely in pantomime. The only dialogue of any sort we hear comes from the frog when he's in full performance mode. The minimally-animated FINNEGAN'S FLEA has no such luxury, but even if it did, the dialogue and narration are necessary, as it helps us to know the characters. What the cartoon lacks in artistic quality, it makes up for in characterization. We care for these simply-drawn individuals, and for a little New York studio like Paramount/Famous, that's a monumental achievement.

Granted, the way Finnegan's fate is handled is ridiculously broad--we're led to believe this poor, shock-ridden soul could persist for years on pretzels and beer, without any of the...er, messier needs one would expect the bartender to have to attend to. (And the less we think about that, the better, believe me). Curiously, though, it's cartooniness doesn't detract from the emotion of the story. It's not ONE FROGGY EVENING--but in this case, that's a compliment.

In a way, writing this has been rather therapeutic for me, as it was proof, first of all, that I didn't dream this semi-nightmarish little film. Second, having seen it again for the first time in decades, I can watch it from a new, adult perspective, and see after all that it is in fact just a cartoon. Which is all the animators really wanted us to realize.

Tags: Toon+Gothic, Paramount/Famous, Finnegan's+Flea, Modern+Madcap, One+Froggy+Evening, orphan+toon, review-synopsis

An Open Letter To Filmmakers: Enough With The Live-Action Versions of Animated Films, Already!

I really shouldn't go to the Big Cartoon Database.

But to feed the huge, gaping maw that is this blog, I had to. I'm in the midst of writing reviews for two oddball little Paramount/Famous obscurities: GRATEFUL GUS and FINNEGAN'S FLEA. Well, "oddball" doesn't begin to describe these cartoons, but more about that later.

After learning of the death of Hawaiian entertainer Don Ho (whose song "Tiny Bubbles" made me want to scream--my dad had a tape of it that he played constantly) I picked up this disturbing bit of information about an upcoming live-action version of SPEED RACER.

I realize I'm only about the 3, 892, 425th person to say this (a rough estimate, I admit) but to quote Wile E. Coyote, "stop in the name of humanity!" Please!

I wasn't always opposed to live-action interpetations of cartoon characters--in fact, I once embraced them. Growing up, my introduction to the "Blondie" comic-strip characters actually came from old reruns of the 1950's TV series with Arthur Lake and Penny Singleton. If anything, I was a bigger fan of it than I ever had been of the actual comic strip, which says something about the abilities of Lake and Singleton. But that's about the last time the transition from pen-and-ink to screen actually worked.

I had even been initially excited years back when I first heard about the live-action FLINTSTONES, and that John Goodman would play Fred. If anyone were born to play a live-action Fred Flintstone, it would be John Goodman (though the animated version's original voice, Alan Reed, personified Fred even more). Then I saw the movie, and it finally occurred to me why such adaptations are a bad idea at least 99.8 percent of the time.

Why they don't work is simple--and yes, I realize that again I'm hardly the first to point this out--first, one can't make the transition from animated cartoon to live-action without losing something in the translation. Second, and perhaps most importantly, live-action versions of cartoons are an all too unpleasant reminder of how "unreal" the animated world truly is. Suspension of disbelief? Forget it--it crumbles into dust.

There are just some things that only "work" in animated form--that's why they're in animated form to start with. They can't be done in live action. In the animated realm, I can believe Fred Flintstone can drive to work in a foot-powered car, lounge on stone furniture, and operate a dinosaur crane. When I saw the live-action Fred doing the same things, it fell flat for me. Everything looked ponderous, ugly, and dull--in contrast to the the unlimited and unusual palette of the Hanna-Barbera cartoons, in which a yellow sky and magenta palm leaves hardly looked out of place.

There's been talk of a JETSONS movie, too. Care to imagine how the show's Rube Goldberg futuristic gadgets are going to look? I don't. And UNDERDOG, which takes place in a world in which humanized animals and humans interact, will fare even worse--especially considering they're going to use a "real" dog. Not that a CGI version would work any better. Imagine a four-foot "live-action" Mickey Mouse, and you see what I mean.

Scooby-Doo? The less said about that, the better. The ugly CGI dog in the live-action films, again, only worked against the fantasy element, not for it. Although I must say, Matthew Lillard is indeed "Shaggy" in the flesh. Sometimes even movie studios can get some things right.

Now we're getting SPEED RACER with living, breathing humans. Considering it was originally a manga, and then an anime series, and anime is generally grittier, and at least somewhat more rooted in cruel reality than the American product, maybe it'll work. Maybe. But I'm not willing to stake nine or ten dollars on it.

I more than anyone want to see old animated series preserved--just not like this.

Oh--the Don Ho connection? He apparently appeared in a direct-to-video Scooby movie. Why does the fact it's direct-to-video not surprise me?


Tags: Speed+Racer, Don+Ho, live-action, note+to+readers

A Terrytoons Double Bill, Part 2: Today's Lesson--Don't Give Two Cartoon Magpies THE POWER OF THOUGHT (1949)

The Power of Thought
Director: Eddie Donnelly
Release Date: Jan. 1949
In short: Heckle and Jeckle become self-aware, and try out their newfound power...

Cartoons at their best have always acknowledged the magical nature of the medium. If the artist can draw it, it can happen.

The earliest animators knew this, even before Gertie The Dinosaur bounded on-screen. In the experimental animation of Emile Cohl and J.S. Blackton, one object would morph into another in stream-of-consciousness fashion. The animated versions of Winsor McKay's comic-strip characters inexplicably changed shape and form, stretching and contracting like putty. In an early J.R. Bray film, THE ARTIST'S DREAM, the artist's creation (a cartoon dachsund) gorges on a plate of sausages until it bursts.

Throughout the twenties and into the thirties, impossibility reigned. Max Fleischer took us into nightmare worlds with hallucinatory fantasies like BIMBO'S INITIATION and MINNIE THE MOOCHER. In the former, a knife blade perilously close to Bimbo's rump sprouts eyes, a mouth, and a tongue as it licks its lips in anticpation. Should Betty Boop's dress come close to falling down (and it did quite a lot) a screen might come to life and discreetly "walk" in front of her to protect her modesty.

Even Disney's early films played with the possibilities of the medium--he had made his name with films in which a live-action little girl cavorted with pen-and-ink drawings, after all. In an early Mickey Mouse cartoon, THE BARN DANCE, clumsy dancer Mickey continually steps on poor Minnie's feet, his own feet growing with every step to illustrate his awkwardness. Her poor legs stretched hopelessly out of shape, Minnie merely snips off the excess with a pair of scissors, and ties the ends in a knot.

But Disney eventually chose to concentrate on personality and "realism", and by the mid-thirties even the Fleischer cartoons had followed suit. While this did a great deal to make animated characters seem like living, breathing individuals, it also stripped animated cartoons of the one great advantage it had over live-action. It took a rebellion by the likes of Tex Avery and Bob Clampett for cartoon studios to relearn how to be "cartoony."

Not Terrytoons. For them there was nothing to "relearn", since they'd never abandoned their now quaint "anything can happen" style. The studio existed in a sort of vacuum--their stories, gags, drawing style and even music stayed remarkably the same, year after year.

On the one hand, this attitude nearly doomed the studio to stagnation, on the other, it had the unexpected benefit of making Terrytoons a "time capsule" of sorts, preserving the freeform storylines and nonsensical animation of the silent and early sound eras. (As we've already seen in THE MAGIC PENCIL.) There seemed little reason to change: Terry generally ignored industry trends unless--naturally--they made money.

In the mid-forties, characters like Bugs Bunny and Woody Woodpecker were doing just that, so it didn't take long for Terry to put his own spin on them. Given a vague directive to do something involving "twins", Terry's artists came up with two wisecracking magpies, soon to be named Heckle and Jeckle. Strangely, in what's generally regarded to be their debut cartoon, THE TALKING MAGPIES (1946), the main characters are an unnamed magpie and his wife "Maggie", whose constant arguing disturbs neaby Farmer Al Falfa. They soon vanish from the story, and two other unnamed magpies take over.

They were, however, officially named later that year and launched in a series of their own. The majority were undistinguished: if Woody Woodpecker was an imitation Bugs Bunny, Heckle and Jeckle were an imitation Woody Woodpecker--split in two at that.

The ones that stood out, however, combined the raucous, wiseguy sensibility of the Warner's and Lantz cartoons with the freewheeling impossibility of the silents. THE POWER OF THOUGHT is one such cartoon: it dawns on Jeckle (for the record, Jeckle is the one with the British accent) that as cartoon characters, he and Heckle can do anything they think of. With great power, in this case, comes disaster, as they run afoul of a bulldog cop--who soon beomes their unfortune victim. For awhile, that is.

Curious? Then read on the for synopsis of THE POWER OF THOUGHT:

(Note: I know Heckle and Jeckle never addressed each other by name in the classic Terry
cartoons--but did in the later, Bill Weiss installments. Since I have to differentiate the two
somehow, for the purposes of this review, the British-accented one is Jeckle. That's my story and I'm sticking to it...R.)

The opening titles on the tape I have, I suspect, were not the originals--they look like the standard TV release titles in which Terry's name is missing (Terrytoons of this period were usually prefaced by a title that read "Paul Terry Presents.")

The title cuts alarmingly quickly to Jeckle lying in bed, which makes me believe there had been some rather clumsy editing. He sits with his legs crossed, dangling one foot. The scene cuts to a medium shot to reveal Heckle, who's sleeping in the same bed. Jeckle shakes him to wake him up. "You know, I've been lying here thinking," he says.


"With what, chum?" replies his eternally sarcastic friend.

We go back to a closeup shot of Jeckle. "Brains, old boy, brains..." Jeckle says, pointing to the top of his head.

The scene changes again, to a medium shot of the two of them. "Well, what have you been thinking about?" Heckle says.

Lounging with his hands behind his head, Jeckle says, "We cartoon characters can have a wonderful life, if we only take advantage of it. We can do anything we think of!"

"What do ya mean, chum?" Heckle says.

"Well, supposing I want to be a mouse," Jeckle replies. "Click! I'm a mouse..." As he says this he snaps his fingers, and indeed transforms into a mouse, with what might be called a "morphing" effect now. Mouse-Heckle then says, "Supposing I want to be myself again. Click! I'm myself again." He snaps his fingers, and turns back to his old self. He turns his head to the left of the screen and leans back with a self-satisfied smile. "Go ahead, give me something hard to do!"

More than up to the challenge, Heckle says, "OK, I like music. I bet you can't be a one-man band..."

"Why, of course I can," Jeckle says, and shrinks until he disappears.

He reappears--seeming to "grow" from out of nowhere--in the next scene, his arms raised like a conductor. I rather liked this effect, since it's a bit smoother than an abrupt cut in which he suddenly appears. "Ready?" he says.

A piano appears in front of Jeckle...we see him from the back of the instrument as he pounds out a simple boogie vamp. The piano disappears, seemingly absorbed into the floor. A trombone takes it's place, and Jeckle continues the boogie melody, his trombone pointed up in the air toward the right of the screen. He turns around briefly and faces the viewer holding a violin. It then dissolves to a set of drums, and Jeckle plays a lively drum solo.



Heckle, still in bed, jumps up and the camera follows him to the right as he starts to dance. This scene, incidentally, left me wondering if the scene had been retraced from earlier (possibly Mighty Mouse) cartoons, as the dance he was doing looked vaguely familiar. We cut back to Jeckle on drums--then back to trombone, then a trumpet, and back to drums again. (A missed opportunity here--he could have split into several versions of himself and done a really frenetic number, Tex Avery-style).


Cut to a medium shot of the bed as our heroes hop back in, emerging from the right of the screen.

"Say, that's great!" Heckle says, "How do you do it?" Jeckle just shrugs slightly and says, "I just think about it, and then it happens."

Above: Jeckle, the one-man--uh, magpie band....

We hear a dramatic chord on the sound track as Heckle says, "Do you suppose I could do it?" he says, pointing to himself. The wheels are definitely turning.

"Certainly--what would you like to do?" Jeckle asks.

Jeckle places his finger on top of his head, thinking for a moment. "I think I'd like to take a bath," he finally decides. With a snap of Jeckle's fingers, the scene changes and we find them both in a bathtub.

"Boy, this is grand!", Jeckle says, testing the water with his finger. "And just the temperature I like, too!" The camera angle changes slightly, to a three-quarter view of the tub, as he's saying
this.

Jeckle says, "Would you like to go for a swim now?"

"Boy, I sure would," Jeckle answers. The camera angle changes back to the original medium shot, showing all of the bathtub and our two heroes within. Jeckle says, "Well, just lengthen the tub and go ahead..."

They turn to the right, assuming swimming positons. They swim along in synch with each other, the tub expanding as they go. (They'd have been a hit at the Olympics if synchronized swimming existed then). Eventually it expands beyond the confines of their home: we cut to an exterior shot as the wall cracks and gives way, and the stretching tub pushes through.



Cut to the sidewalk below, where a bulldog cop stands watch at a corner, twirling his billy club.
(You know, it's impossible to write that without making it sound dirty somehow...) A few drops splash down from the drain of ever-growing tub above him. (Accentuated by a slight musical trill on the sound track).

Looking up at our heroes just off-camera, the cop shakes his fist and yells, "Hey! What's goin' on up there?"

Cut to Heckle and Jeckle peering over the edge of the tub. Spying the cop just out of viewing range, Heckle raises himself up slightly and says, "Uh-oh!" They make a quick retreat back toward their apartment building, as the tub contracts back into the gaping hole in the wall. Once the tub is back inside, the hole in the wall seals up on its own.

Before the tub fully contracts, however, one end drops down, causing it to dump its entire load of water on the poor unsuspecting cop, soaking him. As soon as the hole seals up, we cut quickly to the now-drenched cop below. Shaking his fist at our unseen heroes, he says, "I'll come up and
get you for this!"

The view changes to Heckle, looking down at the off-camera cop from an open window. "Okay, Chief," he says, pointing down with his finger, "just take the elevator."

The confused cop asks, "What elevator?" He doesn't have to wait long for the answer, as a section of the sidewalk on which he's standing starts rising in the air. We briefly cut to a shot of the window as Jeckle zips inside, and the cop zips into screen from the bottom of the frame.

Jeckle's quick exit is a nice little bit of "smear animation," which comes as a bit of surprise to me. I didn't know Terrytoons attempted anything that unusual--I suspect that particular sequence must have been animated by Jim Tyer, whose oddball animation style made him that studio's equivalent of Rod Scribner. (Kevin has a few things to say about Tyer in a future entry). The piece of sidewalk on which the cop stands bends downward a bit from the speed, making the bulldog a little unsteady on his feet.

A couple of quick cuts here, as we see Heckle looking at the glowering cop from the interior of the building. He slams the shutter, the blinds and closes the cutain--then "folds up" the window, widthwise and then lengthwise, until it disappears. Then to the exterior, where we see Jeckle enter into the scene from around the corner. "How is it up there?" he asks mockingly.

Another quick cut, a "worm's eye" view of the cop, still hovering in midair. "Get me down outta here!" he screams, fists clenched. Then back to Jeckle below, who "wills" a lever to appear, then pulls it.

Back to the cop above, as he plummets downward at incredible speed. The piece of sidewalk heads down so fast, the cop is momentarily suspended in midair, flailing a bit before he lands back onto it. Crouched on all fours, he has a panicked expression as he peers over the edge.

The cop and the section of sidewalk hit the ground with such force they end up several feet underground. Heckle (or Jeckle, it's unclear at this point) slides a wooden box marked DISHES over the gaping hole. We see brief evidence of a rumbling underneath the box as the cop speeds back upward--breaking through it, he again rises several stories, struggling to carry about a dozen or so dishes. The section of sidewalk comes to a sudden stop--the deceleration causes the cop to flip head-over-heels through the air, but he comes back down on his feet, rescuing the dishes.

"Get me down outta here!" the cop repeats to his off-camera tormenters.

Back on the ground, Jeckle, standing to the left of the screen, says "You heard the gentleman..."

Heckle, on the right, immediately produces a fireman-style ladder, which rises from his two hands. It vibrates slightly as it unfolds.

Back now to the cop, still in midair, as the ladder emerges from the bottom of the frame. He steps gingerly off the floating piece of concrete with his left foot as he continues to balance the dishes.

The piece of sidewalk wobbles slightly as he--just barely--makes it onto the top rung, dishes intact.

Unfortunately, the ladder comes apart--the rungs collapse on top of one another as he zooms downward, the camera following him all the while. On the ground, Heckle and Jeckle stare up gaping at the disaster about to occur. They duck and put their hands over their eyes as we hear an off-camera cymbal crash.Terrytoons still used musical instruments for the majority of their sound effects, even at this late date.

Cut to the dazed cop amid the debris of broken ladder and dishes. A cloud of dust rises in the air around him. He slowly rises and and disappears from the right of the frame, re-emerging in the next scene as he approaches the smug-looking magpies. He leans over them, fists clenched.

"Hey! What's this all about??" he shouts.

"We're cartoon characters," Jeckle says."We can do anything we think of. Just watch this..."

He proceeds to make a fist and waves his hand over it like a magician. He flicks his thumb, which immediately "lights" as if it were a match. Cupping his other hand and sticking his other thumb in his mouth, he sticks the flame down into his cupped hand and puffs as if he were smoking a pipe.

Jeckle casually blows some smoke as the dumbfounded cop looks on.

We cut to a close-up of the cop, who remarks, "Say, that's wonderful!" Unthinkingly, he flicks his own thumb, pointing to it with pride as it lights, not full aware of what he's just done. His thumb glows red-hot, and the heat quickly spreads down to the rest of his hand.

"Hey!" the cop shouts, when he realizes his entire hand has now burst into flame. As he waves it frantically to put it out, we go back to Heckle and Jeckle, who scramble around in circles yelling
"Water, water!!" Jeckle transforms into a hydrant as Heckle releases the water with a twist of a wrench.

Hydrant-Jeckle releases an enormous cascade of water toward the burning cop, the force of which sends the cop back what appears to be several yards.

We cut back to Heckle and Hydrant-Jeckle. Jeckle transforms back into himself and takes off with Heckle toward the right of the screen as the cop comes into view close behind them. We then move to a medium shot of Heckle and Jeckle running, then skidding to a stop. Jeckle morphs into a streetlight, which the pursuing cop instantly slams into, his momentum causing it to bend slightly. It snaps back, throwing the cop to the ground.

The streetlight morphs back into Jeckle, who says "See what I mean?"

The enraged cop tries to strike Jeckle several tmes with his billy club, but it has no effect, going through Jeckle as if he were transparent. The cop momentarily looks at his club, puzzled. As he does so, Jeckle suddenly disappears, and a set of footprints appear on the sidewalk from nowhere. The camera trucks right as the cop follows the moving footprints into an open grassy area. "I'm on the right track now", he comments to the audience.

How right he is, since a set of railroad tracks immediately appear beneath him. Oblivious, the cop continues sneaking along, then breaks into a run.

He skids to a stop, gaping in horror at the action off-screen. Cut to a shot of an anthropomorphic train--complete with "eyes"--barreling toward him. We cut to the cop, fleeing desperately to the left, then skidding to a stop again--hands over his eyes--as the train appears to run over him. He looks down to discover he's unharmed, and the tracks have disappeared.

Putting his hands on his hips, he remarks to the audience, "I don't get it!" He'll "get it," all right, as we cut to a medium shot of Heckle and Jeckle in a rowboat, "rowing" in mid-air. Jeckle sings "Row, Row, Row Your Boat" while Heckle rows, as we cut again to the cop. The shadow of our heroes' boat can be seen passing directly overhead. The boys' oars hit the cop on the back of the head, knocking him down. The cop goes into a fighting pose and draws his pistol, shooting at the
offscreen Heckle and Jeckle.

The bullets hit their rowboat, sending it falling and our heroes out of frame. One can see the two large gaping holes in the bottom as it plummets. Meanwhile, on the ground, the cop is still shooting into the air, only to be hit by the falling boat, which smashes to bits over his body.

The impact has forced the cop's Keystone Kops-style policeman's hat down over his eyes, almost all the way down to his bulldog jowls. He pulls the hat off his head and sits there in disgust. "It's about time I got some BRAINS knocked into my head," he says.



The cop gets up on his feet--we immediately change to a closeup shot of his noggin. Right on
cue, a large hammer appears and raps him several times on the skull. The cop likes it, it turns out, as he has a pleased--if somewhat goofy--look on his face. "Do it again! Do it again!" he shouts.

The hammer complies, hitting him a few more times on the head. His head vibrates slightly as thoughts clearly enter his mind (more Tyer animation, perhaps?)

"That's it--now I'm thinkin'!" he says. We cut to an extreme closeup of the top of the cop's head, as we see the clockwork gears in his brain tick away in a "cutaway" view.

The inner workings of a cartoon character's

mind...

Now "enlightened," the cop throws his pistol off-camera past the left of the frame. In the next shot we see it's grown enormous--it fires shot after shot as it moves under its own power across the screen, from right to left.

We cut again, this time to a medium shot of the panic-stricken magpies as they're pursued by the gigantic firing pistol. Soon, instead of bullets, a bear trap emerges from the barrel of the gun, which not only grabs Heckle and Jeckle as it clamps down, but morphs into a set of "stocks" on a wheelbarrow, ensnaring our heroes.

"I say, what happened?" the perplexed Jeckle says. "Yeah, what happened?" says Heckle.

Cut one last time to a close up of the cop, who says, "I'm a cartoon character too--and I've been doin' some thinkin' myself..." The vindicated cop winks at the audience.

Ah, yes--unlike poor, simple Gandy Goose, the boys are left to ponder their careless use of power as the cartoon irises out.

CONCLUDING THOUGHTS

"In one of these here cartoon pictures, a body can get away with anything," says the aged hillbilly of Tex Avery's A FEUD THERE WAS. The idea of the self-aware cartoon character was not new in 1949--Avery, Clampett and others had toyed with it in numerous cartoons--but to Avery, Clampett, et. al., it was nothing more than a throwaway joke. The artists at Terrytoons went one step further to build an entire cartoon around the concept--a fresh, clever twist for that time, particularly coming from the likes of Terrytoons.

I must say this cartoon is a pleasant surprise--in my dim memories of decades ago, this cartoon was quite lackluster, but it proved funnier and more rapid-fire than expected. Old studio hand Eddie Donnelly was no Tex Avery, certainly, but he did a more than passable job in executing the central premise. There was certainly faster action than I remembered, as well as more "extreme" poses and expressions. The cross-eyed, goofball look on the bulldog cop's face as he shouts "Do it again! Do it again!" is truly a sight to behold. This is THE MAGIC PENCIL done as it ought to have been, minus the faux Victorian melodrama, and with far more interesting characters. (Terry's curious obsession with Victorian melodrama parodies could probably comprise an entire post in itself). As I said in the introduction, it's Fleischeresque "old school" meets Warner's insanity--truly the best of both worlds.

THE POWER OF THOUGHT, like the postwar product of every other studio, shows the effect of cutbacks in production: fewer characters per frame, quicker cuts, having action take place off screen rather than on, and much more dialogue. Yet in Terrytoons' case, such cutbacks led to better cartoons, as the animators were forced to rev up the timing--they couldn't afford to linger on one scene very long. Terry's cartoons were now not only bizarre, but the weirdness came at you a mile a minute.

Yet I can't seem to shake the nagging feeling this cartoon needed something more. More of what, I can't be certain--more gags, faster pacing (though it was quite fast as it was, at least by Terry standards) more clever banter--maybe all of those things. The animators seemed at the same time to be restrained, yet champing at the bit to show what they could do. I suspect Terry's often unwelcome interference prevented this cartoon from being as funny as it could have been, but as it is, it's one of the rare standouts amid a flood of mediocrity.

It gives us a glimpse of the Terrytoons that might have been, had its artists been given as much control as those at Warner's, MGM and Lantz. (Much as the Gene Deitch cartoons would do
years later).

Not bad, old top, as Jeckle might have said.

Tags: Heckle+and+Jeckle, Terrytoons, Paul+Terry, The+Power+Of+Thought, orphan+toon

Kevin's View: The Worlds of Hugh and Rudy

A NOTE FROM RACHEL As always, Kevin and I want to maintain your interest--the recent revamping of the blog was done with that in mind. Providing consistent, engaging content has always proved a challenge, given the amount of time necessary to produce the reviews that are the mainstay of this blog. To do such reviews daily is easier said than done--I only have two hands, and there are only so many hours in a day. As a result there has been
far too much "lag time," and that stops now. It's unfair to you fans to not find something new and different every day.

With that in mind, I'm inaugurating a new feature on this blog, or rather, the reworking of an old one. Kevin and I have in the past posted our personal correspondence here, but the constant switching back and forth between his comments and mine has no doubt confused and frustrated some of you. Therefore, from here on I'll be posting Kevin's comments--uninterrupted by me--in the form of a column called "Kevin's View." My answer will follow, in a section called "Rachel's Response"--also uninterrupted. You'll no doubt notice some other interesting changes. Whenever possible, pictures will be included to illustrate certain scenes we're discussing, whether stills from films or sketches by me. You'll also get to see, for the first time, what my "mysterious" friend Kevin looks like. He has given me permission to post his image--taken from his Cartoon Network stint--on the blog as his column header. With that, I'll let Kevin take it from here...

Happy 'Tooning,
Rachel Newstead

Ah yes, the full outline of BOSKO'S EASTER EGGS was a fine enough surprise, the next best thing to having all nine BOSKO cartoons out on a comprehensive DVD set complete with commentary tracks--but isn't that what you are trying to do with this blog-give a kind of "commentary" on the cartoon while supplying descriptions of elements in each scene that are striking to the eye and should indeed be noted as people watch for the first or umpteenth time?

It is indeed interesting that both Bosko and Honey do show a great deal of personality in their body language and in the way the scenes are paced. This sort of experimental characterization is, perhaps, what might bug people about the HAPPY HARMONIES and,especially, the very expensive, expansive animation of the duo when they returned to MGM in1939, creating cartoons at MGM' s cartoon studio instead of their own, but it is true that the BOSKO toons are speedier than, perhaps, the entirety of the remainder of the HAPPY HARMONIES put together, although the Ising-directed TWO PUPS cartoons come in a close second in cartoons such as PUPS PICNIC and WAYWARD PUPS.

In BOSKO'S EASTER EGGS we certainly do get the best of both worlds here. We get the frantic hints of cartoon license with characters zooming this way and that in pop-eyed takes or trading dialogue as if we' d truly believe that the characters onscreen were merely drawn over live action footage of kids acting out each moment. Harmon &Ising liked using the "dissolve" a great deal more than most cartoonists. They liked using it instead of a camera pan across to the characters who would be in the same scene, whereas animators in other studios, including Disney, might just have the camera pan across to reveal something ominous approaching left or right of what was going on center-stage in the previous moment. Whether this was done as a time-saving chore or not, it is an odd visual to use.

Most of the time, such dissolves were used to represent passing time, but Harmon and Ising useit to give us the impression of how many things are going on at the same time in the same place, kind of like how the eye moves about a live stage as one scene begins taking our attention away from the previous moment of interraction. This effect has always gotten me thinking that, by now, we would have created an animated feature using multiple screens so audiences do get more of a dimension out of the images all around us. Why I was the only one, or so it seems, who got this idea is a real curiosity to me!

From reading this description, I also get the feeling that this is one of those few HAPPY HARMONIES in which two or more characters are interacting onscreen, a rare occurrence in decades hence as the effect certainly costs a great deal more to do, and I don't know what it takes for animators to synchronize the moves of two characters timing in a given scene together!! This may have led to some folks believing that Harmon or Ising used rotoscoping more than we suspected initially. There are some harmon/ising cartoons that bounce uncomfortably between total realism and cartoonishness, but there are others in which the link between the real and the surreal is startlingly accurate and the BOSKO cartoons are perfect examples of this, as you've outlined in earlier reviews.

It also should be pointed out that this cartoon is ultimately a cartoon about country kids living in farm areas where eggs were the source of food and vegetables grown from the ground also ended up on family tables. So barnyard gags like these went on all the time both in
real life and in so many cartoons that were inspired by farm living from day to day and, judging from the bulk of Harmon/ising cartoons of any age, I get the impression that the guys grew up in that environment.

So, at times, when compared to the SILLY SYMPHONIES, cartoons like this not only
work in showing an amazing range of character development, unfortunately at the point in which some characters were almost being phased out instead of further developed in future cartoons,
this ranks right up there among Disney' s best of this period. Although this is a HAPPY
HARMONIES title, usually full of cute little songs and singing animals or humans, this is clearly a situation comedy of sorts, making me wonder just what these characters would have been
capable of if used again when the duo returned to MGM after 1939. Let\rquote s not forget that
there were OUR GANG comedies to inspire the guys back then, and Hal Roach\rquote s
comedies were also at their peak, with some of the kids quite adept at pantomime and
double-takes of their own, even sometimes enhanced by animation to give the take that surreal edge within the live action framework.

As I've stated, you should read the Leonard Maltin/Richard Ban book, OUR GANG, THE LIFE AND TIMES OF THE LITTLE RASCALS to see what I mean. Read the full description of THUNDERING FLEAS for example, and then read through my outline of CIRCUS DAZE\rdblquote as found and dimly remembered on bcdb.com. I tend to think that CIRCUS DAZE was a cartoon only because one could not possibly put such situations into live action without people or animals getting seriously hurt!!

Lastly, I do, like you, wish that Honey continued on into the BOSKO TRILOGY, as we fondly have called the last three BOSKO musical titles with the jazzy frogs of THE OLD MILL POND and SWING WEDDING. Retaining Honey could have inspired many a musical number, like a jazzier Darla hood or something. The possibilities boggle the mind in retrospect! Makes me wonder why the duo weren't thinking with such clarity if I do say so myself.

Certainly BETTY BOOP cartoons had almost the same situations with Betty always launching into song even as she found herself in peril, and we loooved her for it. I wanted Honey to have as many delicious qualities about her, albeit more like Darla Hood, as I said, than curvaceous Betty. And they had enough talented kids at the studio at the time to give Honey just the right amount of everything I' ve outlined here. It is nice that you again point out Honey' s chattering in surprise, awed by every moment in a given scene, adding something wonderful to her character. I love the moment in which she is going on about how beautiful the newly born chicks look ("d'ere' s a green one an' a blue one an'...d' ere' s one all polky-dotty...") It is a character trait that not only toys with dialect but defines a certain part of this country very clearly. It is that type of humor so misunderstood today and misused by those who wish to stereotype rather than understand its source of inspiration.

RACHEL'S RESPONSE

Kevin's OUR GANG analogy perfectly describes the nature of the Bosko cartoons, as if
Buckwheat had been spun off as an animated character to appear in a series of "adventures" of
his own, but truthfully, the Bosko cartoons transcended race, becoming instead something in which people of any race can find common ground. Perhaps without realizing it, Harman and Ising had unlocked the secret to what made the OUR GANG films so special in the Hal Roach era: "real" stories about "real" kids. While both the Bosko cartoons and the OUR GANG films would climax in cartoonish insanity, the kids seemed like kids, doing the things kids do, if in a somewhat exaggerated way: going to the circus, fending off hostile, recalcitrant creatures both large and tiny, and getting into general mischief, as Bosko did in BOSKO'S EASTER EGGS.

That MGM acquired the rights to OUR GANG in 1938, just a short time after Harman/Ising's days at the studio ended, is a tragedy of missed timing.

The two series would have complemented one another perfectly, with the animated version perhaps looking a bit better in the bargain. Bosko could have gained other kid friends--perhaps a little brother (though I consider the "L'il Ol' Bosko" of the Jazz Frogs Trilogy to be a "little brother" of sorts to the original version) while Honey could have stepped into the Darla Hood role in more ways than just musically. Darla, like most of the girls one saw among the gang, usually existed as a complication to the boys' schemes--disturbing the boys' "paradise" of the He-Man Woman Hater's Club, for instance--and Honey could have adapted to play a similar role. If anything, it might have worked better with Honey, since the character's personality was more clearly delineated than Darla's.

Hugh and Rudy indeed knew the rural sections of the country well, and how rural people behaved. And well they should, as they--like Walt Disney--were Kansas City boys (an aspect I shamefully neglected to mention in Sunday's review).They reveled in bucolic cartoons--whether broad, impossible slapstick like the earliest Oswald and Mickey silents, or gentle with moments of broad humor, as in the Bosko cartoons. Their celebration of nature led to cartoons like THE BLUE DANUBE and TO SPRING, both an explosion of realistic beauty and color. Those who dismiss such cartoons as slow and cloying have to understand Hugh and Rudy's background--they wanted to share the natural beauty they remembered with the public. It's a love that should resonate in the minds of the environmentally-conscious young people of the 21st century. Harman and Ising portrayed a world they feared was rapidly disappearing.

They did go through something of an awkward "adolescence" during their first years at MGM,
shifting uncomfortably sometimes between their earlier, cruder style and the gentler, more
"realistic" one. In some cartoons it actually added to the sense of enjoyment, as shorts like
CIRCUS DAZE shift back and forth between near-realism and bug-eyed cartoony takes. Yet in
films in which they tried to be "serious", as in TALES OF THE VIENNA WOODS, they'd fall on
flat on their faces, as their ambition far outstripped their artistic ability. I've included some
samples here to show what I mean:

In the opening seconds, the view dissolves from an almost perfectly-rendered realistic drawing of a fawn to a rubber-limbed, round-headed, goggle-eyed creature that wags its tail like a puppy. It wouldn't have looked too out of place in a 1932 Looney Tune--in the span of a second or two, we're suddenly back in "rubber-hose" territory, and it comes close to destroying the mood of the film.

During that rough "shakedown" period, they resorted to some pretty ingenious ways to hide any artistic shortcomings. It's no accident that many cartoons from that era featured toys as main
characters, as in THE CALICO DRAGON, THE OLD PLANTATION, and TOYLAND BROADCAST.

The last of the three takes place in the realistic surroundings of a child's bedroom, but one in
which the child is nowhere to be seen. The little girl in the opening moments of THE CALICO
DRAGON by necessity takes up very little screen time, as it was clear they were still not quite
sure how to portray a human child realistically. As one can see from the image I've included, she
seems almost as doll-like as her toys:

By using characters that were meant to be "unreal", such as toys, Harman and Ising could use
characters equally at home in realistic surroundings or worlds of pure fantasy. Once they found
their artistic footing, such devices were no longer necessary; though they did use their ability to
combine the broad with the starkly real in PEACE ON EARTH--a cartoon meant to be emotionally
jarring, yet a fine example of their artistic "maturity."

When Kevin wrote of Harman and Ising's use of the "dissolve" as a storytelling device, I
immediately began to wonder: were they indeed the first to use "montage" in animation (the term I think Kevin was searching for) rather than Frank Tashlin, as generally believed? I couldn't come up with any evidence of their use of such a technique before Tashlin, but they do come close in CIRCUS DAZE. Though in fact, the opening scenes were more a series of rapid successive dissolves than a true montage. We move between nearly-overlapping shots of a
"test-your-strength" meter, to a dishonest hot-dog vendor, to a charging elephant, to a laughing
clown. While not strictly montage, it serves the same purpose--establishing the atmosphere and
the premise quickly so we can get on with the story--yet more proof their cartoons were not
agonizingly slow.

How, then, could anyone say these men lacked creativity, imagination, or humor?


Tags: Harman-Ising, Kevin+Wollenweber, Rachel+Newstead, Kevin's+View, Rachel's+Response, Bosko+and+Honey, Our+Gang, Leonard+Maltin

"De Easter Time Is De Time For..." BOSKO'S EASTER EGGS (1937)

Bosko's Easter Eggs
Release Date: March 20, 1937
Director: Hugh Harman
In short: Honey plays "mother hen" both literally and figuratively, while Bosko "hatches" a plan for her Easter present...

It's Easter here in Wisconsin--meaning that as little children gather their eggs, they have to brush off the snow.

Yet it is Easter, even as the last remnants of winter hold tight. A time for bright colors, to marvel at the wonder of renewal. A time for...cartoons.

Well, not that, perhaps. But we take a little diversion from our scheduled program to uncover this Easter surprise from 1937, featuring Harman and Ising's greatest creations, Bosko and Honey.

As I've often said, both privately and on this blog, Honey is my favorite character of the two, for the simple reason that she had the most personality. Bosko, however, comes into his own in this
cartoon, revealing a mischievous, devious side not typical of him. How shall I put this? For now,
let's just say he concocts a "creative" scheme to acquire an Easter present for his friend Honey.
How? Read on...

The MGM lion and opening credits dissolve to the title, in which the letters look as if they've been

"painted" in Easter colors, with the paint still dripping off them.

We iris in on Bosko (in his now-trademark overalls and straw hat) walking down a country pathwith trees and spring flowers in the background. Bruno follows close behind, sniffing along as he
goes. As should be familiar to anyone who's seen the MGM Boskos, Bosko chants in rhyme:

"I'm takin' Honey some Easter eggs, An' de basket's full, if dey don't drop out, I'll step real soft so de shells won't crack, If she don't like 'em, I can take 'em back!"

This little rhyme, combined with Bosko's surprisingly mature voice (more fitting for an adolescent, really, than a child) illustrates his newfound cockiness, as does the myriad expressions he exhibits in freeze-frame: jutting out his lower lip and breaking into his ever-present grin.

Immediately after he finishes speaking, he trips, falling on his rear and causing the basket to land on its side, just to his right. The eggs are unharmed, though a few roll out of the basket. Rising to his feet, he turns to the right, puts his hands on his hips, and addresses Bruno (off-camera):

"Doggone you, Bruno! How come you always gotta stomp so much?!" (Fairly quick to pass the
blame, he is--which will land him in more than a bit of trouble later on). "Now you come on!"

Placing his straw hat back on his head, he grabs the basket and resumes his rhyme:

"Now I'm takin' Honey some Easter eggs,
An' de one is green, an' de other blue.."

Meanwhile...the scene dissolves to reveal Honey, in her ever-present yellow dress, crouched on
her knees to the right of the screen. She's in a chicken coop--we see her pet hen, Biddy, on the
left of the screen hatching a nest full of eggs. "C'mon, Biddy! Drink!" Honey urges, leaning forward slightly on the word for emphasis. "Like this..."

She proceeds to demonstrate for Biddy, putting her head down in the hen's water dish and miming drinking, in the manner of a chicken: taking a small sip, then putting her head back, "swallowing" in short gulps. Biddy follows her lead.

"That's it!", Honey says. Turning, she grabs an ear of corn and starts to scrape kernels from the
cob onto the ground, being her usual chatty self all the while. "Now I'm gonna get you some nice corn, and you're gonna set real still, an' you're gonna hatch out a whole bunch of little Easter chickies!" (On the words "whole bunch," she spreads her arms in the air). "Now you be sure toset right tight on them eggs," she continues, moving to the left. She stands just outside the open coop, leaning forward, hands on hips, still chattering as the scene dissolves.

We return to Bosko, still walking along and chanting in rhyme. In the background are trees and a small creek:

"Now de Easter time is de time for eggs,
An' de time for eggs is de Easter time..."

As he speaks the second line, he walks up a plank to the top of a picket fence, as Bruno follows
along on the ground just to his left. Gingerly stepping along as he dangles the basket precariously on one arm, he continues his chant:

"an' I pray de Lord,
as I climb de fence,
Dat I ain't gonna tear my Sunday pants!"

Unfortunately, tearing his pants turns out to be the least of his worries, as he trips on a
fencepost, sending him reeling backward and causing him to let go of his precious basket of
eggs. He lands right on the basket, crushing the delicate eggs and flipping the basket up in the
air. It lands--straight down on his head. He sits covered in the messy remnants as they run down his entire body. (Word of advice, Bosko--you might try boiling them next time before you color them).

The scene cuts to Bruno, about to get into a tussle with Biddy, who's understandably protective of her eggs. Bruno is crouched as if to spring on her--he doesn't, however, instead panting happily. He wants those eggs! Biddy knows he does, and grows ever more agitated, jumping up and down and lunging at him. As Bruno sniffs and smacks in anticipation, Biddy grabs his nose and pulls it, stretching it like a rubber band. It reacts like a rubber band, too, snapping him back several feet, causing him to run into a barrel. He gets up and runs off camera right, yowling.

Bruno, still looking behind him, runs past Bosko, who's just now removed the muck-filled basket
from his head. Bruno bumps into him as he runs by, forcing Bosko's face back into the mess.
(Isn't it strange how clean Bosko's clothes are, considering that a moment before he was sitting in crushed egg goo? I want that material!)

"Doggone, Bruno! Now see what you done!" (That's right--blame the poor defenseless dog. Just
who was it on that fence, hmmmm?). "You ruined the Easter time!" As Bosko continues to berate him off camera, we see Bruno--with a forlorn expression--emerging from a clump of plants and weeds near a broken part of the fence. He cowers, putting his paws over his head.

Bosko starts to speak (it sounds something like "Now I've not got de...") only to cast a startled
glance off camera. His expression instantly changes to glee, and he snaps his fingers. Care to
guess what he sees? He starts to creep slowly forward, saying "De Easter time is de time for..."

Cut to Biddy on her nest as Bosko emerges from the right of the frame, standing just outside the
entrance to the chicken coop. He cranes in for a look--in his mind, Biddy disappears to reveal a
nest full of...brightly colored Easter eggs! He's got Honey's present after all--even if it is her own
eggs.

He struts by carrying his empty basket--now curiously free of egg remnants--past Biddy,
pretending to be nonchalant. He turns to face Biddy, pouring on the phony charm:

"Why hello, Miz Chicken! You sho' is lookin' mighty scrumptuous today!" He walks back toward
the right of the screen, Biddy following his every move. He leans forward and winks at Biddy. He looks back and forth, then back toward Biddy: "Well! Just look at all dem eggs!" he says with a
back-and-forth emphatic gesture of his arms, and a sly grin on his face. "You sure is powerful
uncomfortable sittin' on all dose eggs...now you just better let me kinda get in here and help
you..."

As he's saying this, he slowly picks up the basket with his right hand and reaches in for the eggs
with his left. Biddy will have none of it--she leaps up in the air and lunges toward Bosko, sending
him out into the foliage. He moves so quickly, all we can see of him is a red streak. (A speed
trick Harman and Ising have used with Bosko before, most notably in THE OLD HOUSE).

The camera follows him toward the right as he continues running, gradually slowing down when
he's a safe distance from the furious Biddy. He walks a few more cautious steps and turns about,
repeating his earlier rhyming refrain: " De Easter time is de time for eggs, and de time for eggs is
de Easter time..."

Cut back to Biddy on her nest, who's settled back in and calmed down somewhat. Bosko
approaches from the right of the screen, tiptoeing along. Apparently slow to learn, Bosko repeats his "Hello, Miz Chicken!" routine (pardon my cynicism, but this may have been an excuse for
Harman to reuse the animation of the earlier scene).

But this time, our friend Bosko has a slightly different plan in mind. Grabbing the ear of corn
Honey discarded earlier, he says, "How 'bout you eatin' some of dis here corn, and makin'
yourself all nice and fat...." As he says this, he walks along toward camera left, scraping off corn
as he goes. He launches into his "Easter Time" refrain off-camera as Biddy gobbles up the kernels of corn.

Bosko continues his refrain as he heads toward a chicken-wire pen:.."and do you know what I'm thinkin' when, you get locked up in de pen!" He sets down the ear of corn, moving slowly to the right of the screen as Biddy passes him in the opposite direction, still intent on getting the corn. If she only knew what was coming!

Biddy jumps up as she hears an off-camera door slam--she's been tricked! Jumping up in the air, she speeds toward the now-locked door. Unable to find a way out there, she runs here, there and everywhere around the pen searching for a way out. Meanwhile...

The scene dissolves to show a close-up shot of a basket filled with colored eggs--Biddy's eggs!

The camera pans right to show Bosko hastily painting an egg bright red while repeating his
"Easter Time" chant. On the words, "de time for eggs is de...," he very nearly loses his grip on
the egg he's just painted, tripping and bobbling it as he goes to the basket.

"Easter time..." he says with a sigh of relief, as he approaches the nearly-full basket.

As he walks along carrying the basket on his left arm, he continues:

"An' I pray de Lord,
Dat de pen hold tight,
Fo' if she get loose,
She'll cook my goose!"

Seeing Honey off-camera, he calls to her: "Honey! Oh, Honey!"

We dissolve to Honey, who's holding a watering can and watering some flowers. Pleasantly
surprised, she turns to Bosko, who has just emerged into the right of the screen with the
disguised basket of purloined eggs. "Bosko! Fo' me??" she says.

Holding the basket high above his head--you'd think he'd learn not to be so careless--he says,
"Yes, fo' you!" Leaning forward and clasping her hands under her chin, she gushes, "Bosko, I
think dey is just ab-dominal!" (An expression of hers almost common enough to be a catchphrase by this time). "Where did you get these love-"

Before the last word even comes out of her mouth, she imagines Biddy perched on top of the
eggs. Her expression changes from shock to suspicion to anger: her fists clench.

Cut to a close up of Honey, leaning forward, hands on hips: "Bosko...where did you get dem
eggs? WHERE DID YOU GET DEM EGGS?"

When she says this the second time, we cut to Bosko, cringing, with his head turned away.

"W--w-w-well, I j-j-just passed by..." he stammers, pointing in all directions.

Cut to a medium shot with both Bosko and Honey in frame. "Yeah, passed by and an' took poor
Biddy's eggs--that what you done!" Her expression changes to sadness.

Suddenly, the eggs in the basket start to jump around as we hear a tapping noise. The eggs are
hatching! Running around and becoming frantic and flustered, she shouts, "Oh, Bosko...the eggs!
Hurry, quick! Poor Biddy.." Grabbing Bosko by the arm, she takes him and the basket of eggs
toward the coop. We view them standing just outside, from the coop's darkened interior.

Bosko, unfortunately, has neglected to tell her he locked Biddy up. Noticing the empty nest,Honey looks toward Bosko, who grimaces.

"Oh, she's gone!" Honey exclaims. "Now Biddy's done left the maternity ward (I always liked this line!) and dem eggs are getting cold..."

Bosko, being even more agitated then Honey (not to mention guilty) hops back and forth on one foot, then the other, stammering, "p-p-put the eggs on the nest. Bruno'll keep them warm!"

Cut to a very worried Bruno, who's been standing next to the plank at the end of the picket fence (the same one Bosko had climbed earlier, just before he broke his own eggs). Bruno looks off
camera left with a worried expression, and tries in vain to sneak away.

Bosko comes into frame and grabs Bruno's collar, dragging Bruno toward the coop. "C'mon,
Bruno--you is gonna be a mama!"

Dissolve to Honey crouched on her knees back in the coop, placing the now-multicolored eggs back on the nest. "De very idea..." she mutters, then starts chattering angrily in rapid-fire dialogue that's incomprehensible to me. Bosko emerges from the right, still dragging Bruno. He places the struggling dog on top of the eggs, saying "Come on, Bruno--easy now--that's it!"

Honey emerges with some clothing, placing it on Bruno as he fights to get away. "Here now, you get this here...bonnet on...and this here shawl! (I've heard of "method acting", but this is ridiculous). "And come quick, Bosko! Let's find Biddy!" She rushes out, disappearing to the left of the frame. Bosko in freeze-frame has a big wide grin on his face--he's clearly delighted with either his own cleverness or Bruno's plight. Poor dog.

As a parting shot to the mortified Bruno, Bosko says, pointing his finger at him, "Y-y-y-we made the bed--now YOU lay in it!" That pretty much seems to be Bosko's philosophy in this cartoon, if his actions up to now are any indication.

Honey re-emerges, grabbing Bosko by the arm--the camera tracks to the left, following Honey as she pulls Bosko along. "Come on Bosko--hurry!"

Cut to the pen, where the frustrated Biddy is still trying to find a way out, jumping and squawkiing madly. She succeeds, heading through an improbably small opening. Hopping mad, she looks frantically around and heads back in the direction of the coop, camera right.

Cut to a very depressed Bruno, still on the nest. Even the sound track mocks him, playing an old song (which I think is called--and you readers are free to correct me if I'm wrong--"My Dear
Mother.") He snuffles in self-pity and puts his paw under his chin. (Note: the version I'm using in this review, taken from YouTube, seems to cut some brief sections out. As I recall, Bruno
incongruously speaks here, as he did in THE OLD HOUSE).

Here--finally--the action starts to soar to CIRCUS DAZE heights as Biddy returns. Discovering Bruno on the nest, she proceeds to chase him around the coop and out into the yard, chasing him first toward the right, then wheeling around and chasing him toward the left. In freeze-frame one can easily see Bruno's wide-eyed panic as he scrambles to get away, Biddy equally wide-eyed as she flutters in the air directly above him.

Cut to Bosko and Honey, still running along, skidding to a stop as they hear the commotion.

Honey says what sounds like "Bruno! Biddy!" as she runs out of frame to the right. In the
meantime, we cut quickly back to Biddy chasing Bruno--she chases him toward a shed, grabbing him by the tail as he struggles to wiggle into a small hole at the bottom. Noticing Bosko just
behind her, she turns and stalks him. Stammering, the panicked Bosko runs as the camera pans
right--he's barely ahead of her, yelling "Miz Chicken! Miz Chicken!"

Honey, back at the nest, is busy putting a hot water bottle on the multicolored eggs. A teakettle--an incredibly large one, at least in proportion to her--sits at her right. Honey gently pats and arranges the eggs under the bottle.

Meanwhile--again--Biddy is still chasing Bosko, around a wooden structure that looks somewhat like a roof with no building. Bosko stammers, pointing: "Y-y-y-LOOK!!" Biddy does--her attention momentarily diverted, Bosko runs off-screen to the left. When Biddy discovers she's been tricked, she exits in close pursuit.

Cut back to Bruno, still trying to get into the tiny hole in the shack--but he's stuck, only managing thus far to get his head in. Bosko attempts to pull him out by grabbing onto one of the yelping Bruno's hind legs. He doesn't manage to accomplish much, as he spies Biddy off-camera to his right and runs as fast as he can in the opposite direction.

The scene makes a quick cut to the shack's front entrance as Bosko runs into frame and
scrambles inside, slamming the door. We can still hear Biddy squawking off-camera. The now
discarded paint cans--the ones Bosko used to color the eggs--can be seen just to the left.

Biddy comes into frame, turning toward the front entrance. But she runs straight into the door,
failing to notice Bosko had just closed it. As she hops up and down, angrily squawking as
usual...

...we cut to the darkened interior, where Bosko attempts to pull Bruno inside. From the scattered assortment of junk inside, my guess is this shack is a tool shed.

Bosko, unsuccessful in trying to free the stuck Bruno, gets thrown back by the momentum of his
pull, hitting a wooden box. Getting up, he resumes his attempts to work Bruno loose. The action
starts to get really furious here, and the background music speeds up to keep pace.

Pulling Bruno by the ears(!) Bosko succeeds in getting Bruno free, throwing them back toward the wooden box--Bosko on top, Bruno draped over the edge. We cut to a quick shot of the hole, with light streaming through, then back to Bosko and Bruno, who stand up on either side of the box, waiting for Biddy's inevitable approach.

Bosko and Bruno start to push the wooden box toward the empty hole, thinking they'll keep the
enraged Biddy out. Little do they know that Biddy has somehow sneaked in right behind them...Bruno, when he turns and sees her, explodes in an almost Tex Avery-like take, tensing his body ramrod-straight, turning to face the camera and falling in a dead faint. It's a pretty faithful reproduction of the classic slapstick "stiff-legged fall" from the Mack Sennett days.

Bruno doesn't stay out for long, though, speeding past Biddy and attempting to crawl out through another hole on the other side. (So THAT'S how Biddy got in). Biddy flaps and squawks in the air, feathers flying.

Cut to the outside. Bosko tugs on Bruno's ears--again--this time pulling him free with such force
they get propelled backward through the air into a bucket of water. The cloud of dust settles to
reveal Bruno has the bucket stuck on his rear, but he goes into a furious run anyway. Bosko in

the meantime attempts to hold on to Bruno, still by the ears. As Bruno runs along, Bosko bumps
up and down behind him. In freeze-frame Bruno's mouth is wide-open in panic as he looks
off-camera toward the pursuing Biddy.

Bruno, with Bosko and the bucket still in tow, skids on his rump 180 degrees and heads off in the other direction. They pass behind a tree just as Biddy passes it from the other side.

As Bosko and Bruno continue running, Bruno manages to free himself from the bucket, but in
doing so, he and Bosko are sent tumbling toward the coop where Honey awaits them. The
startled pair duck inside just as Biddy approaches from the left of the screen and passes the
coop entrance.

But before Biddy can attack either one of them, she's startled by the sound of one of the eggs
breaking open and the peep of a newly-born chick. Yet it seems to be a strange color...

"De Easter chickies!" Honey exclaims. "Oh, Biddy, look--isn't dey simply 'magnolious?' Dere's a
blue one, an' a green one, and ain't dey just simply..." She continues to chatter excitedly in her
typical Honey way as the chicks continue to emerge. She's absolutely correct--Bosko's earlier
paint job has somehow produced a nestful of Technicolor chicks--some even polka-dotted. "Oh,
Biddy--now we got a whole bunch of little Easter chickies! And oh, they're so CUTE..."

Biddy, though, hasn't forgotten about Bosko and Bruno's interference, and shoos them both off
with a squawk, sending them both toward a pile of straw, underneath the empty basket. Bosko
peers out, and emerges resuming his "Easter Time" refrain:

"Now de Easter time is de time for eggs,
But--
--de hen got loose and cook our goose!"

Bruno, who has emerged beside Bosko in the haystack, pants happily as we iris out. Honey got
her Easter present after all, far better than the one Bosko planned to give her.

CONCLUDING THOUGHTS

(This section edited, in recognition of those who may not celebrate this holiday. Nonetheless, we hope you enjoy this cartoon as much as Kevin and I).--R.

This cartoon is a delight, possibly the pinnacle of Harman and Ising's achievements. It gives lie to the oft-repeated complaint that Harman-Ising's cartoons are slow and plodding. In many places it explodes with action, more so than any since CIRCUS DAZE. True, at nearly eight minutes, the cartoon could have done with a little tightening here and there--some sections seem unnecessarily padded (as in Bosko's "Hello, Miz Chicken" bit) but there's one thing that must be understood about Harman-Ising.

They were never uniformly, unrelentingly slow. Their cartoons, especially the Boskos, would start slowly and build to a crescendo of action, with overlapping scenes and quick cuts that take place in such rapid succession one needs the ability to freeze-frame to take them all in. This, most of all, is what they took from Walt, possibly even surpassing him. The last third of this cartoon is indeed a blur, as Honey scrambles frantically to rescue the eggs (her panic recalls classic TV "birth" episodes, as in I LOVE LUCY and THE FLINTSTONES) while Bosko and Bruno furiously attempt to outrun an enraged hen.

Indeed, BOSKO'S EASTER EGGS destroys yet another myth, that of Harman/Ising's alleged
bland characterization. Leonard Maltin has this to say of the personality animation in
Harman-Ising cartoons--or in his view, the complete lack of it:

"Engaging visual designs cannot take the place of stories and
characterization. Personality animation is a notable achievement,
but not when every personality is the same." (Of Mice and Magic, p. 282).

As should be clear from the examples I've provided in this review, Maltin's statement is utterly
false. Honey, when she discovers Bosko has not only stolen Biddy's eggs, but painted them and
tried to pass them off as his own present to her, registers a full range of emotions--through her
facial expressions and body language--in a few short seconds. Even without dialogue, her feelings are clear. When Bosko grimaces, he does so with his whole face, as his eyes squint tight and his lower lip looks as if it's come up to meet his nose. His pain and guilt are clearly evident. In countless scenes one can see expressions of bug-eyed, almost Avery-like slapstick panic. This was far beyond the abilities of most animators of the day, save for those at Disney--and even they might have had a few things to learn from Harman and Ising.

Bosko certainly exhibits more personality in this cartoon than he was typically allowed to do.
There's some thinking going on there, as he schemes to gain Honey's favor. He's more "kid-like"
than he had ever been up to that point--not to mention cocky--childishly passing on the blame for his own mistakes and acting quite selfishly. He would never have resorted to such behavior
before, and would never do so again. After this film, he would be "made over" yet again, into the
"L'il Ol' Bosko" of the Bosko Trilogy--a happy innocent barely past toddlerhood.

For once, Honey does not take center stage--most of the cartoon either revolves around Bosko's
schemes or his attempts to elude the hen--yet she retains her role of "friendly antagonist" to
Bosko, even acting as his conscience in this cartoon. She carries over her bubbly,
chatty personality from earlier MGM efforts, but she is obviously more mature than the
irresponsible, careless and even insensitive Bosko (think what he does to poor Bruno, not to
mention Biddy). As such, even she comes off as a more dimensional character than usual.
BOSKO'S EASTER EGGS represents both at the peak stage of development.

The voices, of course, contribute greatly to the characterization, particularly Bosko's, however
incongruous it may be for a child of his supposed age. (I assume about eight or nine). The reading of the lines, and little touches lke Bosko's nervous stammer, enhance the already masterful personality animation. The voice actors were apparently uncomfortable with or unaccustomed to speaking in dialect, at times slipping out of it. As such, it's not nearly as obvious as in, say, THE OLD HOUSE or CIRCUS DAZE. Honey's malapropisms come across as more an element of her personality than the manifestation of a stereotype.

Sadly, this cartoon is the last we'll ever see of poor Honey--Bosko goes solo in his three final
appearances. Perhaps it's better that way, as BOSKO'S EASTER EGGS is more than a fitting
exit for her. As the old show business saying goes, "Always leave 'em wanting more."

Kevin and I have discussed this cartoon frequently in the past, as Kevin's childhood memories of it have faded, and he ached for the chance to re-experience certain scenes. He has on several
occasions wished for a complete synopsis of the cartoon, which I've never been able to give him
until now. I haven't any multicolored chicks, so this is my Easter present to him.

And a happy Easter--to those who celebrate it-- from the "staff" of The Home For Orphan Toons. To the rest of you, we wish a most bright and bountiful spring season.


Rachel Newstead
Kevin Wollenweber
Alicia Wishart

Tags: Bosko+and+Honey, Harman-Ising, Easter, eggs, chicks, hen, Bruno, racial+stereotypes, orphan+toon, review-synopsis