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View Full Version : I watched W. Woodpecker for the first time since I was a child, today


#60
03-08-2004, 08:13 PM
I found the first volume of the tape set from the early eighties, on ebay. I stole it for $5. It's flawless. There's not a scratch on the inside or outside. I know DVDs are the coolest thing now but anytime I can get a tape at this price, UNEDITED, I will. The documentary was neat.

The cartoons, well, they obviously didn't put all the classics on us at once. Still, there's the first ever appearance by characters which is good to have, I suppose. There's also "Legend of Rock a Bye Point,"(was that Chilly's first?) Musical Moments" and "Crazy Mixed Up Pup." Tex Avery has the funniest cartoons. He's my favorite. They're clever, even, in addition to the silly humor. Does he have other Lantz cartoons like those two? I actually remembered those two from childhood, btw. Those were the only two I remembered.

Is "Science Friction" available on tape or DVD somewhere? Will it be? That was one of the few cartoons that made me actually laugh out loud.
Frizfrelengfan
03-09-2004, 09:07 AM
Avery only directed four cartoons for Lantz after returning to them from MGM - two were Chilly Willy ("I'm Cold" and "Rockabye Point"). They were the last Avery theatricals ever. "Rockabye Point" was nominated for an Oscar.
#60
03-09-2004, 09:19 PM
Avery only directed four cartoons for Lantz after returning to them from MGM - two were Chilly Willy ("I'm Cold" and "Rockabye Point"). They were the last Avery theatricals ever. "Rockabye Point" was nominated for an Oscar.
After those two hilarious cartoons plus the nomination, how did Lantz let Tex get away so soon?
Tintin
03-09-2004, 09:37 PM
There's also "Legend of Rock a Bye Point,"(was that Chilly's first?)
No. That's the third Chilly. The first are titled "Chilly Willy" (or Deep Freeze for Columbia House) and made in 1953
Toss
03-09-2004, 10:10 PM
Woody Woodpecker, huh? I haven't seen that one since forever! Maybe us TTTPers had better petition to get it back on the air!;)
B Mode
03-10-2004, 03:49 AM
Re: Woody and Chilly.

In 1979 I went to a drive-in movie theater with my family in Van Nuys, CA on Sepulveda Blvd, and saw "Grease". Back then, they used to show toons before the movies at dusk. They showed 2 shorts, Woody Woodpecker (episode?) and Chilly Willy(Ski- Napper) to which I just found out 2 years ago what that title was. I haven't seen it since then. Wow, what a flashback :eek:
Frizfrelengfan
03-10-2004, 08:19 PM
After those two hilarious cartoons plus the nomination, how did Lantz let Tex get away so soon?Money probably had something to do with it. Maybe Soggy knows the whole story.
J Lee
03-10-2004, 09:34 PM
Money probably had something to do with it. Maybe Soggy knows the whole story.
Avery told Joe Adamson that under the deal with Lantz, he was supposed to get a percentage of the profits, but left after he found there was no money coming from it. Lantz said that in the world of cartoon rentals in the 1950s, it takes a long time to earn negative costs back, and that Avery would have seen a profit if he had been willing to wait.

Whether or not that was the full reason, or if Avery's perfectionism was just getting him burned out on the theatrical schedules, the way it did at MGM a few years earlier, is open to speculation.
#60
03-11-2004, 06:53 PM
Avery told Joe Adamson that under the deal with Lantz, he was supposed to get a percentage of the profits, but left after he found there was no money coming from it. Lantz said that in the world of cartoon rentals in the 1950s, it takes a long time to earn negative costs back, and that Avery would have seen a profit if he had been willing to wait.

Whether or not that was the full reason, or if Avery's perfectionism was just getting him burned out on the theatrical schedules, the way it did at MGM a few years earlier, is open to speculation.
Well, that's that, then.

Tex Avery was more of a genious than anyone knows, I believe. Think, it took some brains to come up with some of the gags and complete sories, even, that he did considering that it was the 1940s. His work may seem ordinary now and it's been copied millions of times but if you think about it, he had to have been brilliant to have known how to make people laugh so in the 1940s.