1948

[Jack]

I've been in a poll making mood lately. There isn't much argument here anymore about how important 1948 supposedly was, but I'd like to know how the people here feel. So, pick an answer, and maybe tell us why ya picked it.


Jack:D

[Matthew Hunter]

Well, I think that year made a big difference, mainly because of the calming down of the characters...you can take a film prior to 1948 and chances are it'll be wild and wacky, and the post-48 cartoons are a little calmer. Also, it was a year when Chuck
Jones changed Daffy around a bit...not the greedy persona he'd become a year or two later, but notice how different the beak and facial expressions look in films like "Daffy Dilly" and "You Were Never Duckier". Also, now it's even more important with what's happened to the packages...Warner owned the post-1948 cartoons and somehow kept those in better viewing condition than AAP/ Turner's pre-1948's, which got so grayed out and dingy looking that they then had to "dub" them with enhanced colors, but then decided that instead of remastering the unique title cards, they'd make the package stick out like a sore thumb by making all the cards orange with a copyright notice. So in a way, it was a year that changed everything not only because of differences in style but in distribution as well.
-Matthew

[J Lee]

The break in the syndication package just happened to coincide with the change in emphasis (due in part to higher production costs) away from less-focused plots with wilder gags and reactions to stories that were more fleshed out, but more sedate at the same time.

The split isn't perfect -- a cartoon like Freleng's "Hare Do" is part of the post-1948 package but feels like a pre-48 cartoon, while "The Upstanding Sitter" is in the pre-48 group but feels like a post-48 toon (though there are questions about whether or not it got dumped into the pre-48 AAP package by mistake). But by the end of 1949 a color remake of Clampett's "Porky In Wackyland" could stand out completely in its zanyiness from all of the other cartoons being released at the same time, something that wouldn't have been true if it had been remade in color just two years earlier.

[PorkyandDaffy]

Yeah, I think '48 was a big change for the WB cartoons. I wouldn't say it was for the better, though, but definitely not the worst. I just happen to like the 48-54 era just as much as the 41-47 era. Maybe the 41-47 era a little more, though...

[Jack]

Nice answers so far, I just wanted that add that I should have been more specific. I was really shooting more for the change in content of the cartoons, rather than the disribution backages. I feel that WB could have chosen ANY year as a cut off date, and that whatever package of cartoons the films ended up in doesn't much matter (other than the print quality differences).

While I find the arguments so far convincing, I chose "no." I guess it's because 1948 usually gets singled out as a defining year, and I feel that's it more because of the two distribution packages than the content of the films. I do agree that the cartoons made after 1948 are calmer, but I don't really feel that they have more fleshed out plots, or that the change that happened is bigger than that of other years. I see some of Jones' early 50s stuff as wilder than much of his 40s stuff, and his 40s stuff is particularly plot driven. I guess it's sort of scketchy. While I do see a change, I don't see it as big enough to say the cartoons made before and after are wildly different, and that there were crazy films made after 1948, and calm films made before 1948.



Jack:D

[lislebartman]

J Lee stole my answer!!:D