Use of characters

[comicfan]

I recently watched "Mississippi Hare" over at Goopy Geer's site and was struck with a thought: Colonel Shuffle is, for all intents and purposes, Yosemite Sam. The small stature, the temper, the use of firearms, even thier voices are similar. So why did Jones never use Sam in any of his cartoons? What was the policy on character use? There seem to be some characters [Bugs, Daffy, Sylvester who have been used by several directors, but some [Sam, Foghorn Leghorn, the Roadrunner( for a while)] who are only used by one director. Is there a particular reason for this?

[Sogturtle]

In a nutshell it worked like this... Whoever created a special character had exclusive rights to him/they/it while at the studio. (Bugs, Daffy, Porky are exceptions to the rule, they are "the stars"). Thus Friz created Yosemite Sam and only Friz made Yosemite/Pirate (or whatever) Sam cartoons. Ditto for Bob McKimson's Foghorn Leghorn, Jones' numerous creations etc.

The only other exceptions to this rule were Henery Hawk, created then abandoned by Chuck and evidently "given" to Bob McKimson. And the guest appearance of Pepe in a Friz Sylvester toon "Dog Pounded" and the payback Tweety cameo in a Jones cartoon. Both directors agreed to lend their character for a brief gag shot. The one REALLY INTRIGUING character is Tom Turk who is created in a cartoon ("Tom Turk And Daffy") CREDITED exclusively to Chuck Jones, but then returns 5 years later in a film ("Holiday For Drumsticks") by Arthur Davis!!! This can be taken as one piece of evidence that Art Davis finished/co-directed "Tom Turk And Daffy". In a related vein is the appearance of the Pepe Le Pew lookalike in Art Davis' 1948 "Odor Of The Day"... Why would Jones permit Davis to use the "likeness" of his character Pepe unless Chuck owed Art something???? Like finishing an earlier cartoon for him?!?!?

[J Lee]

Also, when Jones made "Mississippi Hare," he was in his Billy Bletcher infatuation period -- Bletcher's voice work at Warners picked up dramatically in the late 1940s, most of it in Jones' work ("Rabbit Punch," "What's Brewin' Bruin?"), though he occassionally popped up elsewhere (Davis' "Bowery Bugs").

The cartoon came out right at the end of the 'character sharing' era at Warners -- Jones had just made "Scaredy Cat," in which the black & white feline already in use for three years by Freleng, Clampett, McKimson and Davis finally got an on-screen name, Sylvester. So there still was the chance at that time that Jones could have used Yosemite Sam in "Mississippi Hare" and a very, very, very good chance that Sam's co-creatior, Michael Maltese, wrote the cartoon with Sam in mind. But like I said, Jones was very big into using Bletcher (and Bea Benaderet, for that matter) as a voice artist at the time, instead of going 100 percent Mel Blanc in his cartoons, and may have decided that he wanted a more "Southern" voice from Billy instead of Mel's "Western" voice for Sam (not that this ever stopped Freleng from sticking Sam where he didn't belong).

In light of the yahoos in Burbank banning "Mississippi Hare" from the June Bugs show, it would be interesting to see if they would have done the same thing if the cartoon had starred Yosemite Sam, instead of a one-shot character like Col. Shuffle. Odds are, because it's well established over 56 years all that Bugs always puts Sam through the ringer, the cartoon would have made it onto the show, edited like "Southern Fried Rabbit", but probably only with the opening scene deleted, while "Camptown Races" exploding cigar bit probably would have survived if Sam was the fall guy.

[Sogturtle]

John~

I have to disagree with you on this one, as I just don't see a "character sharing period". When Bob Clampett moved on to more lucrative ground his abandoned Tweety became exclusively Friz domain. And whether Clampett created the Goofy Gophers or not, they were the sole and separate property of Art Davis till he was pitched from the director's chair. Sylvester fell into that "star character" group with Bugs, Daffy and Porky, and was pretty much fair game. Whereas nobody else ever went after Foghorn, Hubie & Boit, Sam, or the other Forties characters...

I do agree with you that if Colonel Shuffle were Colonel Sam that "Mississippi Hare" would be right up there amongst all the rest of "ACCEPTABLE TO TV GUIDE" Bugs cartoons. Ya know with computer technology being what it is they could turn Colonel Shuffle into a dead-ringer for Sam...

[J Lee]

Tim --

I count Sylvester as the last of the "shared" characters, since he was created in the cartoon immeditaely before Freleng created Yosemite Sam. The differnce in why one was used by all the directors while the other was Friz' exclusively until 1958 may be because Sylvester was a bit of a cypher as fas as a very strong personalty went for the first couple of years of his existance.

What Freleng came up with in "Life With Feathers" was a very appealing design for a cartoon cat, and he also came up with the voice that would be forever associated with Sylvester. But in three of the next four cartoons Friz used him in -- "Peck Up Your Troubles," "Tweety Pie" and "I Taw A Putty Tat" Sylvester had all of two lines, both of them in the last one. It was only in "Back Alley Oproar" that Friz seemed comfortable linking the cat's voice to his overall image again, and that was probably due to the fact that he was remaking a B&W Looney Tune which demanded a cat with a speaking part (and Friz was the undisputed master at remaking past WB toons into better ones the second time around once he was comfortable with the material).

Sylvester's less-defined personalty by Freleng combined with the attractive design allowed him to be used in his own way by other directors -- Clampett as a clever feline commando leader, McKimson as a befuddled cat either laying eggs or confronting giant mice, Davis as an even more befuddld cat dealing with crooning birds and a moronic voice, and Jones as a complete coward to pair with the unbelieveably befuddled Porky. Sam, on the other hand, was pretty much Sam from "Hare Trigger" onward -- if you're Jones, McKimson or Davis, you couldn't mold the character to fit your style they way you could with Sylvester, you had to take Sam the way Friz and Maltese had created him.

That said, I think Jones still had a bit of a 'Bletcher fixation' when he made "Mississippi Hare," which at least was partially behind his decision to create a new character. Plus, the move went hand-in-hand with his desire by the late 1940s to go his own way with other characters -- outside of the two cartoons with Pussyfoot, there was no reason for Jones to create Claude Cat for his other cartoons like "The Hypocondri-Cat," "Mouse Warming," or "Cheese Chasers." Sylvester could have fit into those cartoons just fine (and "Cheese Chasers" is basically an elaboration on "Life With Feathers" anyway) and Jones had already used the character, so it wouldn't have been a first for his unit.

But Chuck wanted to go his own way, so he did, and to Warner's credit, they let him -- these days, orders would have come down from management demanding Sylvester be in those cartoons, because he was already a marketable character on T-shirts, lunch boxes, coffee mugs, etc....

[Matthew Hunter]

All that aside, I think maybe Jones just wanted his own character. Notice that "Colonell shuffle" appeared again in "Dog Gone South", a cartoon I have yet to see air on Cartoon Network. I don't really know why, because I remember seeing both cartoons on ABC ages ago, and nnever saw anything controversial. In fact, if they edit the blackface song in "Mississsippi", they could run it. Couldn't be any worse than that 2-minute things-come-to-life cartoon ("September in the Rain", I think). Why change him to Sam? That would make it worse. WB has nothing to lose with the Colonel, but Yosemite Sam in blackface might be a little controversial.
-Matthew

[Jack]

I asked this question at the old board, but it's better answered in this thread. Jones' 'Bletcher fixation'(to use J. Lee's term) was a real blessing, The three Bears series really picked up, among other things, and Jones made most of his best cartoons.

What's sort of sad is how quickly that little period of Jones' cartoons passed. He very abruptly ended his Charlie Dog, Inki, Hubie and Bertie, and Three Bears series (all of which hit their peak in the late 40s). His favor then turned towards extremely formulaic, self defeating characters like Wile E./Raph, and Pepe le Pew. Marc Anthony and Pussyfoot are the only non-formulaic characters to really live past 1953.

The age of the "one shot" cartoon and minor character are pretty much gone, whenever a character today exhibits even slight popularity they give him a whole series. And most one shots seem to be pilot films for cartoon series.


Jack:D