Toonheads (11/4/01): THE EVOLUTION OF ELMER FUDD

[Pietro]

Tonight's episode of Toonheads was entitled "The Evolution of Elmer Fudd," which made it's debut tonight! The episode was an hour long and included a few surprises.

Here are the titles that aired:

"A-Lad-in Bagdad" (1938/WB)
"Dangerous Dan McFoo" (1939/WB/Blue Ribbon)*
"The Hardship of Miles Standish" (1940/WB)*
"Elmer's Candid Camera" (1940/WB)*
"The Wild Hare" (1940/WB/Blue Ribbon)*

Cartoons marked with a star mean that they're dubbed versions.

-Pietro:D

[Tintin]

You are not enough where changed avatar?:eek:

[Matthew Hunter]

Very good episode. Much more detailed and a much improved. It was cool to see "A Lad in Bagdad", I had never seen it before. There was a lot of cool stuff that they don't have on regular shows, for obvious reasons. Now it's time for Toon Heads trivia: which early Elmer Fudd cartoon was not even mentioned? The answer: It's Friz Freleng's "Confederate Honey". It's a parody of "Gone with the wind" featuring Fudd as Rhett Butler (Ned Cuttler, in this case). This short has not been seen on TV undedited in years, due to some racist slave jokes. I have this one uncut (win the contest, guys, I got it from Brian!) .
-Matthew

[Nelson]

Excellent season premiere of "Toonheads" was surprised to see "A Lad In Bagdad" and "The Hardship Of Miles Standish", two cartoons that CN doesn't really show anymore and was UNCUT!

But a little disapointed when they could show the original title card for "A Wild Hare" for Toonheads trivia but instead presented the blue ribbon version.But it was a great show. :D

[Patrick McCart]

Great show!

[Sogturtle]

A nice choice of cartoons... Would have been very nice to have included "Confederate Honey" since I view it as the real first appearance of Elmer J. Fudd AND Friz's first REALLY funny Warner cartoon...

I'd have been scraped off the ceiling if "The Isle Of Pingo Pongo" had suddenly popped up;) ;) ;)

[Brandon Pierce]

In the imortal words of Egghead: "It was amaaa-aaazing!"

[lislebartman]

I did not see the show ( I was at bowling), but why would they show "Dangerous Dan McFoo"? If only for the voice, this cartoon really had nothing to do with Elmer Fudd per se. They should have shown "Confederate Honey" instead. I have this one uncut and it is a pretty good spoof of "Gone With The Wind".

[Sogturtle]

Originally posted by lislebartman
I did not see the show ( I was at bowling), but why would they show "Dangerous Dan McFoo"? If only for the voice, this cartoon really had nothing to do with Elmer Fudd per se. They should have shown "Confederate Honey" instead. I have this one uncut and it is a pretty good spoof of "Gone With The Wind".

Yep, but as the first starring appearance of "the Fudd voice", it was necessary to include "Dangerous Dan McFoo". To imagine Elmer in a barroom brawl (and surviving) is pretty mindboggling...

[Pilmedium]

I was debating whether to watch it, and I'm glad I decided to! I never though CN would show "A-Lad-In Bagdad".

[J Lee]

Just getting "A Lad In Baghdad" was good enough; I don't think they wanted to push the envelope too much and air "Confederate Honey," which would either have had to have been the heavily edited version CN shows once in a blue moon or the full version, which has a bunch of gags that are not looked upon kindly nowadays.

Also, as a side note -- "Dangerous Dan McFoo" not only created the personality that was the template for Elmer Fudd (far more than the personality of Egghead had been), but Friz Freleng said that Dan's opponent's yelling of all his lines was later an insparation for the constantly-loud voice of Bugs other main adversary, Yosemite Sam.

[PorkyandDaffy]

Yeah, wonderful show.

Did CN ever show CONFEDERATE HONEY before?

[Sogturtle]

Originally posted by J Lee
Just getting "A Lad In Baghdad" was good enough; I don't think they wanted to push the envelope too much and air "Confederate Honey," which would either have had to have been the heavily edited version CN shows once in a blue moon or the full version, which has a bunch of gags that are not looked upon kindly nowadays.

Also, as a side note -- "Dangerous Dan McFoo" not only created the personality that was the template for Elmer Fudd (far more than the personality of Egghead had been), but Friz Freleng said that Dan's opponent's yelling of all his lines was later an insparation for the constantly-loud voice of Bugs other main adversary, Yosemite Sam.

John (and Mr. GAK)~

Have just reviewed the narration from this Toonhead episode... Some corrections of it are in order. Amongst them: Avery and Clampett decided to redesign Egghead. Sorry but ol' Bob was off in Ray Katz's Looney Toons unit and as such had little or no professional contact with Tex (despite Bob's claims to the contrary). A much more likely candidate for helping redesign Egghead would have been official character-designer Charlie Thorsen (as much as I hate to say it). Buuuut there are NO records of Tex and Charlie EVER working together (Thorsen worked with Chuck Jones and with Hardaway and Dalton). Since Egghead was Tex's baby (with those two cartoon exceptions) then any redesign would have required HIS approval (if not his instigating them). Soooooo quite possibly Hardaway and Dalton asked Thorsen to redesign Egghead, pending Avery's approval and further revisions. Buuuut Friz returned at that juncture torpedoing any further Hardaway and Dalton cartoons, with their staff and MODEL SHEETS falling into Friz's nimble hands. IFFFFF this were the case then it would make perfectly good sense why the first two ELMER FUDD cartoons ("Elmer's Candid Camera" and "Confederate Honey") came out of the Jones and Freleng units (Freleng's was the former Hardaway and Dalton unit).

Which brings us to this... ELMER'S CANDID CAMERA was released March 2, 1940, CONFEDERATE HONEY was released the SAME MONTH (on March 30, 1940). "The Hardship Of Miles Standish" came out on April 27, 1940 (so it's the THIRD Elmer). "Confederate Honey" is Friz's ultimate fiendish farewell to MGM by savaging "Gone With The Wind", turning Clark Gable into nebbish-extraordinaire Elmer, Vivian Leigh Scarlet O'Hara into Crimson O'Hairoil, and skewing and skewering the whole shebang!!!

While "Dangerous Dan McFoo" features the maiden-cartoon voyage of Arthur Q. Bryan in full-Fudd voice. The personality (as I hinted earlier) is though NOT Elmer J. Fudd by any stretch of the imagination. Elmer in a full fistfight... with a bigger much more aggresive opponent??? And surviving?? Then in a gunfight with selfsame foe??? NOOOOO. Elmer he ain't. I don't think anybody has ever suggested this before, but who Dangerous Dan REALLY appears to be is... the dry-run of none other than DROOPY!!!! (Albeit more phsically active). Which would explain why Tex could remake the cartoon so easily at MGM! Annnnnnd with this divulged, then 1939's "Dangerous Dan McFoo" also marks the FIRST appearance of the character who would become Tex's lustful MGM wolf (in 1943), except here he is the lusty dog-adversary of Dangerous Dan... Don't believe me...??? Take a close look as he first charges the girl. As he starts to charge, for a split-second he is in mid-air PRONE... Tex's wolf went into a PRONE take in mid-air... The Tex wolf will do ANYTHING for lust, just as the Tex dog does here.

I've always given Tex FULL credit for the creation of Elmer (per Joe Adamson). Buuuuut it is a little roundabout. Tex unquestionably created Egghead. Tex stuck the nom du voyage "Elmer Fudd" on Egghead for "A Feud There Was". Then he brought in Arthur Q. Bryan for "Dangerous Dan McFoo". Buuuuut it appears that Friz and Chuck (quite likely at Tex's instigation) glued the Arthur Q. Bryan voice to the nebbish character. The redesign theory that I noted above appears to work the best. Now WHY Tex was the last of the Merrie Melodie directors to employ the new Elmer (formerly dba Egghead) would be another theory altogether... Buuuuuut then again, Tex redesigned him slightly from the three earlier 1940 cartoons (Tex the perfectionist).

[J Lee]

Tim --

Looking at the credits for "Conferderate Honey" does give credence to the possibility that Hardaway and Dalton (who were always trying to follow in Avery's footsteps anyway) may have planned to use the redesigned Egghead with Tex's title character voice from "Dangerous Dan McFoo." Leon did use rotation credits in 1940, but "Confederate Honey" gives story supervision to Friz, writing credit to Ben and animation credit to Cal. That may just mean it was 'their turn' to get credited or it may have been Schlesinger's way of giving the two at least a little recognition for the cartoon they started.

Also, on the down side, but in further support of the Hardaway-Dalton link, the story does suffer from the heavyness that most of the H-D efforts did, with lots of Ben's typcial punn-y gags. "Hardship of Miles Standish," on the other hand, is much lighter in tone and more like what Friz would be doing over the next year at Warner, before he and Maltese teamed up and started making the cartoons even faster. (And I just can't see Hardaway coming up with the sly idea of having an Indian mouth "G-d dam son of a b--ch" the way Freleng did)

[Sogturtle]

Originally posted by J Lee
Tim --

Looking at the credits for "Conferderate Honey" does give credence to the possibility that Hardaway and Dalton (who were always trying to follow in Avery's footsteps anyway) may have planned to use the redesigned Egghead with Tex's title character voice from "Dangerous Dan McFoo." Leon did use rotation credits in 1940, but "Confederate Honey" gives story supervision to Friz, writing credit to Ben and animation credit to Cal. That may just mean it was 'their turn' to get credited or it may have been Schlesinger's way of giving the two at least a little recognition for the cartoon they started.

Also, on the down side, but in further support of the Hardaway-Dalton link, the story does suffer from the heavyness that most of the H-D efforts did, with lots of Ben's typcial punn-y gags. "Hardship of Miles Standish," on the other hand, is much lighter in tone and more like what Friz would be doing over the next year at Warner, before he and Maltese teamed up and started making the cartoons even faster. (And I just can't see Hardaway coming up with the sly idea of having an Indian mouth "G-d dam son of a b--ch" the way Freleng did)

John~

I deliberately left out the credits of "Confederate Honey" (in the words of Darth Vader "Too easy";) ;) ). But since you've made the connection then I'll just go a little further with it. It was Friz's VERY FIRST Warner cartoon made after returning from Metro. Hardaway and Dalton's farewell to directing "Busy Bakers" had just been released the previous month. I have no doubt whatsover though that all three men (Freleng, Hardaway, Dalton) did really work on the cartoon. The statistical odds of Ben Hardaway receiving story credit (out of the reformed team of Hardaway, Miller and Millar) and Cal Dalton getting animation credit (from amongst Dalton, Bickenbach, Cohen etc.) simultaenously by sheer chance is infinitismal. Either Schlesinger or Friz saw to it that both men receive credt on this particular cartoon (Friz's return vessel).

Did Hardaway and Dalton start this toon though??? I've always personally believed they did. BUUUUUT it is so much funnier than its immediate predecessor "Busy Bakers" (a refugee from the mid-Thirties) as to strongly indicate Friz's arrival very early in its story stage and his very active participation in re-gagging it. But it would appear that out of deference to his old Kansas City co-worker (Hardaway) that Friz left in things that he would have taken out otherwise. And a certain type of the humor in this cartoon abruptly turns up at Lantz's coinciding with Ben Hardaway unpacking his bags there.

Going even further, during Freleng's first year back at "the house of Leon" great pain is given to slanting the credits on his toons towards Cal Dalton and Ben Hardaway (and against the other animators and storymen). In fact only a few months later on "Porky's Baseball Broadcast" they are even credited together again!!

Buuuuut it is my own PRIVATE belief that it is doubtlessly Friz Freleng who we have to credit for the brilliant insight to slip Arthur Q. Bryan into the throat of the new nebbish, Elmer Fudd (nee Egghead). Why do I say that??? Let's think about it... Can we think of ANY really brilliant thing that the team of Hardaway and Dalton did in any way, shape, or form???

[J Lee]

Hardaway and Dalton certainly were derivitive off of other people's ideas -- the repeated story of how Ben just stuck Daffy Duck in a rabbit suit for "Porky's Hare Hunt" being the prime example -- but in this case it might be the same reason why Ben and/or Cal would have come up with the idea of using Bryan's voice in the cartoon.

Avery's use of it in "Dangerous Dan McFoo" obviously made a big splash inside the studio, and given that success, Hardaway may have decided to take both the basic personality and the voice and stick it into another out-of-place character, in this case a parody of Clark Gabel's Rhett Butler from GWTW.

As for the design, it's hard to say whether or not Friz or H-D would have been the driving force behind the change, but if I had to bet I'd put my money on Freleng.

Thorsen did redesign the rabbit for Hardaway, but that was because he was going from the black and white Looney Tunes into the Technicolor Merrie Melodies, and back in 1939 any color at all -- even grey -- was better than B&W for audiences. Freleng on the other hand was coming back from MGM, where character design by 1939 was far more sophisticated than what the original Egghead design was, and he may have decided his nebbish should be designed to at least convey a little bit more personality, wimpy as it might be.

Plus, if you fast foward ahead just a month or so and look at the redesign Freleng's unit did on Daffy Duck for "You Ought To Be In Pictures" -- making him both weightier and far less goofy-looking than Clampett's Daffy as well as slowing his voice down to a more normal speed -- it presents a pretty good case that Jones wasn't the only one trying to get little bit better draftsmanship and personality animation into his cartoons in late 1939 and early 1940. (And as far as the story about Tex and Bob redesigning Elmer, it never made sense as to why they would redo a character and then not use him for six months in Avery's case, after Givins' re-redesign, or not at all in the case of Clampett. If there was a brainstorming session on the redesign, it would have been the most logical for it to occur between "Elmer's Pet Rabbit" and "A Wild Hare.")

[Sogturtle]

Originally posted by J Lee
Hardaway and Dalton certainly were derivitive off of other people's ideas -- the repeated story of how Ben just stuck Daffy Duck in a rabbit suit for "Porky's Hare Hunt" being the prime example -- but in this case it might be the same reason why Ben and/or Cal would have come up with the idea of using Bryan's voice in the cartoon.

Avery's use of it in "Dangerous Dan McFoo" obviously made a big splash inside the studio, and given that success, Hardaway may have decided to take both the basic personality and the voice and stick it into another out-of-place character, in this case a parody of Clark Gabel's Rhett Butler from GWTW.

As for the design, it's hard to say whether or not Friz or H-D would have been the driving force behind the change, but if I had to bet I'd put my money on Freleng.

Thorsen did redesign the rabbit for Hardaway, but that was because he was going from the black and white Looney Tunes into the Technicolor Merrie Melodies, and back in 1939 any color at all -- even grey -- was better than B&W for audiences. Freleng on the other hand was coming back from MGM, where character design by 1939 was far more sophisticated than what the original Egghead design was, and he may have decided his nebbish should be designed to at least convey a little bit more personality, wimpy as it might be.

Plus, if you fast foward ahead just a month or so and look at the redesign Freleng's unit did on Daffy Duck for "You Ought To Be In Pictures" -- making him both weightier and far less goofy-looking than Clampett's Daffy as well as slowing his voice down to a more normal speed -- it presents a pretty good case that Jones wasn't the only one trying to get little bit better draftsmanship and personality animation into his cartoons in late 1939 and early 1940. (And as far as the story about Tex and Bob redesigning Elmer, it never made sense as to why they would redo a character and then not use him for six months in Avery's case, after Givins' re-redesign, or not at all in the case of Clampett. If there was a brainstorming session on the redesign, it would have been the most logical for it to occur between "Elmer's Pet Rabbit" and "A Wild Hare.")

Hi John~

I'd like to think that Tex's use of the Arthur Q. Bryan voice had indeed "made a big splash" at the Schlesinger studio (and Mr. Bryan probably felt that way too!). Buuuuut the cartoon "Dangerous Dan McFoo" is actually quite funny with or without the Fudd-ish voice. And no one else in the studio saw fit to avail themselves of Arthur Q. Bryan's voice services till the pair of Fudd cartoons in March 1940 (not even Tex). Sooooo that's a whopping nine-month gap between the cartoons, making me qualify Tex's use of it as more of a "small splash".


As for the design change from Egghead to the Elmer of March 1940, it kind of worked like this... The unique Mr. Charlie Thorsen late of Disney and Harman-Ising had by summer of 1937 landed at MGM's brand new cartoon paradise :). It was there of course that he met Friz, Bill Hanna, Bob Allen, George Gordon, Joe Barbera, and all the rest of the warring animators. Evidently Thorsen was impressed with Freleng's talent and equally unimpressed with the directing of Hanna and Allen. Buuuuut Freleng and Hanna became friends, and it would APPEAR that Thorsen did things that made a negative lasting impression on Friz. Thorsen's biographer in an email to me confirmed that Freleng did not want to say ANYTHING about Charlie! "Friz's refusal to say anything at all about Charlie when I confronted him left me more than somewhat curious. I could have chalked it up to old age and the fact that their tenure together at MGM lasted less than 6 months and occurred over 50 years ago (when I mailed and talked to Freleng), but I had a sneaking suspicion that it was more than that -- even though they worked together very, very briefly at Warners when Friz moved back there." Thorsen was hired at Schlesinger's before Freleng returned. With all this in mind I view it as EXTREMELY unlikely that Freleng would have used Charlie Thorsen for even one second in re-designing a major character. Could Friz Freleng have solely redesigned Egghead to Elmer??? You bet!! Buuuuut then there's a pair of hitches to that... Chuck's cartoon "Elmer's Candid Camera" came out BEFORE Friz's, indicating it started first, before Friz's "Confederate Honey" (which appears to have briefly started as Hardaway and Dalton's). As hinted before neither Avery or Clampett needed a "character designer", whereas Ben Hardaway used him repeatedly ("Hobo Gadget Band" and "Busy Bakers" are included) as did Chuck on Sniffles (re-redesigned by Chuck and crew though) and Inki etc.. Sooooo that takes us back to Charlie Thorsen redesigning the Egghead character into the first REAL Elmer. But again, it would have been subject to Tex's approval. And when Tex and Bob Givens 86ed Thorsen's rabbit design was also when they mildly modified Mr. Fudd further.

[J Lee]

Tim --

You're probably right about the Thorsen-Hardaway connection, since a couple of the elves (midget pastry chefs or whatever) in "Busy Bakers" have a particularly Fuddian look to them.

As for the Fudd voice usage, depending on the speed of the cartoon through the studio's production line, nine months wouldn't be that much of a gap between positive audience reaction to Bryan's voice in "Dangerous Dan McFoo" and his being called back to the studio for a new assignment. Look at "A Wild Hare" and "Elmer's Pet Rabbit"; there's a five month gap between the release of those two cartoons, which may explain why after the success of Avery's Bugs that Jones' cartoon uses a completely different Blanc voice -- odds are the voice tracks for "Pet Rabbit" were laid down before the audience response to "A Wild Hare" got back to Leon, but there was still time to change at least the title credits to name the character "Bugs Bunny" before its January 1941 release.

Manwhile, "Tortoise Beats Hare" did come out about nine months after "A Wild Hare" and -- though I doubt Tex would have wanted to alter his own creation -- by the time the voice tracks were done for that cartoon, the studio knew that it had a hit on its hands with a Brooklynese rabbit, and there was no reason to tinker with that aspect of Bugs' personality.

[Sogturtle]

Originally posted by J Lee
Tim --

You're probably right about the Thorsen-Hardaway connection, since a couple of the elves (midget pastry chefs or whatever) in "Busy Bakers" have a particularly Fuddian look to them.

As for the Fudd voice usage, depending on the speed of the cartoon through the studio's production line, nine months wouldn't be that much of a gap between positive audience reaction to Bryan's voice in "Dangerous Dan McFoo" and his being called back to the studio for a new assignment. Look at "A Wild Hare" and "Elmer's Pet Rabbit"; there's a five month gap between the release of those two cartoons, which may explain why after the success of Avery's Bugs that Jones' cartoon uses a completely different Blanc voice -- odds are the voice tracks for "Pet Rabbit" were laid down before the audience response to "A Wild Hare" got back to Leon, but there was still time to change at least the title credits to name the character "Bugs Bunny" before its January 1941 release.

Meanwhile, "Tortoise Beats Hare" did come out about nine months after "A Wild Hare" and -- though I doubt Tex would have wanted to alter his own creation -- by the time the voice tracks were done for that cartoon, the studio knew that it had a hit on its hands with a Brooklynese rabbit, and there was no reason to tinker with that aspect of Bugs' personality.

John~

A much delayed response...

Thanks for the agreement on the Thorsen/Hardaway (and Elmer) connection. Does my little reptilian heart good!!!:) :) :)

And you're right, by 1940 Schlesinger's time of production to release was getting longer. The issue of who glued the Arthur Q. Bryan voice to Elmer at that point in time may NEVER be solved though. Unless someone gets a chance to ask Chuck... As I stated before my belief is to credit Hardaway or even Jones.

I'd tend to credit Chuck's use of the hideous voice for Bugs in "Elmer's Pet Rabbit" to an urge to adding something to the new hit star... Again a question for the Chuckster...

Sooooo recapping this whole Egghead to Elmer thesis:

Phase 1. Tex creates Egghead
Phase 2. Howard/Hardaway/Dalton unit borrows Egghead
Phase 3. Tex affixes the moniker "Elmer Fudd" to the character
Phase 4. Tex brings in Bryan for voice in "Dangerous Dan McFoo"
Phase 5. Hardaway-Dalton and Jones ask Charlie Thorsen for redesign of "Elmer" (pending Avery's blessing)
Phase 6. Friz returns from MGM, displacing H&D
Phase 7. Someone (Hardaway, Jones or Freleng) glues Bryan to Elmer character
Phase 8. Two cartoons issued with new Elmer
Phase 9. Tex subtly redesigns the character for "A Wild Hare"