Violent Cartoons From The Major Studios

[Nelson]

Out of all the major cartoon studios, which studio do you think that made the most violent cartoons in screen history?

[Tintin]

Les dessins animés de la MGM pour moi à cause des épisodes violents de Tom et Jerry.

P.S. Brian was added a translaction feature for every post. Cool, no?

English transl: MGM cartoons for me because the violent Tom & Jerry cartoons

[Matt Yorston]

I went with Paramount. What other studio features scenes like the one in "Mouseum" where Katnip is carved into layers by a knife-covered table, or in "Will Do Mousework" where Katnip swallows Herman whole who makes his escape by unscrewing part of Katnip's spine and using it as a battering ram to smash through his teeth, or in "Jumping With Toy" where the Fox is chopped into pieces by a flying switchblade, or in "Git Along Li'l Duckie" where the Fox's head is literally blasted apart by a dynamite cigarette or....? You get the idea. I've always felt the New York surroundings of Paramount/Famous affected the attitude of their cartoons moreso than any of the West Coast studios.

Of the West Coast, I choose MGM. Its' studio's cartoons have scenes like the one in "Slap Happy Lion" where the lion swallows a bomb, resulting in his skin being blasted from his body, or in "Trap Happy" where an entire wall (with nails) falls atop a cat's fingers (which in turn are hammered by Jerry while they are trapped in place there), or the finale of "The Cuckoo Clock" where the cat swallows a gun powder filled wind-up cuckoo which in turn explodes within him (At least THAT happened offscreen).

[Thad Komorowski]

Paramount without a doubt. If you check out those "Winner By a Hare" images on Jerry Beck's site, you'll see what I mean. How about when Katnip's soul is forced to be a slave for the mice in "Mice-Capades", or when Katnip gets his head cut off by Herman with a pair of scissors in full view in "Herman the CAToonist", or when the nine lives of an early Katnip chase Herman to kill him beyond the grave in "Naughty But Mice", or when the fox gets blasted full of holes and falls into a piano and it makes music in "One Quack Mind", or...........





-Thad

[Nelson]

My vote for most violent cartoons from a major cartoon studio goes to........Paramount Pictures
Here's a few examples:

"Of Mice And Menace": One pretty graphic scene is were Herman is dressed up as a hula dancer in a movie machine.So when Katnip get some more change to see the hula dancer, Herman shoves a double barrel shot gun (tied to the movie crank) through the viewing lens.So when Katnip starts to crank up the movie, the gun goes off right at Katnip's head, making a very loud explosion and knocking his head off for a brief second.

"Sheep Shape": When Blackie The Lamb tells the wolf that the money is in the safe, the wolf dives right in only for the safe to be a very long giantic missle cannon knocking the wolf straight into a lamb post.

"Winner By A Hare":The ending of this cartoon is very graphic ...When Moe Hare wins the race(on a bet that Tommy would win) he blows his head off.The images in this scene is gruesome, not only do you see the fire from the bullet that hits Moe in the head,but can also see a little blood if you look very carfeully.

"Chew Chew Baby" Several scenes involves a man eating cannibal who with razor sharp teeth and large powerful jaws eats humans which are pretty graphic.

"Owly To Bed" The scene where Katnip has an ax who is trying to chop up a little owl and when Herman turns the light off (the screen is pitch black) you hear the ax come falling down.Only when the light is turned on again, it's Katnip that gets split in half very slowly.

Ah Violent Paramount Cartoons...Good To The Last drop :D

[J Lee]

Paramount, without a doubt, dating all the way back to the Fleischer era, though most of those cartoons were more surreal and distrubing than just painfully violent. Even when a scene isn't "violent" in the normal sense (like the greedy m ob in 1943's "Cilly Goose") there's still a disturbing quality to them that none of the other studios came (or in most cases tried to come) close to.

As the Warner Bros' influence over all studios became stronger, the Noveltoon went from being disturbingly menacing to just disturbingly violent, though in some cases they managed to do both (as when the dead Katnip being afraid of going to The Fiery Furance still has to wait on Herman and his cousins -- jeez, the poor cat's dead and he still can't catch a break...).

[Thad Komorowski]

A funnier to end "Mice-Capades":


(Herman): "Remember the Firery Furnace!"

(Katnip): "THE FIRERY FURNACE?!?!................ahh, I'll take my chances!"

Katnip then proceeds to chase the mice throughout the house, walls and all.




-Thad

[Thad Komorowski]

Originally posted by Nelson
"Winner By A Hare":The ending of this cartoon is very graphic ...When Moe Hare wins the race(on a bet that Tommy would win) he blows his head off.The images in this scene is gruesome, not only do you see the fire from the bullet that hits Moe in the head,but can also see a little blood if you look very carfeully.


Ewww... GRUESOME!!!!! (ala rich cat on CatDog) But I love it!




-Thad

[Pietro]

Aww, this one's easy......PARAMOUNT!

-Pietro:D

[Eraserhead]

MGM!

That scene in "Cue-Ball Cat" when Tom throws his poolstick at Jerry and burns him right between his legs....Makes me shrudder everytime I see it.

[Tintin]

I think where this scene was not very violent.

[Matthew Hunter]

I said MGM, but simply because I haven't seen enough Paramount cartoons to really form any kind of opinion. However, judging by some pictures and clips I have seen from the Katnip and Herman films, and that Moe Hare stuff on Jerry Beck's site...I see why many of you voted for Paramount.
-Matthew

[Howard]

I voted for Paramount. There is this one Popeye short where Popeye and Bluto were giving each other shaves and haircuts (not Max Fleisher's "Clean Shaven Man", but a color re-make) where Bluto lathers up Popeye's head with cement, sprinkles it with gunpowder and uses Popeye's hair as a fuse to light it. I haven't seen this one in a while, but that image sticks with me.

[J Lee]

"Shaving Muggs" is the cartoon you're thinking of.

Like I said earlier, the Fleischer's had some violent/surreal images -- Popeye beating Bluto into a baloney sausage in "We Aim to Please" comes to mind -- but the really violent stuff at Paramount didn't get rolling until the late 1940s (which was also about the same time the cartoons began veering heavily into formula plots).

[Pietro]

There's a violent scene in "Bimbo's Initiation" (1931/Fleischer) where Bimbo's shadow gets decaptiated in full view, then his shadow dances around without a head for awhile!

-Pietro:D

[Larry T]

I completely agree with the comments from all of you that stated Paramount cartoons not only walked the violent line, but savagely and disturbingly chopped the line up into little pieces!!

Even though the violence had been in the works with the Popeye cartoons (think "Can You Take It" where Popeye is forced into an iron maiden, and has to walk though spinning buzz saws just to join a club) all the way to the tasteless "Of Mice and Menace" when Katnip looks at the Nickleodeon with a shotgun pointed to his eyes, slowly cranking the handle until the trigger is pulled.

I think Paramount also just pushed the envelope to its limit, for example, in the Huey cartoon when the fox runs at Huey with an axe and actually hits him square in the neck with it (but the super-duck strength of his neck just bends, and the axe bounces off.... hmm what would the next step have been?)- Or, even though we're reminded that the characters are just cartoons in "Herman The CAToonist", we still squirm a little seeing Katnip's foot get erased and he hobbles without one over to the book to attach another.

More disturbing psychological messages: the cartoon, "Finnegan's Flea" always bothered me. This rip-off of "One Froggy Evening" when a down-and-out bum finds a singing flea on his body while locked in a cell (ewwww...), and gets it contact after contract to perform in halls and venues everywhere (unlike "Froggy", everyone can hear the flea) - Anyway, it ends with Finnegan's best friend, a bartender, slamming his hand on the insect and squashing it when Finnegan takes it into the bar to show him how he will never go hungry again. Finnegan goes into shock- and freezes that way for years, as said by the bartender who is narrating the story. All we see is the guy sitting at the bar with fried-egg eyes and no expression on his face at all, and every once in a while the bartender tosses an ale down his throat and a pretzel into his mouth. This used to creep me out, even as a kid- having this vegetable sitting there, day after day, because of his best friend, who survives on nothing but beer and pretzels, in the same clothes year after year, ..... well, you get the picture. :o

"Invention Convention" features a man trying out a new contraption that ultimately kills him at the end. Katnip is killed at the end of several of his cartoons in various methods- blown up, shot, frozen alive, skinned, you name it- even Casper finally makes a little friend who he inadvertently kills- but now is friends with him in eternal bliss of everlasting death- this kind of thing is creepy and psycholoigically disturbing at the same time- it's hard to find a happy comforting ending in this. I can just imagine the audience reaction when they watched this cartoon for the first time:


"Ewwww, Casper's little baby friend died... Snif, snif- now he's burying his body in the plot beside his....what- hey, the fox's ghost is alive now- oh! he's come back to make Casper happy, awwww, that's so nice.....

But just one thing.... they're both DEAD :eek: ......"

[J Lee]

"There's Good Boos Tonight," the second Casper (and not part of the Harveytoons package) is the one you're thinking of, when the baby Fox is shot and killed and comes back as a ghost fox at the end of the cartoon. While this seems to please Casper to no end, it does creep out a lot of people (Paramount's rip-off of Avery's ending in "Little Tinker" a few years later, when Casper finds out the girl he's trying to meet at a square dance is also a disguised ghost, is a lot less creepy).

Maybe it's because the cartoons were done right off the slightly meancing (pre-Gulliani, anyway) Times Square in New York, but there's just something unnerving about a bunch of the Noveltoons and Flesicher shorts that other studios don't come close to. With the Fleischers, I think a lot of that was deliberate (especially the Willard Bowsky-helmed shorts), but in the later Famous Studio ones it just seems like they couldn't get the balance right between Warner's/MGM style slapstick and images that either really hurt or just disturbingly linger in your mind for years to come (Lulu's grossly bloated dad swallowing an entire underground lake in "A Scout With the Gout" is an example of the latter -- it isn't violent, but there's just something weird about it).

[simon]

"Ah, de cat's death rattle! Dat's music to my ears!"

-Herman, in "Cheese Burglar"

Herman was always clearly intended to be a Bugs Bunny-like character, as far as I can tell... But can you imagine Bugs saying something like that about Elmer or Sam???

BTW, if you've never seen "Cheese Burglar", I believe it may have been the inspiration for Freleng's "Stooge for a Mouse" and his later remake of that short with Bugs and Rocky/Mugsy (can't remember the title right now). The situation is pretty much identical, but the Famous version is so downbeat and mean-spirited, you almost want to take a shower after watching it. And this cartoon was produced well before Famous REALLY started going over the top with its violence!

One (relatively tame) scene that freaked me out as a kid is a scene from the Little Lulu cartoon "Chick and Double Chick" where the cat vilain has a window slammed on his neck... Just a throwawy gag, but the image was very disturbing to me at the age of 8 or 9.

Overall I find the Famous cartoons to be fascinating. It's my opinion that, when the Fleischer cartoons were disturbing, it was intentional and the cartoonists knew exactly what they were doing. A lot of Famous cartoons, on the other hand, seem to have been directed by a Tex Avery with severe psychological problems. Cartoons like these could never be made again....

simon

[Looney Man]

Well How about THE TWO MOUSEKETEERS(MGM 1952)
when at the end, although it's mostly off screen, Tom is...
DECAPITATED!!!! And Tuffy Mouse says "pou're pou're
poosycat", c'est la guiier"

[J Lee]

There's the difference -- If it had been a Paramount Herman and Katnip cartoon, they would have beheaded Katnip on screen. ;)

[Larry T]

Originally posted by Looney Man
Well How about THE TWO MOUSEKETEERS(MGM 1952)
when at the end, although it's mostly off screen, Tom is...
DECAPITATED!!!! And Tuffy Mouse says "pou're pou're
poosycat", c'est la guiier"

I'm surprised Cartoon Man didn't jump on this one...

He says, "Pauvre, pauvre pussycat..... c'est la guerre!!"

Loosely translated it means, "Poor, poor pussycat. That's life!" (although literally "c'est la guerre" converts to "that's the war")

[angilbas]

I chose Paramount, having seen a few Herman & Katnips, and many Popeyes. Bluto was very evil at times; one cartoon, set in a skyscraper under construction, had him bludgeoning Popeye to semiconsciousness with a girder...then using a pneumatic drill.

-Tony

[Mibbitmaker]

Finnegan's Flea! O...M...G..!

I've remembered that scene since I was a kid (HAD to be late '60s, but I'm not sure), but over time I'd forgotten whose cartoon that was. I was thinking it was a WB cartoon, particularly Chuck Jones; seems my fuzzy memory was mixing it up with One Froggy Evening, though I'd been seeing THAT cartoon consistantly all my adult life!

So it's Paramount. I HAD to've seen some package of theirs way back, since this thread reminded me of the phrase "firey furnace"

I wish I could see for myself the Paramount cartoons. All I have is 4 cartoons from a pd tape of Herman and Katnip, and the only sign of surprising ultra-violence there is that reference to the "death rattle". Of course, fwiw, the WB cartoons refered once or twice to rigor mortis.

No doubt the disturbing stuff from the Fleishers was pre-code. I love the odd surrealism in those cartoons.

Sounds like Paramount wins this one handly. There is one scene in MGM that's alittle too brutal for me. In the Tom & Jerry on the private lake, when the bulldog is pulled in between those big rocks. Is his face supposed to resemble a fish there, or is it just H&B's sadism gone one li'l step too far?

Back to Paramount: Popeye a la Mode is a particularly disturbing both in its extreme black caricature and the cannibalism gags that are pretty nervy to say the least.

Finnegan's Flea I want to see again some day. In the developement of some of my sense of humor, it was a short hop, skip and jump from that to Michael O'Donoghue's writing on SNL! :)

[Blacklight]

Wow, it's my own fault for reading this thread before bed. I just went to turn on the light, the bulb popped, and I yelled, how embarrassing!! :p

I read the "Finnegan's Flea" description saying, "Oh, not that one. Don't remind me of that one." I only saw the last half once as a kid, but how could I forget? What a sad, cold, awful fate for that poor guy. Was Paramount just the EC Comics of the movie 'toon studios? It wasn't funny, it doesn't warn you about any real-life danger, and it doesn't break the tension at the end, like, say, "Feed the Kitty" where Marc Anthony's kitten is all right after all. What was the point?

[J Lee]

After spending most of the early 1950s going through repetition after repetition of the same plots for most of its series, Paramount began trying to find new story lines around 1956, both for its main characters and for the one-shot cartoons.

For the Baby Huey series his dad was featured more and the Fox was phased out; Little Audrey scripts went back towards the stuff Paramount was doing with the Little Lulu series (no more "Audrey falls asleep and dreams shes....." that ran riot from 1949-54), Herman didn't save his cousins as much (or had different relatives) in the later cartoons and Casper stopped meeting so many new friendly little kids and animoals and started hanging out both with some of the Harvey comic book characters (Wendy, Spooky, the Ghostly Trio) and finding different dead people to meet (Shubert's ghost in "Boo Bop," the Montague family ghost in "Heir Restorer").

For the one-shots, Famous was influenced by the story lines of not only the Jones unit at Warners, but also UPA and what Gene Deitch was doing up in New Rochelle at Terrytoons. Sometimes it worked, as in cartoons like "Le Petit Parade" and "Right off the Bat," but other times, they got lost between cartoons that were quirky and those that were distrubing, the same way they went too far in the early 50s with the violence, like at the end of "Winner By A Hare."

I always found "Finnegan's Flea" to be a a bit disturbing, but not as much as some of the other cartoons at the time -- the ending of "Talking Horse Sence" bothered me more, and all of "Jolly the Clown" was a little bit too mean-spirited for me. And of course, there's always "Chew Chew Baby...."

[Nelson]

Ah, "Chew Chew Baby"(1958) is a cult classic... a great but gory cartoon. :bosko:

[shadejford]

I voted for Paramount too. Before I viewed the results of the poll. I knew Paramount would be the winner. Since childhood, I've had a keen interest especially in the violence of Famous Studios cartoons. During the studio's early years(1942-1948), there wasn't much of the painful violence that you guys spoke of in your posts. However, a careful viewing will show that the violence increased gradually from '42 to '48. Leonard Maltin has pointed out how Famous started making their product heavily standardized around the beginning of the l947-l948 season. It's also at this time that Famous cartoons started portraying the painful violence that's been discussed here.// Interestingly, the Casper series didn't indulge in this kind of slapstick violence. Even the more gag-oriented Caspers featuring Spooky and Wendy did not feature "Herman & Katnip"-type sadism. That's probably because Casper was geared toward a younger, more sensitive audience. Also, Casper's is nature is such that he, unlike Herman or Blackie, will not use violence to solve his problems--for the most part! After awhile, even Casper joined the Paramount Pain Parade in a few of his entries. I have one Casper on video in which he turns into a devil because the Ghostly Trio pushes him too far. Blackie the Lamb fans would like this particular Casper film and I'd like to talk about this one in my next post.

[Daniel P]

Wow... Old thread!

I haven't seen any Herman and Katnip cartoons -- or any other non-Popeye Paramount cartoons for that matter -- so I voted for MGM. Tom and Jerry was one of the most violent, hilarious things I could see when I was younger and I always looked forward to it.

[Boy Wonder]

Picked MGM because of the T+J cartoons. Haven't seen a lot of the Paramount cartoons.

[Lee Glover]

I haven't seen any of the Herman & Katnip cartoons, plus I only have a small number of Paramount/Famous cartoons in my collection, so I voted for MGM (also because of the Tom & Jerry cartoons).

[Sogturtle]

Wow this is an old thread, although obviously popular (I was helping take care of my sick Mom when it first appeared long ago)... I don't think there's any doubt in the world that the most mind-numbingly violent (and really just plain-sickening) cartoons ever made came out of Paramount-Famous (sorry to all Famous devotees). And I like some of the characters and a good share of the animation, but truth-be-told, the story/gagmen at that studio could've written a book on how to turn slapstick humor into some of the most horrifically, unfunny tasteless crap ever made. [They were probably the first bunch of guys who thought up the now-moth-eaten phrase "pushing the envelope" to attempt to justify sheer absence of real creativity and complete lack of taste].

Conversely at Warners and non-HB MGM, slapstick cartoon-violence almost never crossed the line into that strange turf that Famous staked out as their own (did the Famous denizens really covet making the most painfully violent toons ever made on this earth??). By comparison at Warners and MGM the directors were acutely aware when the line was crossed from being funny to that dreaded zone of having to remake a scene ("Hare Ribbin' ")... (One time where I think a Clampett scene had absolutely permanent and lasting consequences).

In short Famous desperately needed Dave Fleischer back as head storyman... (Not to mention Willard Bowsky to functionally direct).

[indy mike]

Paramount without a doubt. If you check out those "Winner By a Hare" images on Jerry Beck's site, you'll see what I mean. How about when Katnip's soul is forced to be a slave for the mice in "Mice-Capades", or when Katnip gets his head cut off by Herman with a pair of scissors in full view in "Herman the CAToonist", or when the nine lives of an early Katnip chase Herman to kill him beyond the grave in "Naughty But Mice", or when the fox gets blasted full of holes and falls into a piano and it makes music in "One Quack Mind", or...........





-Thad

Could you mebbe post a link or explain how to find the Winner by a Hare images at Jerry's site? I couldn't find them in a casual browse - thanx!!!

[Thad Komorowski]

Here's images from the recent, uncut airing on Boomerang, courtesy of Jon Cooke...

http://lantz.toonzone.net/moe-boomerang1.jpg

http://lantz.toonzone.net/moe-boomerang2.jpg

http://lantz.toonzone.net/moe-boomerang3.jpg

http://lantz.toonzone.net/moe-boomerang4.jpg


Hard to believe you'd ever see a station logo on THIS scene... :eek: :bugs1: :bosko:

[indy mike]

Wooof - be careful for what you wish for.... Thanx!

[Daniel P]

Aren't the pictures on Jerry's secret page too?

That aired on television in the daytime?

[Jave]

Boy... you can actually SEE the bullet going through Moe's head!

- Javier :chilly:

POST 500!!!

[indy mike]

Aren't the pictures on Jerry's secret page too?

That aired on television in the daytime?

Ummmmm, do I need a secret decoder ring or know the secret handshake to access that secret page????

[rodney]

I easily vote for the Famous cartoons. Those are horrifically violent (though at times quite funny).

[Daniel P]

Ummmmm, do I need a secret decoder ring or know the secret handshake to access that secret page????There are many lost facts in animation history that you probably don't know about... That being said...
Go to the bottom of the Store page on Jerry's site.

[indy mike]

There are many lost facts in animation history that you probably don't know about... That being said...
Go to the bottom of the Store page on Jerry's site.
I was kinda hoping I'd need to wear a fez!!!! Thankyew!!!!!!

[absolutpaul]

Yes, the mob in Cilly Goose is pretty insane, especially when they have her head in that Wringer! I suppose they thought a lifetime supply of eggs would just "pop" out. It's funny, but it's a little creepy because it hits the "mob mentality" nail right on the head.

[J Lee]

I voted for Paramount too. Before I viewed the results of the poll. I knew Paramount would be the winner. Since childhood, I've had a keen interest especially in the violence of Famous Studios cartoons. During the studio's early years(1942-1948), there wasn't much of the painful violence that you guys spoke of in your posts. However, a careful viewing will show that the violence increased gradually from '42 to '48. Leonard Maltin has pointed out how Famous started making their product heavily standardized around the beginning of the l947-l948 season. It's also at this time that Famous cartoons started portraying the painful violence that's been discussed here.// Interestingly, the Casper series didn't indulge in this kind of slapstick violence. Even the more gag-oriented Caspers featuring Spooky and Wendy did not feature "Herman & Katnip"-type sadism. That's probably because Casper was geared toward a younger, more sensitive audience. Also, Casper's is nature is such that he, unlike Herman or Blackie, will not use violence to solve his problems--for the most part! After awhile, even Casper joined the Paramount Pain Parade in a few of his entries. I have one Casper on video in which he turns into a devil because the Ghostly Trio pushes him too far. Blackie the Lamb fans would like this particular Casper film and I'd like to talk about this one in my next post.

After six years of at times insuffrably cute charcters frolcking through the Capser series (mainly the work of Myron Waldman, who was the Fleischer/Famous "cuteness expert"), Paramount began doing harder-edged stories for Casper in the late 1950s. They were never going to be "adult" in the way Bugs or Daffy's storylines can appeal to older audiences, but getting rid of Waldman's Little Billy -- the most clueless little boy in animation history (in every single cartoon he's in, the ijiut galoot pegs Casper for everything but a ghost) -- and varying up the story lines allowed the writers and directors to give Casper a little meaner personality at times when paired against Spooky or the Ghostly Trio.

Unfortunately, when ABC decided to order a new series of Casper shorts for the 1963-64 season, they went back to the cute, frolicking kind of stuff, only now with all the Harvey comic book characters. Combined with the cheaper animation, those last Caspers don't have the trademark Paramount violence in them, but they are really dull (and I think a few are coming up in some of the fimal shows of the Harveytoons package. Little Billy would fit in perfectly, except he still wouldn't figure out Casper's a ghost).

Also, just a note on Waldman which I've posted in the past -- while he's responsible for the most childlike/Disneylike cartoons both under the Fleischers and at Famous, when his cartoons took a harder line he often ended up with some of the most distrubing endings of all the Paramount cartoons -- slamming the flies into a mass of graves to end "You Can't Shoe A Horsefly," killing off the Fox in "There's Good Boos Tonight," and of course, "Winner By A Hare." He really should have at least made an effort to go west in the 1930s with Natwick, Culhane and Eugster to the Disney studio, because the sweet/cute type of cartoons he did best were what Walt's bunch did best, and when he had to direct a cartoon that was more straight comedy (in 24 years he handled only three Popeyes, and none after 1941), he never fully got the hang of the comedy/violence balance.

[Bobby B]

(in 24 years he handled only three Popeyes, and none after 1941)


Supposedly Waldman worked on "Popeye and the Man Who Hated Laughter", though not having seen it, I don't know how much he did.

[shadejford]

After six years of at times insuffrably cute charcters frolcking through the Capser series (mainly the work of Myron Waldman, who was the Fleischer/Famous "cuteness expert"), Paramount began doing harder-edged stories for Casper in the late 1950s. They were never going to be "adult" in the way Bugs or Daffy's storylines can appeal to older audiences, but getting rid of Waldman's Little Billy -- the most clueless little boy in animation history (in every single cartoon he's in, the ijiut galoot pegs Casper for everything but a ghost) -- and varying up the story lines allowed the writers and directors to give Casper a little meaner personality at times when paired against Spooky or the Ghostly Trio.

Unfortunately, when ABC decided to order a new series of Casper shorts for the 1963-64 season, they went back to the cute, frolicking kind of stuff, only now with all the Harvey comic book characters. Combined with the cheaper animation, those last Caspers don't have the trademark Paramount violence in them, but they are really dull (and I think a few are coming up in some of the fimal shows of the Harveytoons package. Little Billy would fit in perfectly, except he still wouldn't figure out Casper's a ghost).

Also, just a note on Waldman which I've posted in the past -- while he's responsible for the most childlike/Disneylike cartoons both under the Fleischers and at Famous, when his cartoons took a harder line he often ended up with some of the most distrubing endings of all the Paramount cartoons -- slamming the flies into a mass of graves to end "You Can't Shoe A Horsefly," killing off the Fox in "There's Good Boos Tonight," and of course, "Winner By A Hare." He really should have at least made an effort to go west in the 1930s with Natwick, Culhane and Eugster to the Disney studio, because the sweet/cute type of cartoons he did best were what Walt's bunch did best, and when he had to direct a cartoon that was more straight comedy (in 24 years he handled only three Popeyes, and none after 1941), he never fully got the hang of the comedy/violence balance.
Yeah, you're right about Myron. In Maltin's OF MICE AND MEN, Waldman said the other Famous staffers would kid him about working on Casper for the series was seen as an "oooh" and "aaah" goody two shoes-type series. Some of the posters here and elsewhere on the web seem to feel the same way as did the Ghostly Trio about Casper's personality. Some of the cartoons and many of the comic book stories showed the Trio throwing up their hands and saying disgustedly,"Sheesh! What a goody-good! He's always makin' friends!" The best Casper stories would humorously contrast his personality with that of Spooky's or the Ghostly Trio's.