Misconceptions

[Do-Do]

What are some misconceptions that you have had about classic cartoons? Here are some that I had when I was just a wee little child:
*I thought that Hitler in "Daffy the Commando" was supposed to Daffy's neighbor complaining about what Daffy has done to him.
*I thought Merrie Melodies came before Looney Tunes.
*When I first saw, "Smile Darn Ya Smile", I thought that Foxy was Bosko.
*I thought that Blue Ribbons were originally released in that form.
There's probably more that I can't think of right now...

[Jack]

Originally posted by Do-Do
*I thought that Blue Ribbons were originally released in that form.
I thought Blue Ribbons were like that too. I associated them with the Popeye cartoons, like how many of them have a generic title (the ship doors), and others had their own unigue titles.



Jack :D

[Jon Cooke]

I'm sure I wasn't the only one who thought that "a.a.p." was the company that made the Popeye and WB cartoons!


-Jon

[Jack]

Originally posted by Jon Cooke
I'm sure I wasn't the only one who thought that "a.a.p." was the company that made the Popeye and WB cartoons!
One day at school a while back my English class played a game in which you write a famous person's name on a card, and stick it to the forehead of the person next to you. That person then asks questions until they quess what is on the card.

One girl had a card with "Popeye" stuck to her head. After asking several questions, she knew it was an old b&w human cartoon character. Then she then asked "who made the cartoons" and several people answered "wasn't is a.a.p.?"


Jack :D

[Brandon Pierce]

I originally that Woody Woopecker and the Pink Panther were WB cartoons.

[Thad Komorowski]

After seeing the Andy Panda cartunes for the first time in years, I realized that I used to think his name was Arthur! :p




-Thad

[Matt Yorston]

I used to think Snagglepuss was the Pink Panther for some odd reason. They are structured kind of similarly and I didn't pay attention to the fact that Snagglepuss talks (i.e. the panther is almost always mute). I guess what threw me off is that Snagglepuss is a pink mountain lion. Most mountain lions aren't pink so I figured... wait a minute! Most PANTHERS aren't pink either!!!! Gosh, cartoons sure mess with your head sometimes.

As for the "Blue Ribbon" thing, count me in as one of those who thought that was how the cartoons were originally released. It amazed me that Beck/Friedwald were able to track down the majority of films with missing credits for their book publications. I'd give anything to see a Blue Ribbon cartoon with original credits (especially "Hush My Mouse", "Two Gophers From Texas", and "Crowing Pains").

[Emmanuel Cruz]

When I used to see a redrawn or computer-colorized Porky cartoon on Nickeledeon or on a PD tape, I thought they were originally made in color!

[Matthew Hunter]

I thought for a while that the Pink Panther and the Aardvark and Ant were WB cartoons. They technically could be grouped as such, since the dePatie/Freleng studios were doing LT's at the same time...but later I learned they were totally different. Also, I did not realize until discovering books about LT's/MM's that many of the older colorized Porky cartoons I had been seeing were originally black and white, and that Leon Schlesinger had nothing to do with the creation or direction of any of these cartoons he had his name on. I also didn't know how much later the 1960's Daffy cartoons (with Speedy) were made...since Nick never revealed to me the Depatie/Freleng and WB/7 Arts title cards to me until much later. I thought, in fact, that the cartoons on Nickelodeon actually did have that generic blue-ring opening with all the characters in the middle, as well as the stylized themesong.
-Matthew

[PorkyandDaffy]

I used to think that Mammy from Tom and Jerry was a bear.

[TServo2049]

Way back when Looney Tunes on Nickelodeon was first airing, I thought that Bosko and Buddy were the same character, and later (when I found out that they weren't) that Bosko and Honey were monkeys!

[Pilmedium]

Many years ago, I thought that lots of WB cartoons were made in the 1970s and 1980s, and they were being held off for a later time. The "Renewed Copyright" information on The Bugs Bunny and Tweety Show (ABC) led me to think that.

[Billy]

I used to have trouble saying the words ‘Merrie Melodies’ when I was little, so I kept calling them ‘Meow Meows’!
I used to think the Looney Tunes with Porky coming out the drum at the end were made in the 1960s,because the titles seemed more modern and imaginitive then the Merrie Melodies opening and closing titles!
I used to think ‘Dubbed version’ meant the original character voices were dubbed over by someone else!
And I also thought (Only until quite recently) that Popeye cartoons were made by a.a.p.

[Bobby B]

Years ago, I thought the Chuck Jones Tom & Jerrys were the oldest ones because of the washed-out colors.

[Jack]

I never had this misconception (mainly because I never thought about it), but a lot of people think Fred Quimby directed the Tom and Jerry cartoons. After all, his name is the biggest of all the credits, and MGM's practice of crediting the director on the title card makes the names of Hanna and Barbera easy to miss.

I've also seen people refer to Tex Avery and Chuck Jones as the people who invented and made Tom and Jerry great, and that the series really went downhil when Hanna and Barbera began using the characters.



Jack :D

[Cartman]

When I saw Porky's Moving Day , I thought the black guy who keeps saying "Okay boss!" was a monkey.

[Bum]

Great topic! I have a bunch of 'em, many of which have already been mentioned [thought Blue Ribbons were originally released that way, had no idea the pre-43 LT's were B&W, etc]. Here's a few more of mine:

For years, I thought the last WB cartoon was from 1966, due to the fact that all thru the '70's, the Saturday morning Bugs Bunny/Road Runner Show showed nothing newer than "Snow Excuse" and the Larriva Road Runners [I had taught myself to read Roman numeral copyright dates as a kid]. It wasn't until around '78 when NBC started their Daffy Duck Show that I discovered there were cartoons from 67, 68 & 69. I remember being totally amazed by that!

When I was REAL young, I thought that Wile E. was also a rabbit. I didn't know his name at the time, but I can remember referring to him as "the other Bugs Bunny"!!!

My family had nothing but black & white TV sets when I was growing up, and I just assumed that all the concentric circles were tan! Can you imagine what it was like for me to finlly see these in color for the first time?!?

Those are a few off the top of my head; I'll probably think of more and post them later...

[chuckamuck43]

Age 5 - thought that all the Looney Tunes voices were done by different people.

Age 10 - Was shocked to discover that Mel Blanc DIDN'T do all the voices!:D

I also thought Bosko and other African
American characters were Bears or Monkeys.

Although, I must say, I NEVER had that greatest misconception of all about cartoons - that they're only for CHILDREN!

[J Lee]

Two from way way back in the mid-1960s:

1.) I didn't believe most of the pre-1943 Looney Tunes were really Looney Tunes, when they used to air on WOR (Ch. 9) in New York. And it wasn't because they were in black and white (so was our TV set at the time), but there were no concentric circles, all those unknown characters on the Guild Flims logo, and not only coludn't they even draw Porky right, he didn't even sound right in a lot of the cartoons (though my young brain had a tough time reconciling that with the actual truth when something that did look like a Looney Tune, like "Notes To You" showed up on Ch. 9).

2.) Folishly, I believed that after the September 1964 WB sydication package came out, and since the AAP cartoons carried that 1957 copyright date, I figured Warners would be coming out with another batch of cartoon for sydication by around 1971 or so -- I mean, why stop making Looney Tunes? I liked Huck and Yogi and Fred and Barney, but even my naive first grade eyes could tell they weren't the same as Bugs and Daffy (and at that age, you assume if something has been there for as long as you can remember, it always was there and always will be there. Why would anybody want it any other way?)

[PorkyandDaffy]

I used to think ‘Dubbed version’ meant the original character voices were dubbed over by someone else!

Same with me! :)

[Mibbitmaker]

Not only did I think the redrawns were supposed to be in color, but I also thought they weren't very old. That they were JUST alittle older than the post-1948s (which I didn't think of as that old either)

This was late '60s/early '70s.

I figured out the truth when watching Porky's Poultry Plant. I was surprised to see, on those wanted posters, all dates from the early-mid 1930s.

I also, early on, had only been able to see the color Popeyes from the '50s, and I had only started watching Popeye a while after routinely watching LT/MM and the Flintstones. My stunning introduction to the Fleischer B&Ws was on a day I was home sick from school. A station from a long ways off that NEVER came in came in pretty clear that morning, and they had B&W Popeyes on, my first exposure to them. 1940s color Popeyes were also rare locally, so cartoons like On Our Way To Rio felt really special to see. Happily, it wasn't much longer until ALL the Popeyes were aired in our area. Popeye was also virtually the only WWII themed cartoons I saw as a kid. I didn't get to see the LT/MM ones from that era until my 20s (the late 1980s)

Oddly enough(though not so odd for around here), even as a kid I could tell the different animation styles on the Flintstones, especially the first season ones!

[Howard Fein]

Until I learned to read Roman numerals, I thought the post-48 WB shorts shown in the 1964-90 syndication package were all older than the shorts shown in the 1968-90 Saturday AM network package. Never mind that the oldest network short, HOT CROSS BUNNY, was twelve years OLDER than the newest syndicated short, MICE FOLLIES.

I thought the Pink Panther was created for NBC's Saturday morning lineup in 1969 and that all the shorts were originally released with a laugh track. Likewise the Ant and Aardvark in 1971.

I thought the last Walter Lantz cartoon was made in 1966 (SOUTH POLE PALS with Chilly Willy), and the last Woody short in 1964 (THREE LITTLE WOODPECKERS) because those were the copyrights of the last shorts with those characters shown as part of the Lantz package aired on NBC in 1970 and '76, and in syndication beginning '77. It wasn't until I saw Maltin's book that I discovered dozens of other Woody and Chilly shorts were made all the way until 1972, as well as Inspector Willoughby and the Beary Family, whom I never heard of at all. In 1982 Universal finally released the 'lost' shorts to syndication.

(Even though DFE and Lantz shorts were still being released theatrically before the main feature all through the sixties and seventies, they never seemed to be shown before any movie I ever saw during that time.)

I thought the closing footage for the 1968 BB/RR show (Wile E attempting to catch the Roadrunner and bagging Bugs and his car instead), and long clips from old RR shorts shown under Barbara Cameron's 'theme song' were all made by Hanna-Barbera. In 1967 Jim Hendricks took over production of WB animation and began using H-Besque sound effects in shorts (especially with Cool Cat) and the above-mentioned BB/RR animation. Some editor dubbed H-B SFX into the old RR clips (from GOING! GOING! GOSH!, ZIP 'N SNORT, BEEP PREPARED and others). This was also done during the opening BB/RR titles after the "This Is It" number, when Bugs would introduce "his fine feathered friend, the Road Runner" and quick clips from old RR shorts flashed by under the Cameron theme.

I thought all childless episodes of THE FLINTSTONES were made in 1962 (and written by Warren Foster) because for many years in syndication the same closing credits with an MCMLXII copyright was shown after ALL episodes from the first three seasons. This was because the first-season closing sequence (since unearthed by Cartoon Network) was considered lost, and the second-season closing sequence supposedly relied heavily on sponsor tags for Winston Cigarettes.

I thought Format Films' 1961 prime-time ALVIN SHOW was made by Jay Ward due to the extremely low-budget animation and frequent use of Joe Siracusa sound effects, which were a staple of Ward productions. Of course, when Format subcontracted WB and DFE to make the 1965-66 RRs and the three 1967 Daffy/Speedies, the sound effects, along with Herb Klynn and Rudy Larriva, were part of the package.

I thought the Famous/Paramount crew were originally created for comic books and then were animated.

[Cartman]

I thought that the first Looney Tunes were the old Porky Pig cartoons released in 1936. When I saw one redrawn 1930's Porky cartoon with the copyright as 1968 in Roman numerals, I wondered why does the copyright say 1968 when this was obviously made in the 30's? I was in 8th grade at the time I belive.

[angilbas]

The first colorized cartoon I saw was "Porky the Giant Killer" in 1972. It had the 'W7' opening titles with a 1968 copyright, and I thought that the film had actually been made in that year. I concluded from the 'old-style' art that nostalgia ruled at Warner's just before the studio shut down (designs from the 1920s and 1930s were the most popular nostalgia items in the late 1960s and early 1970s).

-Tony

[Pilmedium]

I used to think Goofy was a dog.

[Cartman]

Actually, Goofy is a dog. He's an anthropomorphic (human-like) dog; not a dog-like dog like Pluto.

[Pilmedium]

At least I only thought incorrectly for a few months.

[SloppyMoe]

As a kid, back in the late 1970s, I used to think some of Tex Avery's one-shot MGM cartoons, like LITTLE JOHNNY JET, were Walter Lantz cartoons. Directors' names didn't register with me back then, so I think a local TV station mixed some of these cartoons together; Tex's four Lantz shorts would've been in that package, plus all those mid-late 1950s Lantz shorts (Alex Lovy's in particular) were aping Tex's character design & gag style, so they would've easily lead to this misconception of mine (long since corrected).

[Tintin]

Peg Lee Pete were usually a cat

Marvin the Martian were more blackface

[Lucky Bob]

Originally posted by Martin Juneau

Marvin the Martian were more blackface

With THAT voice?

[Tintin]

Originally posted by luckybob1985


With THAT voice?

Is that a normal voice but still a "martian"

[Jason Furness]

Originally posted by Cartman
When I saw Porky's Moving Day , I thought the black guy who keeps saying "Okay boss!" was a monkey.

Er, actually, I think that guy really is a monkey. ^^;

Anywayz..

-I see I'm not alone in thinking, long ago, that those redrawn Looney Tunes were originally in color. :) For a couple of years I wondered why some LT's were animated so poorly.

-I never thought a.a.p. actually made the WB and Popeye cartoons they owned, but I did think they were involved, somehow, in the production of most of the pre-1944 Popeyes. (I knew they weren't involved with the later Popeyes cuz prints showing their original "A Paramount Picture" logos were fairly common.)

-I thought all the Fleischer Popeye cartoons, even the ones from 1933, were made in color (Turner had them "colorized"- when I was 8 or 9..)

-For years I thought the first color Warner Bros. cartoon was "Beauty and the Beast".

-The first Merrie Melody I ever saw from the Buddy era was "Country Boy". I thought it was colorized.

-When I saw the Tiny Toons episode "Two-Tone Town", I thought that Foxy, his girlfriend ("Roxy") and Goopy Geer had just been created for that episode. ^^;

-I thought the Cool Cat cartoon "Bugged by a Bee" was from 1966. (I needed glasses...)

-Until 1993 I believed there was no such thing as Harman-Ising Merrie Melody.

-Until around 1998 I believed Harman and Ising stopped making Bosko cartoons in 1933.

-For years I thought there were only two Beaky Buzzard cartoons.

-I thought Peg Leg Pete was a dog (he's actually a very ugly cat)

-I also thought Jack King only directed Black-and-white Looney Tunes starring either Buddy, Beans, or Porky Pig

-I thought Harvey Comics created Casper, Little Audrey, Baby Huey, etc.

[Dark Spider]

Here are mine...

-I have no idea what a.a.p. is but I used to think they created Popeye. But seriously, what is a.a.p.?

-Any toons I watched in color, I thought they were made in color. I saw the light when I watched a Porky Pig cartoon both in b&w and in color.

-I also thought that Bosko and the old gang were monkeys, mice, dogs, or some kind of animal. Who knew they were really black? But I think they were intentionally drawn that way to look like animals though. Racism was high at that time.

-I thought Pete was a dog too, but he's actually a cat :eek: .

-I didn't know Popeye's ad-libs weren't part of the script? I thought it was cool because he would say some cool stuff without moving his mouth, and that it was supposed to be part of the cartoon. I think more cartoons should adapt this little ad-lib style now in days.

-I thought Foxy was created by Disney. They sure looked Disney-esque.

[Cartman]

Originally posted by Jason Furness


-When I saw the Tiny Toons episode "Two-Tone Town", I thought that Foxy, his girlfriend ("Roxy") and Goopy Geer had just been created for that episode. ^^;

I had a similar misconception about them as well. I thought that Foxy and Roxy were supposed to be parodies of Mickey and Minne and Goopy Geer was a parody of Goofy.

[BobChief]

Dark Spider, in part:
-I have no idea what a.a.p. is but I used to think they created Popeye. But seriously, what is a.a.p.?

A television syndicator. Argus Sventon's site (http://www.geocities.com/argussventon/cartoondistributors/cartoondistributors.html) has a whole page about this and several others.

[rodney]

For some reason, I once thought Warners were animating new sequences in LT/MM cartoons for the ABC package.

I too thought the colorized cartoons were made that way, probably because Nick would show *some* cartoons in B&W, but not others. I guess that depended on what WB sent them.

For a very brief time, at a very young age, I thought Garfield and Friends was made up of cartoons that had aired in theaters at one point.

[Cartman]

I used to think that the B&W Mickey cartoons (where Mickey's face first appears and then the credits say: WALT DISNEY PRESENTS A MICKEY MOUSE and then the title appeared) used the original titles.

[Tintin]

Goopy Geer and Goofy were a big ressemblance and also Mickey Mouse and Foxy

[dendawg]

Originally posted by Dark Spider
-I have no idea what a.a.p. is but I used to think they created Popeye. But seriously, what is a.a.p.?

A.A.P is an acronym for Associated Artists Productions. They basically bought up the rights to certain WB/Famous/Paramount cartoons that were later allowed to fall into the public domain.

[Thad Komorowski]

I'm pretty sure I'm not the only one who thought that the Harveytoons played on Casper & Friends were the original versions! :eek:



Thad K

[rodney]

Originally posted by Cartman
I used to think that the B&W Mickey cartoons (where Mickey's face first appears and then the credits say: WALT DISNEY PRESENTS A MICKEY MOUSE and then the title appeared) used the original titles.

They aren't? Well.....I guess you learn something new everyday!

[Cartman]

I used to think that these cartoons were shown on TV. I didn't know they were originally shown in theaters before a movie. I also had no idea how old these cartoons were. I thought they were no more than a few years old.