Nelson
02-01-2002, 03:37 AM
Welcome to another edition of the "TTTP Toon Star Of The Month" and for our star of the month for Feburary, is one of the most beloved cartoon characters of all time.His cartoons have earned him three Academy Award Nominations and that's why he is are toon star of the month here at TTTP.
ANDY PANDA
In the fields of animation, Andy Panda is one of the most overlooked cartoon charcters in the history of the animated cartoon .Andy Panda was Walter Lantz's second biggest creation behind Woody Woodpecker but today, he's almost forgotten by today's modern audience.If you visit Universal Studios, you might have a hard time finding any Andy Panda merchandise of any sort almost to the point that he is totally ingnored by his very own home, Universal Studios.But I feel that Andy deserves his very own tribute, by me and die-hard cartoon fans, scholars and film historians.So lets take a trip down memory lane, shall we?
Andy Panda's screen career goes all the way back during the late 30s right after the "Oswald The Lucky Rabbit" was coming to an end, Lantz needed to create a new cartoon character to replace Oswald, who had worn out his welcome by 1938.Then in 1939, a baby panda bear was donated to the Chicago Zoo and it was the very first time that such an event took place in the United States.The big news of the arrival of a panda bear made national headlines all across the country and quickly caught the attention of the Amercian public as well as it caught the attention of Lantz.Lantz tried to create cartoon characters such as, "Meany, Miny, And Moe", Lil' Eightball" and "Babyface Mouse" in which these characters didn't make an impact on moviegoers and that's when Lantz decided that a panda would make a good cartoon star.The very first offical Andy Panda cartoon was released on Spet. 9, 1939 with the name of the first short, "Life Begins For Andy Panda" which was a play on words from a popular feature length movie series ""Life Begins For Andy Hardy" which starred Mickey Rooney and Judy Garland.
In the debut cartoon, Mr. & Mrs. Panda are bringing a baby panda into the world and when all the jungle animals can't figure out a name for the little panda, Mrs. Panda gives him the name of Andy.During a walk through the jungle , Andy's father is telling him about nature and it's surroundings, but when Andy want's to cross the other side of the jungle, his father warns him what could happen by telling Andy that you will get captured and have your picture taken.Andy want's to see for himself because he tells his father that he want's to be in the newsreels.Then a bunch of cannibals grabs his father and is captured and when word gets to Mrs. Panda all of the jungle animals come to the rescue for Andy and his father from the hungry cannibals.Unfortunately, this film is rarely shown today, because it contains images of black stereotypes and features an Eddie Rochester like turtle which some may deem(along with 100 Pygmies And Andy Panda) too offensive to modern day viewers.
The success of the first cartoon was such an instant hit with moviegoers that they fell in love with the lovable little panda, Universal and Lantz commissioned to have it made into a regular series having four to five cartoons released a year.That following year, several Andy cartoons were rush into theaters including, "Andy Panda Goes Fishing", "100 Pygmies And Andy Panda" and "Crazy House".But the one standout one reeler released that year in 1940 was "Knock "Knock", this was the landmark film that Andy Panda introduced "Woody Woodpecker"(the first of three teamings with Woody) in his screen debut and voiced by the great Mel Blanc who provided Woody's original voice.Early in the Andy series, Andy's Father was the supporting character in the cartoons, such cartoons as, "Dizzy Kitty", "Mouse Trappers", "Under The Spreading Blacksmith Shop" and even starring in his own cartoon short,"Andy Panda's Pop".Andy even made a cameo apperance in the 1941 "Swing Symphonies" cartoon short, "$21.000 A Day Once A Month".
By 1942, the series took a major turn, Lantz and his animation staff decided that it was time for Andy to become a grown up and gone was Andy's father and soon after, Andy became a solo act own his own.The first "Adult Andy" cartoon was "Goodbye Mr. Moth"ashop and has to deal with a hungry eatin moth who eats up all of his bussiness.In this cartoon, Andy stills looks like a youngster instead of an adult, but for the next cartoon, "Nutty Pine Cabin" Andy finally looks and acts like an adult, as he tries to build a log cabin only to see it get demolished by a bunch of mischiveous beavers.During this period and for the duration of the series, Andy became the fall guy in his own cartoons always winding up with the short end of the stick in the cartoons.
1943 was a big year for Andy and the reason for that was Lantz brought to legendary animators to work for the studio, James 'Shamus" Culhane and Grim Natwick (Betty Boop's creator)to work on the Andy and Woody cartoons and as a matter of fact, Lantz and Natwick worked together during the NYC animation circut during the twenties.Culhane's first directorial Andy Panda cartoon, "Meatless Tuesday" is a great cartoon,the cartoon opens up with a whole bunch of ration cards stuffed in Andy's mailbox, so Andy decides dine on chicken but everything runs amuck when Andy tries to catch a slick rooster in a life and death struggle with an ax only for Andy to get the worst of it.Some people thought that the adult Andy was a dull cartoon character, but I totally disagree with that, the simple fact is that the grown up Andy cartoons are very, very good and entertaining.The one thing that I admired about these cartoons were that no matter what would happen to Andy, he would never give up and that's what adults would face in their real lives as well.The teaming of the Culhane/Natwick Andy cartoons followed with a superb cartoon, "Fish Fry" (1944) which earned Lantz, Culhane, Andy and the studio three consecutive Academy Adward nominations in a row.And then there was "The Poet And Pleasant".
"The Poet And Pleasant" is a very important cartoon in the history of animation and for very good reasons.During Hollywood's "Golden Age" a cartoon would get a week's run while the feature length film would get a longer run and that's because all of the cartoon studios work on an assembly line turning out three to four cartoons during a month's period."The Poet And Pleasant was such a huge hit with moviegoers that Universal Studios extended that cartoon to a four week run and gave the studio the Academy Award nod for best cartoon short for 1946 and TPAP is the very first theatrical cartoon short to have the longest theatrical run out of any other cartoon from any studio from hollywood's golden age.Many other excellent concert cartoons followed such as "Musical Moments From Chopin", The Bandmaster which had great animation and direction from Dick Lundy(who would later direct the Barney Bear cartoons at MGM) and by the late forties the series was almost an end.
Such Andy cartoons as "The Wacky Weed" , "Apple Andy", "Crow Crazy", " and "Dog Tax Dodgers" were very great cartoons and in one cartoon, "Scrappy's Birthday" Andy was given a girlfriend named Miranda and was Andy's last theatrical cartoon as well.By this period Lantz was releasing his cartoons through United Artists due to a contract dispute with Universal and during that time Universal was releasing some older Andy cartoons as a replacement.In 1951 when Lantz and Universal worked out a new contract deal to release new cartoons, but for reasons unkown today, the Andy Panda cartoons were not picked up for the 1951-1952 movie season, but the Andy never lost his popularity with theater audience during that time and it's a real shame as well, one can only wonder just what if the Andy cartoons were made during the 1950s.Today, Andy is not forgotten by cartoon fans and his cartoons are still enjoyable to watch, 63 years after the first Andy Panda cartoon was made.
Academy Award Nominations:Best Cartoon Short Subject
1944:Fish Fry
1945:The Poet And Pleasant
1946:Musical Moments From Chopin
Voices:
Bernice Hansen, Sarah Berner, Walter Tetly
My 3 Top Andy Panda Cartoons For The Month:
FISH FRY (1944) A Shamus Culhane masterpiece. When Andy buys a pet fish, a tall dark hungry cat tries to eat Andy's fish and the results are disastrous for the cat.One funny moment is where the fish pulls a big set of false teeth and bites the cat on his finger, and watch how Culhane switches the scene quickly with a perfect aerial camera shot way up in the air when the cats soars in pain after the fish bites the living daylights out of the cat.The ending is very bizzare, when the cat chases Andy and his fish into the pet store again, Andy comes out with a vicious bulldog and when the cat get scared he runs into and says to the dog, lightpost, safe, mailbox runs way down the street and come back looking very demented, very crazy with his eyes popping out and saying to the bulldog, I MADE IT, I MADE IT, I MADE IT. and starts knocking himself with a two by four as the bulldog watches on.My personal favortie Andy Panda short.
THE WACKY WEED (1947) This is one very sick and twisted Andy short ever made.When Andy buys a cute flower, a nasty old weed jumps over the fence and starts to choke the living daylights out of the flower.Attempt after Attempt Andy tries to kill the evil weed from using a weed killer, tying him by a rope tied to the car only to see the weed slip it on the hose faucet and Andy runing into his house.Great PIC short :D
THE POET AND PLEASANT (1946) One of the greatest classical concert cartoon short ever made.In this short, Andy play a musical conductor who is making his final concert farewell apperance (we hope) and the perfomance doesn't go Andy's way at all.A cat disrupts his conduction, a fox tries to eat a duck and a annoying squirrel talking to a pig by saying, "I BETCHA I CAN EAT A WHOLE BAG OF POPCORN, I BETCHA" until the pig shuts up the squirrel by zipping his mouth shut.The music mixes classical with a New Orleans style jazz score. A **** rating, can't beat this cartoon!
Film & Video source material:
Thad K.
Andy Panda avatar:
Pietro S.
And keep checking here all month long with more facts and stories about Andy Panda and in honor of Andy, there will be a ANDY PANDA "STAR OF THE MONTH" contest where one lucky winner will win a two tape set of almost all the Andy Panda cartoons ever made, so just keep checking right here for all the details coming later this month as we celebrate Andy Panda month right here at "Toon Forums" :)
ANDY PANDA
In the fields of animation, Andy Panda is one of the most overlooked cartoon charcters in the history of the animated cartoon .Andy Panda was Walter Lantz's second biggest creation behind Woody Woodpecker but today, he's almost forgotten by today's modern audience.If you visit Universal Studios, you might have a hard time finding any Andy Panda merchandise of any sort almost to the point that he is totally ingnored by his very own home, Universal Studios.But I feel that Andy deserves his very own tribute, by me and die-hard cartoon fans, scholars and film historians.So lets take a trip down memory lane, shall we?
Andy Panda's screen career goes all the way back during the late 30s right after the "Oswald The Lucky Rabbit" was coming to an end, Lantz needed to create a new cartoon character to replace Oswald, who had worn out his welcome by 1938.Then in 1939, a baby panda bear was donated to the Chicago Zoo and it was the very first time that such an event took place in the United States.The big news of the arrival of a panda bear made national headlines all across the country and quickly caught the attention of the Amercian public as well as it caught the attention of Lantz.Lantz tried to create cartoon characters such as, "Meany, Miny, And Moe", Lil' Eightball" and "Babyface Mouse" in which these characters didn't make an impact on moviegoers and that's when Lantz decided that a panda would make a good cartoon star.The very first offical Andy Panda cartoon was released on Spet. 9, 1939 with the name of the first short, "Life Begins For Andy Panda" which was a play on words from a popular feature length movie series ""Life Begins For Andy Hardy" which starred Mickey Rooney and Judy Garland.
In the debut cartoon, Mr. & Mrs. Panda are bringing a baby panda into the world and when all the jungle animals can't figure out a name for the little panda, Mrs. Panda gives him the name of Andy.During a walk through the jungle , Andy's father is telling him about nature and it's surroundings, but when Andy want's to cross the other side of the jungle, his father warns him what could happen by telling Andy that you will get captured and have your picture taken.Andy want's to see for himself because he tells his father that he want's to be in the newsreels.Then a bunch of cannibals grabs his father and is captured and when word gets to Mrs. Panda all of the jungle animals come to the rescue for Andy and his father from the hungry cannibals.Unfortunately, this film is rarely shown today, because it contains images of black stereotypes and features an Eddie Rochester like turtle which some may deem(along with 100 Pygmies And Andy Panda) too offensive to modern day viewers.
The success of the first cartoon was such an instant hit with moviegoers that they fell in love with the lovable little panda, Universal and Lantz commissioned to have it made into a regular series having four to five cartoons released a year.That following year, several Andy cartoons were rush into theaters including, "Andy Panda Goes Fishing", "100 Pygmies And Andy Panda" and "Crazy House".But the one standout one reeler released that year in 1940 was "Knock "Knock", this was the landmark film that Andy Panda introduced "Woody Woodpecker"(the first of three teamings with Woody) in his screen debut and voiced by the great Mel Blanc who provided Woody's original voice.Early in the Andy series, Andy's Father was the supporting character in the cartoons, such cartoons as, "Dizzy Kitty", "Mouse Trappers", "Under The Spreading Blacksmith Shop" and even starring in his own cartoon short,"Andy Panda's Pop".Andy even made a cameo apperance in the 1941 "Swing Symphonies" cartoon short, "$21.000 A Day Once A Month".
By 1942, the series took a major turn, Lantz and his animation staff decided that it was time for Andy to become a grown up and gone was Andy's father and soon after, Andy became a solo act own his own.The first "Adult Andy" cartoon was "Goodbye Mr. Moth"ashop and has to deal with a hungry eatin moth who eats up all of his bussiness.In this cartoon, Andy stills looks like a youngster instead of an adult, but for the next cartoon, "Nutty Pine Cabin" Andy finally looks and acts like an adult, as he tries to build a log cabin only to see it get demolished by a bunch of mischiveous beavers.During this period and for the duration of the series, Andy became the fall guy in his own cartoons always winding up with the short end of the stick in the cartoons.
1943 was a big year for Andy and the reason for that was Lantz brought to legendary animators to work for the studio, James 'Shamus" Culhane and Grim Natwick (Betty Boop's creator)to work on the Andy and Woody cartoons and as a matter of fact, Lantz and Natwick worked together during the NYC animation circut during the twenties.Culhane's first directorial Andy Panda cartoon, "Meatless Tuesday" is a great cartoon,the cartoon opens up with a whole bunch of ration cards stuffed in Andy's mailbox, so Andy decides dine on chicken but everything runs amuck when Andy tries to catch a slick rooster in a life and death struggle with an ax only for Andy to get the worst of it.Some people thought that the adult Andy was a dull cartoon character, but I totally disagree with that, the simple fact is that the grown up Andy cartoons are very, very good and entertaining.The one thing that I admired about these cartoons were that no matter what would happen to Andy, he would never give up and that's what adults would face in their real lives as well.The teaming of the Culhane/Natwick Andy cartoons followed with a superb cartoon, "Fish Fry" (1944) which earned Lantz, Culhane, Andy and the studio three consecutive Academy Adward nominations in a row.And then there was "The Poet And Pleasant".
"The Poet And Pleasant" is a very important cartoon in the history of animation and for very good reasons.During Hollywood's "Golden Age" a cartoon would get a week's run while the feature length film would get a longer run and that's because all of the cartoon studios work on an assembly line turning out three to four cartoons during a month's period."The Poet And Pleasant was such a huge hit with moviegoers that Universal Studios extended that cartoon to a four week run and gave the studio the Academy Award nod for best cartoon short for 1946 and TPAP is the very first theatrical cartoon short to have the longest theatrical run out of any other cartoon from any studio from hollywood's golden age.Many other excellent concert cartoons followed such as "Musical Moments From Chopin", The Bandmaster which had great animation and direction from Dick Lundy(who would later direct the Barney Bear cartoons at MGM) and by the late forties the series was almost an end.
Such Andy cartoons as "The Wacky Weed" , "Apple Andy", "Crow Crazy", " and "Dog Tax Dodgers" were very great cartoons and in one cartoon, "Scrappy's Birthday" Andy was given a girlfriend named Miranda and was Andy's last theatrical cartoon as well.By this period Lantz was releasing his cartoons through United Artists due to a contract dispute with Universal and during that time Universal was releasing some older Andy cartoons as a replacement.In 1951 when Lantz and Universal worked out a new contract deal to release new cartoons, but for reasons unkown today, the Andy Panda cartoons were not picked up for the 1951-1952 movie season, but the Andy never lost his popularity with theater audience during that time and it's a real shame as well, one can only wonder just what if the Andy cartoons were made during the 1950s.Today, Andy is not forgotten by cartoon fans and his cartoons are still enjoyable to watch, 63 years after the first Andy Panda cartoon was made.
Academy Award Nominations:Best Cartoon Short Subject
1944:Fish Fry
1945:The Poet And Pleasant
1946:Musical Moments From Chopin
Voices:
Bernice Hansen, Sarah Berner, Walter Tetly
My 3 Top Andy Panda Cartoons For The Month:
FISH FRY (1944) A Shamus Culhane masterpiece. When Andy buys a pet fish, a tall dark hungry cat tries to eat Andy's fish and the results are disastrous for the cat.One funny moment is where the fish pulls a big set of false teeth and bites the cat on his finger, and watch how Culhane switches the scene quickly with a perfect aerial camera shot way up in the air when the cats soars in pain after the fish bites the living daylights out of the cat.The ending is very bizzare, when the cat chases Andy and his fish into the pet store again, Andy comes out with a vicious bulldog and when the cat get scared he runs into and says to the dog, lightpost, safe, mailbox runs way down the street and come back looking very demented, very crazy with his eyes popping out and saying to the bulldog, I MADE IT, I MADE IT, I MADE IT. and starts knocking himself with a two by four as the bulldog watches on.My personal favortie Andy Panda short.
THE WACKY WEED (1947) This is one very sick and twisted Andy short ever made.When Andy buys a cute flower, a nasty old weed jumps over the fence and starts to choke the living daylights out of the flower.Attempt after Attempt Andy tries to kill the evil weed from using a weed killer, tying him by a rope tied to the car only to see the weed slip it on the hose faucet and Andy runing into his house.Great PIC short :D
THE POET AND PLEASANT (1946) One of the greatest classical concert cartoon short ever made.In this short, Andy play a musical conductor who is making his final concert farewell apperance (we hope) and the perfomance doesn't go Andy's way at all.A cat disrupts his conduction, a fox tries to eat a duck and a annoying squirrel talking to a pig by saying, "I BETCHA I CAN EAT A WHOLE BAG OF POPCORN, I BETCHA" until the pig shuts up the squirrel by zipping his mouth shut.The music mixes classical with a New Orleans style jazz score. A **** rating, can't beat this cartoon!
Film & Video source material:
Thad K.
Andy Panda avatar:
Pietro S.
And keep checking here all month long with more facts and stories about Andy Panda and in honor of Andy, there will be a ANDY PANDA "STAR OF THE MONTH" contest where one lucky winner will win a two tape set of almost all the Andy Panda cartoons ever made, so just keep checking right here for all the details coming later this month as we celebrate Andy Panda month right here at "Toon Forums" :)