Most hated classic cartoon director

[Pilmedium]

Is there anyone who directed classic cartoons, but is degraded by cartoon fans?

[dendawg]

Originally posted by Pilmedium
Is there anyone who directed classic cartoons, but is degraded by cartoon fans?

Phew, talk about your landmine topics...no matter what anyone says someone is bound to flame em for it.

My vote goes to Michael Lah, IMHO his droopy's are the worst, next to H/B.

[Do-Do]

I don't really like much of what Robert McKimson did after the late 40's.

[Thad Komorowski]

I don't know about most hated director, but some of the Harman-Ising stuff gets boring.


-Thad

[J Lee]

Gotta be Paul J. Smith, folks. He did OK working alongside Patterson and Avery at the Lantz studio when he first took over, but by 1957 his output went straight down the tubes and pretty much stayed there for the next 15 years.

[Pilmedium]

I think the Hanna-Barbera TV stuff can get boring, but their classic cartoons aren't too bad.

Then again, everyone else likes Hanna-Barbera TV, so I'm alone with my opinion once again.

[Matthew Hunter]

If you want my opinion...Friz Freleng's early stuff. Not his whole output, everything from about 1936 on was great, and he rarely had a bad cartoon after that...but his 1930's period really bores me. His teamups with Harman and Ising are quite enjoyable, and I think his Captain and the Kids films for MGM were fine...but Friz's little 'musical' color Merrie Melodies fro the 1934-1936 years are bad bad bad bad with a capital B B B B. BAD. This is once again my opinion, many people like those.
Another director who needed to be smacked around a little for his mistakes was Robert McKimson in the early 60's. His post-1964 low budget work proves enjoyable, but his once-great Foghorn Leghorn turned into a real bore, his one-shots were a mixed bag, and his Bugs Bunny films (particularly "Dr. Devil and Mr. Hare") were less than good. In fact, he had such a stint of subpar films from about 1960 to 1965 that he is credited with being a force in the studio's decline, but I don't go that far. I just don't like his early 1960's output.
I also don't really care for the couple cartoons Abe Levitiow did...they bore me.
-Matthew

[Tintin]

Harman-Ising

[Sogturtle]

Gotta go with J. Lee on this one... No human being working IN HOLLYWOOD was anywhere near as bad Paul J. Smith... However the Charles Nichols directed H-B stuff is putrid, but is limited-animation, so a different animal.

Annnnnnnd on the EAST COAST the prize goes hands down to Myron Waldman, the man who ruined Betty Boop AND gave us Pudgy.

[DR. BELCH]

--Gene Dietch. Be thankful that, unlike Mr. Jones, he never seems to have gravitated towards the Internet medium. Imagine his nightmarish, surreal style in a webtoon.... :shudder:

[J Lee]

Annnnnnnd on the EAST COAST the prize goes hands down to Myron Waldman, the man who ruined Betty Boop AND gave us Pudgy.

Aww Jeez, Tim, I completely forgot about Waldman -- he was also the man mainly responsable for those stupefylingly repetitive Casper cartoons of the late 1940s and early 1950s, though I suppose having to do all those cutsey-poo friendly ghost tales finally got to him as well, judging by the ending he, Klein and Sparber came up with for, "Winner By A Hare" (picture an image of Myron muttering to himself, "OK, you little !@!$%^$#%$# kids! You like Casper so much -- Well, this is how you become a ghost!" Must have been very threaputic.) ;)

[Patrick McCart]

I don't hate, but I dislike most of the Rudy Larriva cartoons.

They are dreadly unfunny and are animated poorly compared to the classic animation. It looks like TV animation.

[Andrew Gilmore]

I agree with Do-Do. I really like McKimson's early stuff like "Daffy Doodles" and his Foghorn Leghorn toons are always good, but even when I was about 8 years old and didn't know many of the directors' names, a dumb/predictably violent and generally unfunny toon would elicit a shout of "MCKIMSOOOON!!" from my youthful voicebox many a Saturday morn.

[PorkyandDaffy]

I can't understand why McKimson gets bashed a lot. His pre-55 cartoons were the bomb, and even though his efforts did decline after 1955, in my opinion, they weren't that bad and probably the most watchable cartoons from that dreadful period. I found Jones' post-55 cartoons absolutely awful, and Freleng's was just nothing special.

If there are any directors I feel deserves the bashing they get, it's Rudy Larriva and Gene Deitch.

[Daffyfan2002]

I just want to say that I really like a lot of McKimson cartoons. I think my favorites were "Boobs in the Woods," "What's Up, Doc," and "Hoppy Go Lucky." (But I can't say Sylvester, George.) I think my least favorite directors were probably Alex Lovy and Rudy Larriva. But I don't hate them. I mean Lovy did some animation for classic shows such as "The Flinstones" and "Scooby-Doo."

[Pietro]

I don't really hate any cartoon directors. I mean, they're all great in their own way. But, I didn't really like much of Jack King's work at Warner's (especially those Buddy cartoons he directed, including - ugh! - "Buddy Steps Out!")

-Pietro:D

[Daffyfan2002]

I'd have to agree with you there. The only cartoon by Jack King that I remember seeing was "Porky's Fish Tales," and that one wasn't one of my favorites.

[Larry T]

Originally posted by J Lee


Aww Jeez, Tim, I completely forgot about Waldman -- he was also the man mainly responsable for those stupefylingly repetitive Casper cartoons of the late 1940s and early 1950s, though I suppose having to do all those cutsey-poo friendly ghost tales finally got to him as well, judging by the ending he, Klein and Sparber came up with for, "Winner By A Hare" (picture an image of Myron muttering to himself, "OK, you little !@!$%^$#%$# kids! You like Casper so much -- Well, this is how you become a ghost!" Must have been very threaputic.) ;)

(Takes a very deep breath).... phew! Let me wipe a tear from my eye from all the laughter this reply evoked from me... :D :D :D :D

I think you hit the nail on the head J. Lee-

And I'm going to go with Pietro's opinion: the extremely UNfunny Jack King. If it weren't for the historical context of most of his toons, most cartoon-ians would just as soon forget about him altogether. Even his wartime cartoons at D*sn*y just pass the mark of being barely watchable (just image what kind of cartoons he'd have come up with there if he had complete control over the output like he did at Warners.... Brrrr... it's lucky Walt had many hands going into production of all the shorts....)

[Sogturtle]

Originally posted by Larry T


....
And I'm going to go with Pietro's opinion: the extremely UNfunny Jack King. If it weren't for the historical context of most of his toons, most cartoon-ians would just as soon forget about him altogether. Even his wartime cartoons at D*sn*y just pass the mark of being barely watchable (just image what kind of cartoons he'd have come up with there if he had complete control over the output like he did at Warners.... Brrrr... it's lucky Walt had many hands going into production of all the shorts....)

Larry~

I tend to cut King a lot more slack than you (or most people), for this reason... He was NEVER HIRED by Leon Schlesinger to be a director, he was hired to be the HEAD ANIMATOR (a job Bob McKimson would hold later). It was only by the gross failure of his longtime co-worker Tom Palmer, and then the firing of Earl Duvall (as detailed a little while back by yours truly ;) ) that Jack King came to the director's chair. Had he ever been a director before??? No!! Had he really wanted to be a director??? I don't think so, for even at Walt's he had been passed over in favor of the much younger Wilfred Jackson. Buuuuut once he got the higher pay of director at Schlesinger he certainly wouldn't have gone back to animator, even when returning to D*sn*y. Did he know he wasn't a very good director??? Maybe he did. PERHAPS seeing how lackluster his cartoons were compared to those of Friz Freleng and the new boy Tex Avery, gave him reason to want to leave Leon's... At Walt's he would only have comparison to Wilfred Jackson. And since Walter Elias wanted weak directors... The story about Walt walking in on a bunch of his own directors and crew previewing the latest hilarious Tex Avery MGM toon filled with wild-takes is telling... Walt promptly blew a fuse and loudly threatened the directors present that no way did he want to catch any of them doing that kind of stuff in HIS cartoons.

Anyway, NOW the next question is this... Was the (previously unmentioned) SOLO Ben Hardaway a better director than Jack King??? Just wondering.