Acme Hour 7/6/01

[hiphats]

Here is what occurred today on the 2 PM Acme...

"The Hick Chick" (MGM)
"Plumbing Is A 'Pipe'" (Popeye, redrawn)
"Busy Bakers" (WB)
"The Wayward Pups" (MGM)
"A Gander At Mother Goose" (WB, dubbed)
"The Bear And The Bean" (Barney Bear)

P.S. This has been the simplified version.

hips
SUPERMAN Web Central
http://members.aol.com/hiphats/superman.html

[hiphats]

ACME HOUR for July 6, 2001

I watched the entire program and could not find anything in common with the six cartoons that were shown, so therefore I can only conclude that today's show had no particular theme. However, there were four one-shots. Here they are in detail and broadcast order:

1. "The Hick Chick" (one-shot, MGM) Like father, like son (you'll see what I mean when you see the closing gag).
2. "Plumbing Is A 'Pipe'" (Popeye, Paramount, re-drawn) If you think you've got plumbing problems this summer, wait until you see what happens to Olive!
3. "Busy Bakers" (one-shot, WB, Merrie Melodie Blue Ribbon w/o credits, non-dubbed but without the opening AAP logo) A down-on-his-luck baker suddenly has some secret help...moral of the closing gag: what goes around comes around.
4. "The Wayward Pups" (one-shot, MGM/Harman-Ising) One of two shorts on today's show that made me laugh...especially the climactic dog chase!
5. "A Gander At Mother Goose" (one-shot, WB, Merrie Melodie, dubbed) Boy, how Mother Goose managed to get slammed...everything including a screaming mouse on a silent Christmas eve!
6. "The Bear And The Bean" (Barney Bear, MGM) The other short that made me laugh from beginning to end...moral here: you can't outrun a Mexican jumping bean.

hips
SUPERMAN Web Central
http://www.geocities.com/hiphats/supmain.html

P.S. When I'm available to do so, I'll present two versions of the ACME HOUR rundown, since obviously there are those people who prefer simple lists and those who want to be that 'toon concious and learn a bit about them.

[Jon Cooke]

In the future, let's keep all Acme Hour posts for a certain day within the same thread. We can post the "simple" version first, and then all comments and (gasp!) details as replies. This prevents multiple threads about the same subject and is less confusing and creates less clutter on the first page of the TTTP. I attempted to merge the two threads but failed miserably (need more practice, I guess)... maybe Brian or Jack can do it?


-Jon

[Brian Cruz]

Done.

[PorkyandDaffy]

THE HICK CHICK – Funny cartoon. Reminds me of A HICK, A SLICK, AND A CHICK that WB would make two years later. The running gag with the bull is great.

PLUMBING IS A PIPE – Popeye helps Olive Oyl with her plumbing problem when the real plumber takes forever to show up. I don’t usually like Popeyes, especially the redrawn ones, but this was good. I’d prefer the B&W version, though.

BUSY BAKERS - I could care less for the singing and the rhyming, but this had several funny gags, and I liked the way the bakers were designed (some of them were caricatures of then-famous Hollywood stars). A pretty good cartoon.

THE WAYWARD PUPS – An early MGM cartoon. No comment.

A GANDER AT MOTHER GOOSE - Another one of Avery’s patented “Travelogue”-like narrations. This was pretty good, although I thought the gag with the dog wishing for a tree was dumb, and I didn’t get the “old lady in a shoe” scene. Anyone notice that the Jack-Jump-Over-The Candlestick scene freezes before the page turns to the next scene?

THE BEAR AND THE BEAN – Pretty good, although I’m a little surprised CN shows this since the jumping bean is MEXICAN. I’m also surprised that Hanna and Barbera supervised this cartoon, since I thought they only did Tom and Jerry at MGM. Any other “Barney Bear’s” they supervised?

[Thad Komorowski]

Actually, "The Bear and the Bean" was directed by someone else (can't remember who). The word "Supervision" is meaningless. Possibly what MGM meant was that H-B was in charge of the production. I'm probably wrong. It is possible, since H-B directed a handful of misc. shorts that weren't T&J ("War Dogs" and "Good Will to Men" for example).

-Thad:D

[TServo2049]

The Bear and the Bean was directed by Michael Lah and Preston Blair.

[PorkyandDaffy]

I know it was directed by someone else. I was saying that I was surprised to see H-B's name on a Barney Bear cartoon.

[Thad Komorowski]

Oh, sorry. Didn't know. I thought it was odd too.

-Thad:D

[Sveven Dvorking]

This early Merrie Melody is way too red. It is definitely easy to notice. It was also undubbed. They need a dubbed version of this cartoon.

[Patrick McCart]

You're right...this print is probably an EASTMANCOLOR print.

In order to restore a little bit of blue and green, the telecine (machine that transfers film to video) is set to tint the image blue.

Of course, it still looks unnaturally red (since the blue and green is FADED on film).

Reason #1027 that Technicolor is 1,000,000 times better than any other color process!

[Jack]

I don't really want to veer away too too much from the subject, but how does a "telecine" machine work? I've always wondered how they transferred film to video.



Jack:D

[DR. BELCH]

"The Hick Chick" (MGM)
"If he does dat to me one more time, I'll blow my brains out!" The ending might've been funnier (and more suggestive) if the little black baby rooster came out of the hick rooster's litter...."Why, you've got 20 toes!" "Don't ever'body?" The leaking-holes-in-the-body gag is an all-time favorite of mine....

"Plumbing Is A 'Pipe'" (Popeye)
Wimpy sounded a lot like W.C. Fields here...this was almost as trippy as one I saw the other night with Popeye and a pre-Woody Edward G. Robinson woodpecker...watch for the bit where the water from a broken pipe appears to flow upwards and curve...note Olive appears to mix ammonia with bleach, which is a no-no....

"Busy Bakers" (WB)
"The Shoemaker and the Elves" with baked goods. Some of the elves looked like comedians of the day--could've sworn I saw Groucho and Harpo Marx, The Three Stooges, and maybe Lew Lehr...Remember, there's a five-cent deposit on the pie plate.

"The Wayward Pups" (MGM)
Note the (white) Mammy figure...and the Donald Duck-like voice of the cat. While most cats in cartoons are the victims of dogs, this one apparently takes on about a dozen single-handedly in a fistfight--then a stark contrast of him tenderly rocking them to sleep in a cradle. Awww....

"A Gander At Mother Goose" (WB, dubbed)
And I thought Andrew Dice Clay did great alternative versions of nursery rhymes. Tex Avery's take on Jack and Jill was my favorite bit--I half expected Jill to actually come down the hill with $2.50. DYN proud poppa's "I'm a real man!" wink to the camera in "The Little Old Woman and the Shoe"?

"The Bear And The Bean" (Barney Bear)
Fav scene--Barney with the bedknob on his nose and his manic contortions every time the bean sneezed, almost Avery-like. And they call Speedy racist? Though I admit that bean was a lot more adorable....

[happyheathen]

Originally posted by Jack
I don't really want to veer away too too much from the subject, but how does a "telecine" machine work? I've always wondered how they transferred film to video.



Jack:D

Basically, it's a box containing lenses and mirrors, into which the movie is projected, and a camcorder one the other end - I've never seen it, although I've had a couple films run through it.
I assume the audio is a simple patch.

the crude way is to stick the film in a projector, then point the projector and a camcorder at a wall - not recommended.

[Jack]

the crude way is to stick the film in a projector, then point the projector and a camcorder at a wall - not recommended.

I've heard of TV stations that did this at one time.


Jack:D