The Acme Hour 7/13/2001

[Dave Mackey]

Popeye, The Ace Of Space
Rocket To Mars (orig titles)
Little Buck Cheezer
The Hasty Hare (still no turkey farming)
Hare-Way To The Stars
Mouse Into Space

[hiphats]

Well, someone beat me to it!

One thing you forgot to tell people was the theme of today's show..."Spaced Out"!...as well as the prominent stars, studios, and producers (where applicable).

So now, here is the listing proper...

Theme: "Spaced Out"

1. "Popeye, The Ace Of Space" (Popeye, Paramount, 3-D downmixed to 2-D)
2. "Rocket To Mars" (Popeye, Paramount, original titles)
3. "Little Buck Cheeser" (one-shot, MGM/Harman-Ising)
4. "The Hasty Hare" (Bugs, WB)
5. "Hare-Way To The Stars" (Bugs, WB, time-compressed)
6. "Mouse Into Space" (Tom & Jerry, MGM/Deutsch-Snyder)

Dave, look at the listing, and learn from it, my friend...or YOU'LL BE SPACED OUT!!!

P.S. This was going to be my last ACME report for this month anyway until August 6th, in order to give some of you toon fans a chance to do a report. So have a good rest of the month, gang...and happy tooning!

[Sveven Dvorking]

Popeye, The Ace of Space (POPEYE)
Rocket to Mars (POPEYE)
Little Buck Cheeser (MGM)
The Hasty Hare (WB)
Hare-Way to the Stars (WB)
Mouse into Space (MGM)

COMMENTS:
Little Buck Cheeser has a bad ending.
The Hasty Hare has a stupid edit and that awful dog K-9.
Hare-Way to the Stars has an interesting first few minutes.

Besides, does anyone care if I post the Acme Hour contents on August 14, 15, 16, and 17?

[DR. BELCH]

Popeye, The Ace Of Space
In 3-D, I think--you can sort of see it as the can of spinach flies towards Popeye. Fav scene: as Popeye stands in the chronological acceleration booth, he reads the subtitles. That bit was later used in an Animaniacs short where the Warners are abducted by aliens. Note the aliens call Popeye's spinach "special weed". Inadvertantly the writers may have admitted what's really in that can ;) ....DYN that little Popeye looks and sounds just like one of his nephews...and in the disintegrator when his hand is dissolved, it's odd he's more concerned about his pipe!

Rocket To Mars
I didn't like this one as much as the last one because the premise was terrible--it seems the museum would have enough sense to dismantle the controls, plus the leader sure falls out of favor fast with the citizens of Mars.

Little Buck Cheezer
Cute...a lot of old jokes like the Milky Way shown as bottles and the Big and Little Dipper full of wat
er. Actually, this one may have given birth to those cliches. Fav bit: the tough mouse gets seasick (spacesick?) on board and goes green in the puss.

The Hasty Hare
I always loved how K-9 addressed his master through notes, each with a decending degree of formality. The turkey farming gag was cut...I still say it can't be that hard to dub into Spanish. The astronomer is, natch, a caricature of Friz Freleng.

Hare-Way To The Stars
A somewhat overplayed yet classic Jones...something about Marvin's effeminate, almost British-sounding voice repeating the phrase "illudium Q-36 exposive space modulator" ad nauseum amuses me no end. "I'll never mix carrot juice and radish juice again."

Be thankful they didn't run Jones' later and lesser effort "Mad as a March Hare", Svev ol' man.

Mouse Into Space
Dietch's T&J's look like the work of a madman, and not in a good way. The music and sound effects are terrible and the plots not much better. Although I'll admit this one is a shade better than the Dickie Mo short. Some interesting animation effects on the meteor shower...but Tom's masochist tendencies disturbed me, esp. when he pointed a gun to his forehead and motioned to Jerry to blow his brains out!

Note also the double-up effect--two Popeyes, two Bugs, and two mouse-related shorts. Pity "Duck Dogers" wasn't used and something from the Lantz studios is verboten. Barney Bear never did a space-themed short?