Late Night Black & White- 8/6/01

[NickM]

I'm back after a week or two away with LNB&W!

Here we go...

"Dizzy Divers" (Fleischer- Popeye- Released 7/26/35)
"Poultry Pirates" (MGM- Captain and the Kids- Released 4/16/38)
"Wood-Peckin'" (Famous- Popeye- Released 8/6/43)
"Crosby, Columbo, and Vallee" (WB- Released 3/19/32)
"Porky's Hotel" (WB- Released 9/2/39
"House Cleaning Blues" (Fleischer- Betty Boop- Released 1/15/37)

It should be noted that "Poultry Pirates" was Friz Freleng's first cartoon at MGM when he came there from WB for a short time.

NickM

[Sveven Dvorking]

This cartoon aired a few months ago in redrawn form on Acme Hour. I can't even remember the last time they showed it in B&W.

At least they did.:)

[lislebartman]

I can't wait to get home from work to watch LNB&W! The redrawn version of "Wood-peckin' " is simply unbearable to watch! I wish they would show more of the Famous/Popeye B&W product instead of those moronic "Captain & The Kids" shorts.

Now if CN would get smart, they'd get hold of Columbia's B & W Fables & Phantasies!! I would love to see those someday in this lifetime!!

[Sveven Dvorking]

Originally posted by lislebartman
Now if CN would get smart, they'd get hold of Columbia's B & W Fables & Phantasies!! I would love to see those someday in this lifetime!!

I think if CN would get smart, they would air WB B&W one-shots and un-pc cartoons from the WB studio on LNB&W. I would love that...

[Bobby B]

Originally posted by lislebartman
I can't wait to get home from work to watch LNB&W! The redrawn version of "Wood-peckin' " is simply unbearable to watch! I wish they would show more of the Famous/Popeye B&W product instead of those moronic "Captain & The Kids" shorts.


Take a good look at the thought balloon that appears over the woodpecker's head. To me it's pretty obvious what words the symbols take the place of.

[Sveven Dvorking]

the error in the title of the post. It is supposed to be 8/6/01, not 7/6/01.

As an important correction, this post should not be deleted.

[Jon Cooke]

Originally posted by Sveven Dvorking
the error in the title of the post. It is supposed to be 8/6/01, not 7/6/01.

As an important correction, this post should not be deleted.


I fixed it. :)


-Jon

[Sogturtle]

Originally posted by lislebartman
I can't wait to get home from work to watch LNB&W!... I wish they would show more of the Famous/Popeye B&W product instead of those moronic "Captain & The Kids" shorts.

Now if CN would get smart, they'd get hold of Columbia's B & W Fables & Phantasies!! I would love to see those someday in this lifetime!!

Lislebartman~

I own a few of those Columbia b & w Fables & Phantasies made AFTER Art Davis, Sid Marcus, Harry Love, Manny Gould, and Lou Lilly left. Iffffff what I've seen so far is a fair sampling, then those "Captain & The Kids" cartoons you hate so much seem like absolute masterpieces!!! WHY??? The people Tashlin had hired as directors were almost all Disney animators who really didn't understand comedy directing...

[Jack]

They can't be that bad, I like the Captain and the Kids (strange but true!), but I have a strange sense of humor... Soooo, does anybody else like the Captain?

I really wonder what Lou Lilly's cartoons were like, judging from his death themed cartoons at WB.




Jack:D
"You and the captain can make it happen!"

[lislebartman]

Regarding my comment on "The Captain & The Kids":

I think they are very well animated and scored, I just don't find them funny. Some entries are even pretty long, almost 9-10 minutes long. I usually fast-forward through them. For those out there who like these films, I glad you do. That's why there's vanilla and chocolate, right?

Sogturtle:

Are those Columbia cartoons that bad? Worse than 'Buddy' cartoons? Please elaborate. Thanks!!

:D

[J Lee]

The problem with "The Captain and the Kids" series is since so much of the staff came from either the old H&I studio or from Terrytoons, there wasn't much fertile comedy ground there, and Freleng's last few Merrie Melodies before he left Schlesinger were only beginning to get away from the old H&I "hero, music, villian, conflict," standbys.

The cartoons are beautifully animated for 1938, but the pacing is often painfully slow and the gags are leaden. The only one of the whole series that really makes me laugh is "Petunia Natural Park," which really has nothing to do with the characters, per se, but is a series of Avery-like blackout gags with far better timing than all the other entries (maybe that's why Quimby allowed it to be made in color). MGM wouldn't come up with another comedy cartoon this well paced until Avery arrived and did "Blitz Wolf," which is a pretty sad statement about the comedic sense of the studio in the late 1930s and early 40s.

I had always thought Freleng was responsible for "Petunia," but I saw some post that said it was Robert Allen who did it, which would be shocking to me, because he never had, or would again, show such good comic timing.

The Columbia cartoons that I've seen (and that's not many) are just vague -- you know what they're trying to do -- be funny -- but you're not quite sure why they think you think this should be funny, and the same thing goes for John Hubley's early UPA efforts with the Fox and Crow. "The Magic Fluke" was a great idea for a cartoon, as Avery proved two years later with "Magical Maestro" but the gags don't take advantage of the possibilities. Supposedly, Hubley had the same problem putting gags to concepts in his early 1940s Columbia toons.

[Sogturtle]

Jack and Lislebartman~

Truth be told I'm a fan of the 'Captain' toons also. But be that as it may. I TRY NOT to judge/prejudge whole cartoon studios by a tiny percent of their output. ANNNND I only own prints (16mm) of a small percent of Columbia's output. Of these I've only watched a couple (okay three) that are on tape (am trying to get to the others, but still collecting). However as these represent a RANDOM SAMPLING of the Forties they MAY (or MAY NOT) be typical. And, perverse as it may sound, there are ties between the MGM "Captain" cartoons and these mid-Forties Columbia efforts!!!

The Lou Lilly effort "It Happened To Crusoe" (1941) is the best of these three. It's also made just before Tashlin and the outsiders descended on the Screen Gems lot. The animation is decidedly more "Warneresque" and the whole story of a Jack Benny caricature (yes, Benny) and a 'native' and 'native tribe' looks like it could have been lifted straight from a Schlesinger studio storyboard. It is amusing to funny... The animation is fluid, especially of the very hungry tiger. With the featured role of quasi-African/islander natives don't expect to see this on TV in your lifetime... Am still unsure whether this was a solo Lou Lilly or in collaboration with the unloved Allen Rose. Formerly Lilly, Rose, and Harry Love had been co-director/animator/writers till Love quit.

When Tashlin took over leadership of the joint almost all the rest of the old-timers were chucked out the door... Tashlin soon got the gate of course and Dave Fleischer took over. BUUUUUUT Tashlin's "chosen" crew stayed on... The next cartoons were made under those conditions by those folks.

"The Case Of The Screaming Bishop" (1944) should REALLY be on one of those 'Cultoons' tapes!!! It's directed by Howard Swift (formerly of Schlesinger but mostly from Disney), with animation by Grant Simmons (later with Tex). Describing this is almost too much for words. Most decidedly NOT funny. Suffice to say... Weird, weird, weird. But then again MAYBE they intended it to be chronically unfunny and weird... Maybe...

Which brings us to "The Playful Pest (1943) (Paul Sommer). By this point John Hubley was gone from Screen Gems, Paul Sommer marshalled on alone for awhile. This could almost be granted 'honorary MGM' status... Why you ask?? Simple. Paul Sommer was previously animating over at Metro, ditto for animator Don Williams. The Disney link is storyman Sam Cobean (which is probably the weak link) but it has one (O-N-E) delightful twist which I'll get to in a second. It's the tale of a lone termite (does he have a name??) about to get evicted/exterminated from "Hardwood Hall" by the "Goode Riddance Exterminator Company". Looks like the creative folks wanted to make an aggresive smart-alecky character like at Warners and Lantz and MGM. For the termite actually calls the exterminators over to kill him!!! This bug seems to be a genetic mutant, as he happily devours not just chairs, flooring and the like. But also clothing, the telephone and pretty much you-name-it. The problem is none of this is at all funny. The termite is relentlessly unsympathetic and not at all comical, and the same goes for the poor shnook exterminator. The toon comes across as a very unfunny take on "Eatin' Off The Cuff" and "The Pest Who Came To Dinner".... "WAIT A MINUTE SOGTURTLE"... WHAT WAS THE O-N-E DELIGHTFUL thing you mentioned??? Oh that!!! The exceedingly unlikable, unlovable termite is designed to look as much like Jiminy Cricket as possible!!! (just this side of plagiarism and Walt Disney's lawyers). He's decked out in the same frock coat, oversized top-hat (rendered in medium-light gray of course). And in case you've missed the point he's even carrying that same dad-blamed umbrella!!! With the "Jiminy"clone as quasi-villain it would have made one finely (and finally) fiendishly funny moment to have had the girthsome, formerly underwear-clad outwitted exterminator simply splatter him when he turns up in his office at the end of the toon. But nobody had the comic sense to think up such a gag!!!

Purportedly SOME of the color Columbia toons of this same vintage are quite good... I know someone who has prints of several of them. My own few dozen prints range from the early Thirties up through 1946.

As for Lou Lilly... His work AFTER Warner Bros. was as a director on "The Speaking Of Animals" series (created by our beloved Tex). Some of those which I've seen are quite funny.
It is generally conceded that both Lilly and (Harry) Love were quite talented as director/storymen/animators at Columbia in the late Thirties and VERY early Forties. And that their co-(everything) Allen Rose was not terribly gifted, and as such was actually a detriment to their co-directed cartoons.

[Bobby B]

Originally posted by Sogturtle
"The Case Of The Screaming Bishop" (1944) should REALLY be on one of those 'Cultoons' tapes!!! It's directed by Howard Swift (formerly of Schlesinger but mostly from Disney), with animation by Grant Simmons (later with Tex). Describing this is almost too much for words. Most decidedly NOT funny. Suffice to say... Weird, weird, weird. But then again MAYBE they intended it to be chronically unfunny and weird... Maybe...


This cartoon has actually aired on TV, on the old PBS series "Matinee at the Bijou", which was produced by Kit Parker Films. (This was my first exposure to Betty Boop.) It even still had the Columbia logos.