Road to Andalay

[Jon Cooke]

Any comments about "Road to Andalay" which aired today on Bugs & Daffy (and will repeat later tonight)? I agree with the Matthew that animation wasn't that great, but there were some funny moments and it was still enjoyable. I liked Speedy's line to Sylvester: "If you can hear me, signal with your feets". So were Sylvester's multiple attacks from Malcom. This short was a rare example of Speedy not exactly coming out on top at the end ("Save some that glue for me!!")


-Jon

[Matthew Hunter]

Well, I do not care for the animation in this one at all. It's sloppy. The gags are okay, I guess, particularly the firecracker under the sombrero one. While Speedy lends himself better to this more limited animation style, (in fact he looks great) Sylvester does not, and there are animation mistakes throughout. It is probably the worst example of Sylvester's animation in the whole history of WB cartoons. DePatie-Freleng's artists, as said in the earlier thread when we discussed this film, probably didn't have the hang of Sylvester, which may be why there were only a handful of Sylvester cartoons in this era. (I'll have to ask David DePatie about that.) You'll notice that a few scenes in the other Sylvester D/F cartoons re-use animation from older Tweety films, as in "Cats and Bruises" using "Canary Row", and that worked better. He looks kind of scraggly in "The Wild Chase", but it's CONSISTENT...it doesn't look near as sloppy as "RTA". If you look closely enough, "RTA" has some re-used animation too, adding further to the inconsistent look of the cat: the cliff falls re-use a scene from "The Jet Cage". Mel Blanc does a teriffic job on "Road To Andalay" though, which makes the film a lot more enjoyable desipite its shortcomings. And keep in mind, I'm not exactly a non-biased viewer...some kid tuning into "Bugs and Daffy" probably won't care how the animation looks. :D
-Matthew

[pudealee]

I agree with Matthew. Sylvester seemed rather poorly drawn at times. Overall, however, this is one of my favorite DP shorts using Speedy.

[Pilmedium]

I liked the storyline to this cartoon, even if the animation was less than expected.

[Crazy Tom]

Originally posted by Jon Cooke
...This short was a rare example of Speedy not exactly coming out on top at the end ("Save some that glue for me!!")

Can we say 1964 was not Speedy's year?

Road To Andalay was a good example, but don't forget Pancho's Hideaway, when Speedy thought he had totally come out on top of the gun battles. As he was counting his money, he gets some level of revenge by scaring Speedy with a trademark "eee-ha!!", causing Speedy to drop the money, so that meant he had to start all over again (uno, dos, tres, cuatro...).

[J Lee]

If you add in McKimson's "A Message to Gracias" from late 1963, it obvious the Warners writers and directors were trying to diversify the typcial Speedy formula in the waining days of the original studio and the first days of D-FE production.

Sylvester comes off a lot better (and/or Speedy a lot worse) in those cartoons, but unfortunately, the decision to make Daffy the main adversary of Speedy ended any such experiments and ended up forcing the staff to come up with reasons to justify a duck chasing a cat. Too bad...

[Matthew Hunter]

you mean "Duck chasing a mouse", not "duck chasing a cat"...right?
-Matthew

[J Lee]

Yes I did, Matthew. I'm trying to lobotomize a balky computer down at the office tonight, and didn't read over the end of my post while going between this terminal and the other machine.

[Daffyfan2002]

I have to agree that the animation was pretty bad. I can't get over the weird way Sylvester is drawn in that one, especially the white pad on his chest. It seems to form a more oval shape rather than going all the way up to his whiskers, like it usually does. I really liked the cartoon itself though. Lol. It's funny how that bird keeps attacking Sylvester. I also liked the gag at the end with everybody losing their tails.

[Crazy Tom]

Originally posted by J Lee
Sylvester comes off a lot better (and/or Speedy a lot worse) in those cartoons, but unfortunately, the decision to make Daffy the main adversary of Speedy ended any such experiments and ended up forcing the staff to come up with reasons to justify a duck chasing a cat.

Wouldn't you say that the true transition of Speedy's adversaries was the 1965 cartoon "It's Nice To Have A Mouse Around The House?" Since it starred both Daffy and Sylvester, I thought that was the message that WB wanted to shake things up.

Better Daffy chasing Speedy rather than Merlin the Magic Mouse.

[J Lee]

Wouldn't you say that the true transition of Speedy's adversaries was the 1965 cartoon "It's Nice To Have A Mouse Around The House?" Since it starred both Daffy and Sylvester, I thought that was the message that WB wanted to shake things up.

That was the first cartoon, but at least here, Daffy had a better reason to chase Speedy, since he was the exterminator, and his anger built up as the cartoon went along. Later entries in the series. like "Well Worn Daffy," simply began with the duck already in a angry/mean spirited mode, which made him a lot less interesting character.

And yea, Daffy chasing Merlin would have been even worse, but then there are other Warner Bros./7 Arts bad character matchup possibilities -- Daffy chansing Cool Cat, Daffy chasing Bunny and Claude, Daffy chansing Norman Normal (OK, the last one would have been a little interesting...)

[Jon Cooke]

Originally posted by J Lee
Daffy chansing Norman Normal (OK, the last one would have been a little interesting...)

That would have been interesting. Especially if they had used the crazy version of Daffy. I can picture Daffy running amok inside Norman's head, opening all those doors and seeing what's inside. :p


-Jon

[lislebartman]

I pretty much agree with all of you...

The early D-F WB toons suffered from pretty lousy animation. In this cartoon and in "Cats & Bruises", you can tell where the old animation is re-used and boy, does the new stuff suffer in comparison. Sylvester looks very odd in some shots - his neck seems much longer and his facial expressions are very peculiar...