Acme Hour - 9/6/01

[Jon Cooke]

Theme: Jones and McKimson one-shots

"Now Hear This"
"The Dot and the Line" (MGM)
"The Hole Idea"
"The Bear That Wasn't" (MGM)
"Bartholomew Versus the Wheel"
"Wild Wild World"



-Jon

[DR. BELCH]

Actually, I thought at first the theme was "Surreal Cartoons", from the first three shorts. In fact, doesn't "The Dot and the Line" look almost Terry Gilliam in spots (esp. with the cherub in the opening)? I was actually hoping to see "Norman Normal". Is there anything ojectionable--harsh language, blackface caricatures--in it, or is it just too cerebral for the masses?

"Bartholomew vs. the Wheel" was very interesting, though. There's a lot of psychological subtext in a dog who develops a phobia/hatred of wheels after a childhood trauma with one, and how he chooses to treat it.

Fav scene in "The Hole Idea" was the devil returning Mrs. Calculus, complaining that Hell was bad enough without her there. The Calculuses also appeared in an episode of The Sylvester and Tweety Myseries, in a parody of Hitchcock's Rear Window.

Note also that "D&tL" and "BTW"--and to some degree "NHT"--came with a moral of sorts.