"Butterscotch and Soda": the nearly definitive copy
Hide your still-not-7-years li'l bros 'cause here it comes!!!!
Damn "5" TV logo. However, this copy of the PD "Butterscoth and Soda" is marvellous. Complete and uncut, in beautiful Technicolor, with all Little Audrey credits.
Besides, this is one of my favorite shorts with the spoiled brat, maybe even my most favorite. Hardly a Little Audrey cartoon includes a so charming mixture of gags, plot and surrealism. The sequence where the shadow of the canary turns into a bat's and L.A's subsequent scream is terrific. I wonder if it was inspired by some live action movie. Anyone?
The animation is very good (in some shots Audrey looks like Elmer or Tiny Toon's Elmyra too)and I'll never cease to be amazed by Famous' backgrounds......
Enjoy!
Yours Truly,
Duck Dodgers
posted by Duck Dodgers at 6:21 pm
16 Comments:
Hi Andrea,
When I discovered this Post, I was working on THIS: (http://tinyurl.com/2tzyae). Talk about Coincidence.
I never Thought I'd actually get to see grabs a Non-NTA print of Butterscotch and Soda (Learning that this is the debut of the Audrey spinning Star is icing on the Ckae) The quality is great as usual. A Real Treat.
I think Fleischer vet Al Eugster being the head animator on the short (BTW, he was also an Animtor on "The Worm Turns") helped skew this short in such a dark direction
1:57 am
Another great article!! This cartoon look clever and official than the horrible PD's they presented with hiding credits. Little Audrey was for my part myleast favourite character from the Harveytoons/Noveltoons but this one is look marvelous and original, tough. With a very good moral about the abuse of candies. Hehe. Nice screenshots!
2:15 pm
Leviathan my friend,
great drawing!
Martin,
glad you appreciate. Perhaps you could post on your blog some good PD Famous cartoons? Maybe this one in particular too?
5:16 pm
Hi Andrea!
I already think to talked about PD cartoons in my blog. Nice suggestion, thank you!
6:33 pm
Considering that the hallucinations come from binging on candy, the bat image might have been inspired by Billy Wilder's film "The Lost Weekend" with Ray Milland. I'm just guessing, I haven't taken the time to check up the release dates of that particular film, but it seems likely.
8:55 pm
This is a continuation of an earlier comment: The Lost Weekend was released by Paramount in 1945 and went on to win several Academy Awards. The movie's main theme is addiction, so it's possible that this was the inspiration for this 1948 Paramount cartoon.
I saw this cartoon on television back in the 60s and found it pretty disturbing. I don't know whether this was intentional or if it was just another case of Famous Studios' famous lack of restraint.
2:29 pm
The dream sequences in the Little Lulu cartoons were often dark and surreal, and were pretty much always inventive with their musical connections. "Butterscotch and Soda" is pretty much an extension of that with Audrey, and the dream sequence in the next cartoon, "The Lost Dream" was also good.
Unfortunately, Famous began changing story men in the late 40s, losing folks like Otto Messmer, Bill Turner and Larry Riley. Combined with the studio's desire for smooth, West Coast style animation on a buget, though more stock walks, looks, reactions, etc., the Audrey dream sequences became repetitive and boring by 1950.
(Also, Eugster had just recently returned to the studio when "Butterscotch" was made, and this was one of his few late 1940s shorts as head animator. In others, like "Naughty But Mice" he was usually working under Dave Tendlar, before returning to full-time work as a lead animator around 1951.)
10:41 am
The candy out the window gag is also a Lost Weekend reference.
7:06 pm
I like what you have done here with this blog. I am a big fan of cartoons and think that the classic ones are way better than alot of the crap that passes for animation today.
By the way Duck Dodgers was one of the best yet sadly underused cartoon characters ever..
Owen
cartoonscomicsandcomputeranimation.blogspot.com
12:25 pm
I swiped on of your Audrey screen captures for my current GAC avatar.
Um, I guess what I'm saying is, "Thanks, Andrea!" (Albeit after the fact...)
2:33 pm
There goes the big lips thing again, I am sure glad i'm old enough to notice what kind of cartoons I use to watch.
12:12 am
This cartoon is not currently shown on American television due to African-American stereotypes. It seems this cartoon will remain in the vaults, permanently.
3:45 pm
Show the little audrey butterscotch and soda on video!
12:13 am
Definitely a take-off on THE LOST WEEKEND, with poor Audrey as the DT-afflicted Ray Milland character. The bat and the candy bag silhouetted in the light fixture are direct lifts from the film. Also the "Mammy"/Housekeeper character actually references the film when she tells Audrey she'll stay in her room "all WEEKEND if necessary."
9:17 pm
Definitely a take-off on THE LOST WEEKEND, with poor Audrey as the DT-afflicted Ray Milland character. The bat and the candy bag silhouetted in the light fixture are direct lifts from the film. Also the "Mammy"/Housekeeper character actually references the film when she tells Audrey she'll stay in her room "all WEEKEND if necessary."
9:18 pm
While Little Audrey was force fed by candy characters in the dream as punishment, it reminds me of the scene of Dabney Wharton Coleman in the dream scene as punishment for bigotry, in "Hit the Road, Newdell in Buffalo Bill."
5:14 pm
Post a Comment
<< Home