The 100 Greatest Cartoons of All Times : Post 1

Starting from today , I'm going to open a new kind of posts . There will be the usual posts about rare , virtually unfindable cartoons as well as my " eye on modern cartoons and TV animated series " ( such as Spumco cartoons ). There will also be reviews on cartoons and on dvds .
BUT , starting from today , there will also be a series of posts devoted to them classic theatrical cartoons which I presume being the greates ones ever made . I compiled a list of 100 titles , which is obviously subject to changes . Anyway , when a cartoon will be posted here under the category " The 100 Greatest Cartoons of All Time " , it will mean that it have found his definitive place in my list .

The cartoons will be posted with no particular order ( this means that " Kitty Kornered " is neither the first or the last of my list , it is only one of the animated shorts that I consider among the 100 greatest cartoons ).

I will also appreciate all your opinion and thoughts about these cartoons : if you do not consider them some of the best cartoons ever made or if you agree with my choices , your comments , opinion , questions . Any post will be appreciated .

Now , let's talk about " Kitty Kornered " .

As a director , Clampett reached his highest point in 1946 , a year in which he directed some all-time classics like " Book Revue " , " The Great Piggy Bank Robbery " and " Kitty Kornered " .

Try to imagine what would have been a Tweety-Sylvster cartoon directed by Clampett ! As pointed before , Tweety , in Clampett 's hands , was a wild and energetic character , same thing for Sylvester . However , while Tweety was a Clampett's creation , Sylvester was created the year before by Freleng ( in the AAN " Life with Feathers " ) . Clampett made some little changes to the character ' s visual aspect ( Sylvester's clownesque red nose turned black ) and some great changes to the character 's personality , developing the feline into another of the incredibly wild Clampettian characters .

But " Kitty Kornered " , dominated by the presence of Sylvester and his feline friends , is essentially a Porky Pig cartoon . The porcine actor losed a considerable part of popularity among both audience and WB staff due to the explosion of Daffy Duck and , expecially , of Bugs Bunny . Anyway , both Clampett and Tashlin continued to direct many cartoons in the Forties starring Porky , which remained a friendly figure around whom a great cartoon can easily be built ( the same thing was valid for other stars like Mickey Mouse and Andy Panda that , like Porky , losed in the 40s much of their appeal with audiences in favor of more popular characters , namely Donald Duck and Woody Woodpecker ) .

In this cartoon , Porky is the unlucky owner of a bunch of wacky cats that refuse to spend the night outside the house . In a marvellous sequence Porky tries to put the cats out and they run wildly trought the house , hiding in every place , including the mousehole and even the fish bowl ( " Henry , there's somebody in the house " ) . This great sequence is also highlighted by great takes and phisical distortions , trademarks of Clampett's unit .

After trying to not be kicked out of the house , the cats try everything in their power to go out , when Porky asks the help of his dog Lassie ( actually is just a shadow trick made possible by Porky's ability ) . Out in the cold , Sylvester plans a way to conquer the house again . To the tune of " Angel in Disguise " the cats disguise themselves as aliens ( looking not unlike the gremlin in another Clampett short , "Falling Hare ") and induce Porky to believe that Martians are landing on Earth . This charming moment is actually a spoof of Orson Welles' famous radio trick that terrorized the nation not much time before this cartoon was made .

Then , dressed a là Teddy Roosevelt ( " Chaaargee ! " ) , they finally have the house all for themselves . In fact , at the end of the cartoon , is Porky to be out in the cold !

Why I consider this cartoon one of the greatest ever made ? The answer is a multiple one . First of all , it stars one of my favorite ham actor , the stuttering pig of our hearts . Also , as in the majority of the best cartoons , the plot is to a minimum , but the gags are in an incredible number and are also brilliantly executed . This animated short features also animation at his best ( Clampett's unit was the best one working at WB troughout the 40s . ) , work of talented guys like Rod Scribner , and marvellous great voice characterizations by the inimitable Mel Blanc .

This cartoon is available , fully restored , on the " Looney Tunes Golden Collection " volume two . If you still have not bought that set , do yourself a favor and buy it . You'll not only find this masterpiece but a considerable number of other classic , which in the future will be objects of posts under " The 100 Greatest Cartoons of All Times " category in this blog .

Yours Truly ,

Duck Dodgers

Blog Founder and Administrator

Looney Tunes Golden Collection Vol.3

Hello folks, and welcome to my review of one of the greatest DVD sets ever released!
The "Looney Tunes Golden Collection" series seems to be better and better with every release. I liked volume one and two, but with the third volume they almost reached the peak of perfection.
We have a great assortment of shorts which, unlike the previous volumes, cover the studio's entire lifetime; I'm also glad to see that they put in many black and white cartoons.
It's just amazing to see how good the restoration of the featured shorts is: they have never looked so good since their original release! The colors are so bright and the picture is so crisp that you can hardly believe they were made more than 60 years ago. It's also remarkable to notice the many details that you couldn't see in the old, faded prints we were accustomed to. And the most important thing is that you can't see the effects of the DVNR process in any of these toons. They also have improved the quality of the packaging and the menus, and of course each disc comes with the traditional assortment of always enjoyable bonus goodies, including music-only tracks and commentaries by Jerry Beck, Greg Ford, Michael Barrier, Eddie Fitzgerald, John Kricfalusi, Mark Kausler, Bill Melendez and many others.
One of the few disappointing things about this set is that only two cartoons ("Daffy Duck and Egghead" and "Speaking of the Weather") have their original openings and title cards restored, while all the others still have their Blue Ribbon reissue titles.
I’d also like to point out that despite that disclaimer on the box, saying that this DVD set may not be suitable for kids, and the rather useless introductions by Whoopi Goldberg (reminiscent of the ones by Leonard Maltin on the Walt Disney Treasures DVDs), the racist and ‘offensive’ scenes are only in two cartoons, “Porky’s Road Race” and “Goofy Groceries”.

DISC 1: Bugs Bunny Classics
Also this year, the first disc is devoted to the wascally wabbit. But there’s more: if you love Bugs, then you’ll be happy to see that this year there isn’t a single disc that doesn’t include at least one Bugs Bunny cartoon. Personally, instead of another disc with Bugs Bunny cartoons, I’d have preferred one disc dedicated to Daffy Duck, but after all, the cartoons on this disc are very good ones, so it’s still okay for me.
On the first disc there are many memorable Bob McKimson cartoons, like the great “Hillbilly Hare”, featuring an extremely funny square dance sequence, “Easter Yeggs” or “Rebel Rabbit”; some Freleng cartoons, like “Hare Force”, “Hare Do”, and “A Hare Grows in Manhattan”, and there’s even space for Art Davis with “Bowery Bugs”.
The last chapter from Chuck Jones’ ‘Hunting Trilogy”, “Duck! Rabbit! Duck!” is also here, along with a documentary about those three cartoons.
This disc also contains three cartoons commonly seen on public domain releases, “The Wabbit Who Came to Supper”, “Case of the Missing Hare”, and “Wackiki Wabbit”, and it’s just amazing to see how beautiful these restored prints are and how different they look from those horrible public domain prints we used to watch.
The bonus features are the documentaries “A Hunting We Will Go: Chuck Jones’ Wabbit Season Twilogy” and “Chuck Amuck”, bridging sequences from the Bugs Bunny Show episode “The Honeymousers” and the recording session for the episode “Ball Point Puns”.

DISC 2: Hollywood Caricatures and Parodies
Like in the second volume, also this year one disc contains a cavalcade of Hollywood-themed cartoons, with also some one-shot musicals.
Included on this disc are two excellent Tex Avery cartoons: “Daffy Duck in Hollywood”, a great cartoon which is now even more enjoyable thanks to the amazing restoration, and the gangster movie spoof “Thugs with Dirty Mugs”, containing some of the best gags I’ve ever seen in a cartoon. Among the cartoons presented here there are some very funny ones, like “She Was an Acrobat’s Daughter”, “The Film Fan”, “Porky’s Road Race”, and “Swooner Crooner”, while “The Coo Coo Nut Grove” and “Hollywood Capers” are pretty bad. Included here are also some Thirties musicals, “The Woods Are Full of Cuckoos”, “Speaking of the Weather” (presented here with its original titles), and Clampett’s first color cartoon, “Goofy Groceries”, whose final scene could be considered the only scene offensive enough to justify the disclaimer on the box.
In the last part of the disc there’s also space for cartoons spoofing TV: “Wideo Wabbit”, “The Honey Mousers”, and “The Last Hungry Cat”, all enjoyable toons. The last cartoon on this disc is “The Mouse that Jack Built”, featuring rodent versions of Jack Benny, Mary Livingston and Rochester with their actual voices, and also the real Jack Benny makes an appearance in the end of the cartoon.
Particularly interesting are the bonus features on this disc: we start with two documentaries, “Bosko, Buddy and the Best of Black and White”, that features a look at the studio’s earliest works, and “Fine Tooning”, explaining the processes used for the restoration of the cartoons; part one of TV special “What’s Up, Doc? A Salute to Bugs Bunny”, which includes the complete cartoon “A Wild Hare” with restored titles. Also included are the first Looney Tune ever made, “Sinkin’ in the Bathtub”, and “It’s Got Me Again!”, the first Warner Bros. cartoon to receive an Academy Award nomination. I’m a bit disappointed because they didn’t give these two cartoons the same treatment as the other ones; in fact, they haven’t even been restored, but I must admit that, while “It’s Got Me Again!” is in poor conditions (and it even has a “Dubbed Version” closing instead of the original one!) “Sinkin’ in the Bathtub” looks pretty good.

DISC 3: Porky and the Pigs
Disc three is my favorite one. It features a look at the whole career of Porky Pig, from the very beginning to his latter years, when his role was reduced to a sidekick for more popular characters like Daffy and Sylvester.
The disc starts with Porky’s first appearance in Friz Freleng’s “I Haven’t Got a Hat”, from 1935; however Porky isn’t the star of the cartoon, it’s just one of the fellas from an Our Gang-like group of kids; not a great cartoon, but still interesting to watch.
We then come to the great “Porky’s Romance” by Frank Tashlin, featuring the debut of Porky’s girlfriend, Petunia, which is, in my opinion, one of the best Porky cartoons. The black & white toons parade continues with two hilarious Bob Clampett cartoons, “Porky’s Party” and “Porky in Egypt”, followed by Hardaway-Dalton’s “Porky and Teabiscuit”.
The last black & white cartoon on this disc is Tashlin’s “Porky Pig’s Feat”, one of my all-time favorite cartoons.
Included in this disc are also three non-Porky cartoons, “Pigs is Pigs”, “Pigs in a Polka”, a musical masterpiece by Friz Freleng, with a perfect synchronization of music and animation, and “The Windblown Hare”, a nice McKimson cartoon starring none other than Bugs Bunny.
We then have “Daffy Duck Slept Here”, one of my all-time favorite McKimson cartoons and two other late-Forties cartoons, “By, Bye, Bluebeard” and “An Egg Scramble”.
The last cartoons feature Porky as Daffy and Sylvester’s sidekick: they are the great “Robin Hood Daffy”, “Claws for Alarm” and “Rocket Squad”, all directed by Chuck Jones.
And now, the bonus features: the documentary “Tish Tash: The Animated World of Frank Tashlin”, the MGM cartoon “The Bear That Wasn’t” directed by Chuck Jones and based on a book by Frank Tashlin, and the Wartime short “Points of Food Rationing”. A nice inclusion is the storyboard of “Porky’s Party”, that contains a few deleted scenes and reveals that, instead of such obscure characters as Goosey and a nameless penguin, the cartoon was originally meant to have Petunia and Gabby Goat .


DISC 4: All-Star Cartoon Party
The last disc contains a good assortment of shorts with various characters. We start with “Daffy Duck and the Dinosaur” an early Daffy cartoon by Chuck Jones. We then come to “Super-Rabbit”, a great Bugs cartoon by Jones, which looks even better thanks to the restoration. The third short is Tex Avery’s classic “Daffy Duck and Egghead”, seen here for the first time with its original title card. What follows are three of the greatest Bob Clampett cartoons: “A Gruesome Twosome”, which is one of the best restoration jobs on this disc (and don’t worry, Tweety is still pink in this cartoon!), “Draftee Daffy”, one of the wackiest cartoons ever released, with superb animation by Rod Scribner, and “Falling Hare”, which is often seen on many public domain DVDs and videos: it’s amazing to compare those old, faded prints to this one, which is wonderfully restored.
The next short is “Steal Wool”, a Chuck Jones cartoon starring Ralph Wolf and Sam Sheepdog. We then come to the Academy Award winner “Birds Anonymous”, by Friz Freleng, which is also the subject of one of the documentaries, followed by two Chuck Jones cartoons, “No Barking” and “Rabbit Punch”.
The last part of this disc starts with another Clampett cartoon, “An Itch in Time”, with a nice restoration. Then we have two cartoon debuts: Pepe le Pew’s in “Odor-Able Kitty” and Foghorn Leghorn’s in “Walky Talky Hawky”, both enjoyable.
And last, but not least, Speedy Gonzales in “Gonzales’ Tamales” and “To Beep or not to Beep”, with Wile E. Coyote and the Road Runner.
The bonus features on the fourth disc include three “Behind the Tunes” featurettes: “The Charm of Stink: On the Scents of Pepe le Pew”, “Strictly for the Birds: Tweety & Sylvester Award-Winning Teamup” and “Looney Tunes Go to War!”, plus the rare “Philbert”, a 20 minute pilot for a never produced series that mixed animation and live action, and the storyboard of “Falling Hare”. Also included are three Private SNAFU cartoons, produced strictly for the U.S. Army: “Rumors”, “Snafuperman”, and “Spies”; unfortunately, these cartoons are in a very bad shape, and I don’t know why they used such bad prints, because better ones do exist.

Well, here ends my review, and if you love these classic cartoons, do yourself a favor and buy this wonderful set now!

That's all, folks!

The Rare and Unknown : " Big Game Hunt "

Just to start in a good way the new year , I'm going to show some pics from one great Terrytoon , " Big Game Hunt " .

This Farmer Al Falfa's vehicle shows Al Falfa hunting ( or better : trying to hunting ) a vaste number of animals , including a rhynoceros , a tiger , a little monkey as well as a big ape .

Things change fast in life , expecially during big game huntings : in a few time our hero soon becomes the prey of some black stereotyped indigens and , later , of a big lion . Anyway , Al Falfa have seen enough Tarzan movies to know how to conquer the lion's respect and friendship .

Enjoy these pics from this 1937 cartoon !






















Yours Truly ,

Duck Dodgers

Blog Founder and Administrator

Support ASIFA !

Many people outside USA ( including yours truly ) always asked to Steve Worth ( the man behind the monumental work of the ASIFA Animation Archive ) a way to be of help .

Now it is possible :
Mr . Worth created a Biographical Encyclopedia ... he is looking for animation historians and fans to contribute informations to the listings.

Here is the link :

http://www.animationarchive.org/bio/index.html


Thanks in advance , folks !


Yours Truly ,

Duck Dodgers

Blog Founder and Administrator