Thursday 31 May 2012

This Stuff’s Been Cut

“The Shooting of Dan McGoo” is full of Tex Avery’s trademarks—narrative puns he treats literally, signs commenting on the action, eyeballs and bodies reacting uncontrollably at the sight of a dancing girl, things behaving as if they’re at a traffic light, and even the word “Doc.” This was released in 1945 and Avery’s pacing is far faster than what he pulled off at Warners, making some of the same gags he used there at least twice as funny.

Fans of freeze-framing will enjoy the scene when the wolf gulps down a shot of Old Block Buster. His body reacts, with a few drawings held for two frames, but most of them on ones. Some of the body movement is slow, then a new pose with a different perspective will appear on the next frame.

Here are some of the drawings.








The wolf zooms, butt first, to the ceiling, zips around the rafters for a bit (with a slide whistle sound effect), then crash-lands.







Finally, he moves in a quick diagonal to the bartender and says “This stuff’s been cut!”



Ed Love, Ray Abrams and Preston Blair are the credited animators. Did Love do this scene? I wouldn’t be surprised if he did. Frank Graham provides the wolf’s voice and the backgrounds are by Johnny Johnsen.

2 comments:

  1. The other difference in the update is Avery's focus is far more on the villain and the girl here than in the 1939 original, when the plot far more revolved around the hero. But in both cases, Tex was absolutely right in how he did it, because "Dangerous Dan McFoo" was basically built around introducing Arthur Q. Bryant's ultimate wimp voice into the cartoon world, and it's fair to say both Tex and Warners would get a little mileage out of it in the future.

    Focusing on the proto-Fudd voice, especially at a time when the (pre-McKimson) Avery unit couldn't animate sex and wild reactions (to alcohol or sex) the way his MGM unit could a few years later meant that while the latter cartoon was faster and funnier, the original was still a major success for its director.

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    1. Bryant? Whoops -- Bryan (decaf this morning obviously was a mistake).

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