Monday 15 July 2013

Convict Concerto Take

There’s no director credit on the Woody Woodpecker cartoon “Convict Concerto” (released 1955) but it’s apparently the last cartoon Don Patterson supervised at the Walter Lantz studio. Patterson, Ray Abrams and Herman Cohen get animation credits. Here’s a realisation take when Woody hears the dumb cop tell him (as if he couldn’t figure it out on his own), the crook inside his piano is a killer.



It’s not as wild as takes in other Patterson cartoons but this one was written by Hugh Harman (misspelled in the credits) who wasn’t exactly enamoured of wild takes. I suspect the story behind Harman’s hiring at the Lantz studio for this one cartoon (Lantz displaced Harman and Rudy Ising on the Oswald series more than 25 years earlier) is far more interesting than anything in this cartoon.
Posted by at 07:12
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2 comments:

  1. Tony15 July 2013 at 20:31

    This may be tame by *Patterson* standards, but I'm not complaining.

    Best line: "Keep up the good work, Rachmaninoff!"

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  2. J Lee16 July 2013 at 10:25

    Getting past the idea that Woody would have a regular job as a piano tuner, I actually like this one as one of the last Lantz cartoons that gets some humor out of the funny movements of the characters (as opposed to either the funny poses or the funny story/dialog). Having to animate to the music forces a lot of that on the cartoon, even if the gags aren't as strong as Freleng's Liszt efforts (including the one at MGM with Hugh's name on it).

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