Friday 30 January 2015

Calling All Cuckoos

A teeny Woody Woodpecker grabs a mallet from clock maker Herr Spring and bashes him with it in “Calling All Cuckoos” (1956). Woody multiplies during the gag.



Storyman Homer Brightman seemed to think witless dialogue and clobberings for the sake of clobberings were uproariously funny because that’s all that’s in this cartoon. And Woody continued to go down hill in Unfunny Land for the next 15 years.

Animation credits went to Bob Bentley and Les Kline.

9 comments:

  1. Les Kline animation is painful to watch!

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  2. Classic cuckoomania with Woody Woodpecker!

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  3. Lemme guess the director:
    Paul J.Smith.

    Correct?

    Steve C.

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  4. This was one of my favorite cartoons in my Super 8 - Black & White silent movie collection. I watched it that way many times. I still think the cartoon is funny.

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  5. Aside from the unfunny gags, Woody's shrinking and growing to fit whatever gag Brightman and the other writers came up with was always annoying (those sorts of gags seemed to show up more in Paul J. Smith's efforts than in those of the other directors, though the first time in occurred was on Dick Lundy's watch, when he shrank Woody down to fit into a soda fountain glass for the end gag of "Drooler's Delight")

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    1. According to an old post on forums.goldenagecartoons.com by Thad Komorowski, there's "Wonderland Syndrome" in "Crow Crazy". He attributes it to Les Kline.

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  6. 2/12/15
    RobGems.ca Wrote:
    An okay cartoon (from an otherwise uninspired director like Paul J, Smith). My favorite part: when Woody snatches the hamburger (with sauerkraut) from the knucklehead clock maker by biting him with his fangs! I always loved it when the animators drew fangs on Woody. "Woodpeckers have fangs?" I'd always asked my brother. I always thought that was surreal.

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    1. A-HA! PAUL J.SMITH! I KNEW he was the director. All the clues were there... and this from a respected distributor and a respected and once funny character...:(

      By the early 60s Lantz toons went the other way, esp.if Chilly Willy or Splinter/Knothead (not always, just most of their appearances), in the syrupy cute way.. again, a :(

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