Monday 24 October 2016

Mouse Menace

Quick cuts, a moving camera and perspective animation give Porky Pig a different feel in Mouse Menace, one of Art Davis’ early directorial efforts at Warner Bros.

Here’s a nice little take when Porky realises he hasn’t caught a mouse. The eye widens, then he swings his head around.



A little earlier in the cartoon, there are ghost drawings and dry-brush work as the mouse scoops up some cheese.



The most interesting animation effect is later in the cartoon when after impact drawings, the characters remain stationary while the background jerks around.

Tom McKimson did the layouts in the early Davis cartoons. I wonder how much of an impact he had as Davis’ later cartoons with Don Smith as the layout artist don’t quite look the same.

Davis replaced Bob Clampett as a director but didn’t get the Clampett unit. Manny Gould, Don Williams and Cal Dalton animated on this cartoon (no Bill Melendez?). The latter two had come from the Bob McKimson unit. In exchange, McKimson got Rod Scribner which may not have been the best pairing.

1 comment:

  1. This cartoon will always have special meaning to me as it was on one of the cartridges included with the Kenner Easy-Show Projector, though it was severely edited. When I was just a kid, I used to run that thing over and over, both forward and backward. I can still remember the cuts Kenner made to the film!

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