Friday 23 June 2017

How a Mouse Escapes

You’ve seen jagged effects drawings used for smashes and other impacts. In the Tom and Jerry cartoon Down and Outing (1961), Gene Deitch puts them on the screen when the mouse slips through the cat’s fingers.



And, of course, they’re used for violence, too.



The drawings are reused during the scene.

Deitch is credited as the director. No animators receive screen credit, but Larz Bourne gets mentioned for the story and Tod Dockstader for the spacey electronic sound effects.

5 comments:

  1. This is one of the early T&Js Deitch did, where he really couldn't hide his distaste for Hanna-Barbera's characters and decided he was going to make the violence as painful to the audience as it was to the cat. He finally seemed to be getting that out of his system in the last few T&J shorts he did before MGM decided not to renew the contract.

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  2. The animation was made at the studios from Rembrandt Film in Prague, Czechoslovakia (nowadays Czech Republic).

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    Replies
    1. Actually, the studio is called "Bratři v triku"
      http://www.kratkyfilm.eu/ENG/bratrivtriku.html

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    2. Rembrandt Films was Bill Snyder's company, originally a distributor of foreign films for American "art house" theaters.

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    3. Pretty much what it was rnigma. Just more the lucky Snyder was able to convince several companies like MGM or King Features to let him produce some of their cartoons during that time that got him somewhere outside the "art house" circuit.

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