Tuesday 30 January 2018

Screaming Jazz

Jerry Mouse is part of a jazz band in Rock ‘N’ Rodent (1967). Maurice Noble is listed on the credits as the design consultant.



When Carl Brandt’s soundtrack is filled with jazzy horns, a calm female mousey patron screams in delight. The last two drawings of her alternate in a take.



She returns to normal, but her hair sways in time to the music. Something about it reminds me of the Grinch (Chuck Jones version).



Ben Washam, Ken Harris, Dick Thompson, Dow Towsley and Tom Ray animate this cartoon with Abe Levitow directing and Jones, no doubt, keeping an eye on things. Story by Bob Ogle. Mouse scream by June Foray.

4 comments:

  1. I always disliked the Tom and Jerry Chuck Jones shorts with the exception of a couple. This was not one of them. Pent-House Mouse was a good one. June was also in Of Feline Bondage. I'm interviewing Don Morgan for my June Foray book. He's got great stories.

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    1. You should as Don of his time in Japan drawing a comic for Sanrio's Lyrica magazine (based on their "Metamorphoses" flop! A friend of mine just covered a bit about it here...
      http://letsanime.blogspot.com/2018/01/looks-like-lyrica.html

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  2. Hans Christian Brando2 February 2018 at 18:06

    As the comment above indicates, the Chuck Jones Tom and Jerrys tend to be underrated--possibly because they were more psychological, and lacked the slapstick violence and the impeccably rendered welts and bruises of the 1940s and '50s cartoons.

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