What's In the Cave?

Fast chases, odd characters (two-headed camel, two-bodied giraffe) and Tex Avery seeing how far a cocoanut can journey are the highlights of Half-Pint Pygmy.

There's a darkness gag. George, Junior and the pygmy run into a cave. It's dark. George strikes a match.



A tiger! And a tiger take.



George, Junior and the pygmy rush out of the cave and hide behind a rock. The effects artist gets out the dry-brush.



Junior comes out of hiding behind the rock. George is under Junior. The pygmy is under George. And it turns out the tiger is under the pygmy.



Take. Exit.



Boxoffice magazine quoted from an MGM news release in its July 19, 1947 the cartoon was in “preparation.” Daily Variety reported on December 17 the cartoon was completed. It was released Aug. 7, 1948.

Said Boxoffice:

Half-Pint Pygmy
MGM (Technicolor Cartoon) 7 Mins.
Good. Two half-human creatures read an advertisement offering a reward for the smallest pygmy in the world and immediately make tracks for darkest Africa. There after super-human efforts that include encounters with lions, tigers, elephants, giraffes and other fauna, they finally capture a tiny pygmy—only to learn there is another still smaller.

Said the Motion Picture Herald:

HALF-PINT PYGMY (MGM)
Technicolor Cartoon (W-941)
Into darkest Africa where pygmies dwell goes cartoon director Tex Avery. He brings the sad story of a pygmy with an inferiority complex.

Said The Exhibitor:

HALF-PINT PYGMY. MGM—Cartoon. 7m. When a reward is posted for the capture of the world’s smallest pygmy, the two bears set sail for Africa to pint the prize. Spying what they think is the tiny treasure, they make many vain attempts to capture the pygmy, with ensuing chases causing the hunters much grief, they finally catch up with the small pygmy, the bears are then introduced to an even smaller pygmy, who scurries away into the distance. Thwarted, the hunters shoot themselves. FAIR. (W-941)

Perhaps Tex really did kill them off. He made no more cartoons with George and Junior.

Keith Scott has determined Avery played Junior while Wally Maher (the voice of Screwy Squirrel) was George.

Heck Allen was Avery’s gagman in this. The credited animators were Bill Shull, Louis Schmitt, Walt Clinton and Grant Simmons.

Well, I'll Be a Horse's...

A sigh accompanied a recent thumbing of a 1941 catalogue issued by J. Marvin Painter, Sr., whose company rented 16 millimetre reels of the entire Van Beuren sound cartoon catalogue.

There would have been good prints available. Today, people like Steve Stanchfield at Thunderbean have to search everywhere for decent remaining elements to restore these cartoons to the best condition they can.

One is Nursery Scandal, an Aesop Fable released August 27, 1932. The versions I’ve seen as of this posting are pretty low-resolution and edited; you can hear a cut in Gene Rodemich’s soundtrack after Mother Goose’s goose and a bird comment about the romance going on—and this is the horrendous scandal—between Mother Goose (who looks like a witch) and a scarecrow.

This short is Van Beuren pretending to be 1929 Walt Disney. There’s a lot of dancing, singing by a male quartet heard in other Aesop Fables, and, well, not much else.

An interesting bit of animation is when the marching horses turn around, with their tails becoming heads and vice versa. Even in these pixilated frames, you can see how the heads wither and change.



What would a Van Beuren cartoon be without happy dancing? You can find scenes like these in The Farmerette and Barnyard Bunk.



The cow jumps over the moon! I love the tongues. And I just noticed the cat is Puss in Boots.



Van Beuren churned out the cartoons in 1932. There were two or three releases every month. Is it any wonder the quality suffered? The same month Nursery Scandal was released, RKO put out Wild Goose Chase, Aug. 13 (Fables) and Jolly Fish, Aug. 19 (Tom and Jerry). Some of the animation (and character designs) in this came from the 1931 Fable Fairyland Follies. Harry Bailey and John Foster get the "by" credit.

The gnome quartet is singing "The Kings Horse's (and the King's Men") by Noel Gay and Harry Graham. Here's a nice little version of it.

I Hear Slurping

Purely as a plot device, Jerry laps up the cream Tom has stolen from a bottle on the porch in Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Mouse.

Tom finally shoves the dish into a safe and slams it shut. But like Droopy in Tex Avery’s Northwest Hounded Police, Jerry is always there. Tom hears slurping from inside the safe. Here’s the anticipation and the take.



Jerry scrambles in reaction. Here are some drawings.



Tom opens the safe and looks inside. Reaction drawings.



The best part of this cartoon is the wild transformation drawings when Jerry gains and loses his strength. Jerry pops from one odd shape to the next.

Thad Komorowski has mentioned this is one of a number of MGM cartoons where Ray Patterson and Pete Burness did not get screen credit. The credited animators here are Ken Muse, Ed Barge, Mike Lah and Al Grandmain, who generally handled effects. Someone reading may know who is responsible for the pose drawings.

The June 30, 1945 issue of Boxoffice magazine announced the cartoon was going into production. The short was released June 14, 1947.

Tex on Blu-Ray

One of my favourite gags in a Tex Avery cartoon comes from Lucky Ducky when a chase stops because everything has turned black-and-white.



I like most of the other gags in this one, too. But it’s never been put out on higher definition home video because of one particular gag.

Readers here are intelligent and knowledgeable, so you know what I’m talking about.

So imagine my surprise to get up this morning and discover that Warner Archive has come to the rescue of Lucky Ducky.



On December 1, all of Tex’s work at MGM is being released. Uncut. That means, yes, you will see Uncle Tom's Cabaña and, yes, you will see Half Pint Pygmy.

What are being called “Original Release” shorts are bonuses. It sounds as if Lucky Ducky’s ending with the conga-dancing title card is included, as well as war-time gags in The Shooting of Dan McGoo and Wild and Woolfy.

And it will be “accompanied by a lavish 72-page booklet, special features and archival rarities.” Circulating on the internet in recent days has been publicity art from Avery cartoons not found in the actual cartoons. (Someone with facts can tell me if this is part of the booklet).

Could this year be much better? Warner is giving us Quick Draw McGraw (regretfully, the whole 30-minutes of each show cannot be completely reconstructed, but some mini-cartoons will be bonuses) and all of Tex’s MGM shorts. On top of that Yogi Bear has been upgraded to Blu-ray.

There’s more information about the Avery release at this link.

He's the Rabbit

Bugs Bunny, disguised as a “streamlined” turtle, is ecstatic he’s about to beat the turtle, disguised as a bunny, in Bob Clampett’s Tortoise Wins By a Hare (1942).

There’s one problem. The gambling ring of rabbits is going to make sure the hare wins—and they think Cecil Turtle is the hare.

Bugs is about the cross the finish line, but then. . . Here are some random drawings. Yes, one rabbit is stabbing Bugs.



The mobsters rush to help the disguised turtle across the finish line. Bugs goes ballistic. “You fools!,” Bugs screams. “I’m the rabbit!!” He shows off his rabbit body parts.



Time for a radio reference. The mobsters, in unison, give a Jewish shrug and do an impersonation of the Al Pearce version of Mr. Kitzel. “Nyehhh, now he tells us.” Then a multiple suicide gag to end it all.



The animation credit on screen is given to Bob McKimson. This is not McKimson's animation.