Lest you think there’s interspecies lust going on here, here’s Johnny Johnsen’s background drawing. The babe has a dog face that you don’t see when Spike is in the scene.
Late word: Thad Komorowski passed on a note that he doesn’t see a dog face. Upon closer inspection, he’s probably right and it’s just heavy makeup on the left eye instead of an oval black dog-nose. Oh, well, the sequence is funny anyway.
Grant Simmons, Walt Clinton and Bobe Cannon also animated this cartoon.
This is actually the first scene for Spike in his debut cartoon, but you wouldn't know it, because Avery nailed the character from the outset. I've never seen an interview with Tex explaining why he dropped him after his sabbatical, but Michael Lah was smart enough to revive him for the CinemaScope Droopy efforts (albeit with a different name, UPA-ized design and the Bill Thompson voice Tex gave Spike for "Droopy's Double Trouble").
ReplyDeleteI suppose we'll never know why Tex did so, but it is something to think about.
DeleteAbout the calendar girl, I think Johnny Johnsen draw her face in an sort of ambiguous way intentionally, whatever she is a normal gal or some weird dog woman hybrid is up to the viewer, so people can set for the option that disturbs them the less, after all for most of the scene Spike's hands got in the way, so most theatergoers didn't get a good look until freeze frame came to exist. The way her head is pointed downward and her hairdo obscures her face it's inusual, I never gave a second throught about that calendar until now.
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