Here’s a miss from “The Screwdriver,” a 1941 Woody Woodpecker cartoon helped to a good start by the acting (and singing) of Mel Blanc and some attractive animation. Woody is a driver who does whatever he feels like on the road. But in one scene, he runs into a simply-drawn rube on a hay wagon. The perspective artwork of Woody’s car is a nice choice, either from Hardaway’s storyboard or whoever handled layouts.
But when the dust clears, the gag is the farmer is suspended in mid-air between the hay. That’s supposed to be funny?! Yipe.
Hardaway ends yet another cartoon with someone driven insane.
Ralph Somerville and Alex Lovy receive the animation credits on screen.
Hardaway ruins many Lantz cartoons with this type of half-baked stuff. It's a real pity.
ReplyDeleteLooks like something Paramount might have done in the 1950s. 20 years earlier Fleischer would have shattered the wagon, then let it reconstitute as a trailer or a car.
ReplyDeleteI think the joke is not only being suspended between the two halves of the wagon load of hay, but the farmer is in his long-johns as well. I happen to like Ben Hardaway's gags, it's easy to be armchair quarterbacks on stories that were written 72 years ago! I'm also getting a little tired of Hugh Harman being called the Don Bluth of the 1930s, Hugh's approach is much funnier than Don's any day, and Hugh was an animation pioneer. A little respect, please.
ReplyDeleteMark Kausler
At Warners, Avery would have overruled Hardaway and had the farmer with no hay in the wagon while he was showered with straw hats.
ReplyDeleteHe's just as influential and creative as Warren Foster and Michael Maltese in my book! After Lantz shut down his studio, he returned to Warner Brothers and wrote a few cartoons for Friz Freleng: "A Bone for a Bone", "Stooge for a Mouse" and possibly "Rabbit Every Monday". Honestly he bounced back into the Warner tempo without missing a beat!
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