Thursday 22 May 2014

Lapaki Lowdown

I first saw “Magical Maestro” in a theatre. It’s even better there than on TV or a computer screen because of visual perspective is different.

A great example of that is the scene where Spike begins a Hawaiian war dance and is suddenly joined by the magician’s two rabbits. The rabbits enter the cartoon from the sides of the frame. On a big screen, it looks like they’re coming out of nowhere. It’s a real surprise, which makes it even funnier. The audience I was with—at least those who weren’t gabbing to themselves in the seats behind me—roared with laughter.

It takes the rabbits a quarter of a second (six frames) to jump in and dance. Here are the drawings.



Mike Lah, Grant Simmons and Walt Clinton are the animators in one of my favourite Tex Avery cartoons.

1 comment:

  1. Saw it at the Carnegie Hall Cinema in 1978, as part of a Avery retrospective just after the post-47 MGM cartoons hit syndication. It killed more than any other short on the bill (though I really don't remember if they aired the uncut version -- WPIX had the MGM package and they cut out the Ink Spots gag from the outset).

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