Thursday, 16 April 2015

How To Deal With Cute Squirrels

“My cartoon would have been cuter,” chirps the coy little squirrel. Beyond a doubt, it certainly would have been. But it wouldn’t have been a Tex Avery cartoon, so Tex, writer Heck Allen, Screwy Squirrel and Meathead take care of that in “Screwball Squirrel.”



Ol’ Tex came to dislike Screwy, even though the cartoons followed the Avery credo of having an opening, a closing and a string of gags in between. This cartoon was Screwy’s first, with animation credited to Preston Blair, Ray Abrams and Ed Love.

4 comments:

  1. Incidentally, when this was shown on "MGM PARADE" in September 1955, the ending was omitted (the scene faded before the cute little squirrel reappeared).

    ReplyDelete
  2. You have to wonder if either audiences or someone at MGM didn't like Screwy as well, since none of his cartoons seem to have been re-released. The prints we see today of all 5 of his cartoons still have the "tomato soup" MGM logo, and no credit for Fred Quimby.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. That is very interesting to point out. Weird to think nobody saw the brilliance in these early on.

      Delete
  3. The character designs have Preston Blair written all over them.

    ReplyDelete