Tuesday, 13 October 2015

Asustado Pussy Gato

The startle/leaping/bash gag is an old but hardy one in cartoons. Mike Maltese dug it up for Friz Freleng in “Here Today, Gone Tamale” (released 1959).



More brush strokes and outlines as Sylvester tries to clobber Speedy.



Sylvester is into a conjoint eye stage at this point of his career.



Maltese worked on this cartoon because Freleng’s writer, Warren Foster, had quit to work for John Sutherland Productions. In fact, by the time this cartoon was released, Maltese was writing at Hanna-Barbera.
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2 comments:

  1. J Lee13 October 2015 at 08:10

    Maltese seemed to get a little more creative working out of his normal 1950s element on the Foghorn Leghorn cartoons for McKimson than on the Speedy efforts for Freleng. The rooster provided a better vehicle for Mike's verbal wordplay (there are still some good bits in this cartoon, but if you didn't know it was written by Maltese, you could just as easily assume it was a Freleng-Foster effort).

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  2. Yowp13 October 2015 at 08:50

    I wonder if it was a case of Freleng rejecting Maltese's gags and this is what was left. Realistically, you'd think this cartoon would be similar to the Coyote-Roadrunners he wrote for Jones, except both leads can talk.

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