Tuesday, 31 May 2016

Tex's Trip to Mars

The Cat That Hated People decided to go to the moon. Johnny Johnsen’s background drawings accommodated him.



There must have been a joke about flying to Palm Springs around the time this cartoon was made. This background was panned left to right in the cartoon.



Tex Avery and Heck Allen came up with a plot where the cat, who’s abused by everyone and everything on Earth, goes to moon, where he’s abused by everyone and everything. The cat decides to go back to Earth because if he’s going to be abused, he’d rather be abused in AMERICA! (MGM must have loved a chance to show how patriotic they were).

Walt Clinton and Grant Simmons were in Avery’s unit, along with Louie Schmitt and Bill Shull. Avery’s unit was kind of in a gradual transition when this cartoon was made (it was released in 1947) for reasons I’ve never heard about.

2 comments:

  1. Johnsen's rockets look like they come straight out of pulp science fiction magazine.

    There must have been some kind of satire there about the whole America bit (or I'm just reading into it too much).

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  2. The tiny Palm Springs rocket represents the minuscule traveling distance ( slightly over a hundred miles ) from L.A. compared to the much, much further away planets, which would necessitate a larger spaceship.

    C'mon, Yowp. This isn't...rocket science.

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