Monday, 20 June 2016

Breathe, Stupid

There’s something funny about a cat that’s so stupid, it forgets to breathe. That’s what we get in the Art Davis short Dough, Ray, Me-ow, with the story by Lloyd Turner.

Heathcliffe the dopey cat is in a panic, once again asking Louie the parrot to help him.



The next scene where Louie berates Heathcliffe for forgetting to breathe again. I love the floppy tongue. More dry brush work, too.



Don Williams, Emery Hawkins, Basil Davidovich and Bill Melendez are the credited animators.

In a truly inexplicable decision, the studio fired Davis’ other writer, the great Bill Scott, then tried to demote Turner back into in-betweening. Turner went on to become a top sitcom writer. It wasn’t long before the Davis unit was gone altogether, a victim of the cost-cutting being made at all West Coast animation studios.
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2 comments:

  1. Chuck20 June 2016 at 08:49

    More Art Davis, please...

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  2. J Lee20 June 2016 at 11:43

    Turner's sitcom writing partner would be Gordon Mitchell, and their names would be used in one of the first great episodes of The Mary Tyler Moore Show, as the candidates for mayor when a snowstorm stops election returns from coming in, leaving Ted Baxter stuck for 10 hours repeating "Turner 85, Mitchell 23" on air (Turner and Mitchell didn't write this episode, but were tied to the show thanks to co-creator Allan Burns' ties to Turner via the Jay Ward studio. They did do another Season 1 show, where Ted Baxter was slightly smarter than Heathcliffe).

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