Gene Deitch had arrived to shake up the studio and make the cartoons look more modern, despite the same animators, background artists and storymen (augmented with a few hires from UPA). How much of an influence he had on this cartoon, though, is unclear.
The Bone Ranger has an ending which doesn’t remind you of anything in an old Heckle and Jeckle cartoon. A junkyard dog named Sniffer spends the entire cartoon chasing after a bone for his daily meal. He finally achieves his goal. As he’s about to chomp down on it, there’s a sound. There’s a slight eye movement.
Cut to an emaciated whimpering Chihuahua.
The annoyed mongrel tries to shoo him away, but the forlorn Chihuahua licks his leg in friendship.
Sniffer gives in and gives the little dog his bone, sighing in resignation and using his tail as a belt to indicate his stomach is empty.
The hungry dog toddles off. He turns to head into the distance and the background changes colour from brown to blue as Phil Scheib’s orchestra plays a simple and suitable string arrangement.
Scheib does a fine job scoring and arranging this short, which was originally released in Cinemascope. Connie Rasinski directed.
Sniffer was also the name of Felix the Cat's short lived dog in season 3 of the Trans-Lux cartoon.. btw I thought it was Pluto that I saw..lol.
ReplyDeleteThey did do a little UPA-izing of the circus backgrounds for the animated opening of "The Barker Bill Show" prior to Deitch's arrival (where most of the animation itself seems to have been borrowed or redrawn from previous Terry cartoons), and the pre-Deitch CinemaScope shorts already were showing a few budgetary moves so you wouldn't mistake an Academy ratio print for a 1939 Terrytoo.
ReplyDeleteNo one's ever explained Terry's decision to NOT use any of his main characters in the widescreen shorts, and instead fill them with either one-shot or new continuing characters (other than one Farmer Alfalfa appearance), but the unknown characters and the relatively bland stories made the early CinemaScope Terrytoons among the rarest ones on TV, even back when Terry's shorts were still regular syndication staples.
You'd think he would have jumped at the opportunity to have Mighty Mouse soaring across the wide screen.
Delete