Well, no, 1930s cartoon writers, it doesn’t work that way. Especially if it’s not funny once.
Alpine Antics, a 1935 cartoon directed by Jack King at Warners, is a good example. The plot of this one is a downhill race for cash that Beans pledges to win (the word “Beans” already tells you this is not a funny cartoon). One of the contestants is likely the early version of Porky Pig riding a hobby horse.
The bad guy cat, played by the great Billy Bletcher, decides to stop his downhill challengers by blocking the route.
We don’t actually see it happen, but the line trips up Porky and the hobby horse. They crash-land into the snow and wiggle their butts with a jingle bell sound effect on the track.
“Hey, Treg!” possibly said Jack King or someone else even less inspired, “If it’s funny when a pig does it once, it’ll be three times as funny if three pigs do it.” So that’s what we get, three pigs in a snow bank, wiggling their tails with Treg Brown playing a jingling sound effect.
Jack Carr is a credited animator on this short. He used to contribute gags to cartoons around this time. Either he was silent or uninspired when Tom Armstrong’s story department came up with this one.
Whew! A relief to theatre goers.
You get the feeling it was shorts like these, coming out at the same time as Tex Avery's initial efforts at Schlesinger's, that convinced Leon, Henry and/or Ray that the studio's brand new director might be a better choice to promote to help Friz with the color Merrie Melodies than the Disney veteran with two years studio seniority.
ReplyDeleteEspecially after seeing his directors wasting screen time with Buddy cartoons. I imagine Avery taking on "Page Miss Glory" didn't hurt him in Leon's eyes, either.
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