Thursday 23 July 2020

A Little Off the Top

There are a couple of gags in Little Johnny Jet involving the title character and his B-29 bomber dad buzzing the tops of, first, a US Navy blimp and, then, the Sphinx. The end results?



Tex made funnier cartoons, but maybe the Yankee Doodle-ism of this Korean War-time short was enough to give it an Oscar nomination. I believe this was the first one he put into production after returning from his year-or-so off at MGM.

2 comments:

  1. My personal favorite - the manic music (Yankee Doodle/Hooray for the Red White and Blue/Dixie mashed together in less that 10 seconds, Rock A Bye Baby used throughout), The determined expression on Papa's face just before he meets the "MacArthur" plane ("Old Planes never fly, they just fade away" and he does!), the look on Junior's face after he blows the Statue of Liberty's skirts up, etc etc.

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  2. It seemed to have been an easy way for Tex to ease back into his job after the hiatus, since the story was basically an updated version of "One Cab's Family" (which in itself was an updated version of Friz's "Streamline Gretta Green"). The mass pregnancy gag at the end would get better use as the finish for "The Flea Circus" a short time later.

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