Well, I suspect someone likes those Giant Mouse cartoons. I’ve learned, to paraphrase Art Linkletter, fans love the darndest things.
Background painter Dick Thomas seems so uninterested in Bell Hoppy (released in 1954) he can’t keep the spelling of “Push” on a fence board consistent from scene to scene to scene.
Director Bob McKimson inherited animators from Bob Clampett who seem to have been given leeway to go as much over the top as they wanted. McKimson knocked that out of them after a few years. There are still a few of scenes I like in this one, mainly when the dopey cats hear a bell and rush into the frame to beat up Sylvester. This one takes five frames. Nice dry brush here, ink and paint department.
Another good scene is when Sylvester gets the cowbell over the “mouse.” His expressions are good but I can’t help but think what Rod Scribner (or Manny Gould if he had been in the unit then) could have done if they had been let loose. Scribner animates on this cartoon, along with Phil De Lara, Chuck McKimson and Herman Cohen. (Late note: Thad Komorowski tells me this is Scribner's scene).
Tedd Pierce wrote the cartoon and supplies an incidental voice; I’ve always liked his voice work at Warners. He borrows the Harpo Marx mirror bit and tosses it into the plot.
Carl Stalling picked Julie Styne and Sammy Cahn’s “That Was a Big Fat Lie” for the cue under the opening credits.
The network Bugs Bunny Show always seemed to have an inordinate number of these "It's a giant mouse!" cartoons. Or maybe it was just that I disliked them, to the degree that one coming on meant flipping channels to see what was happening elsewhere on the tube, or getting a refill on the Captain Crunch. Anything to avoid watching Sylvester idiotically refuse to see that his opponent wasn't a giant mouse. And for his part, that baby kangaroo seemed largely devoid of personality, his only trait being a failure to see that Sylvester, rather than being a playmate, was in fact aiming to kill him.
ReplyDeleteI don't remember seeing one I thought was funny.
One of the great puzzles of my childhood was trying to figure out how that dumb baby kangaaroo made it into the Bugs Bunny Show's opening credits while Porky Pig didn't.
The hilarious POV shot of the zoo truck plowing into the cats justifies Hippety's existence.
ReplyDeleteThere's no real reason to dislike Hippety Hopper (after all, what did he ever do to you, except maybe bore you?), but I do. Maybe he needed Bob Clampett to give him a personality. He rivals Foghorn Leghorn as my least favorite Warner Bros. cartoon character.
ReplyDelete"Big Fat Lie" was used as opening music for at least a couple more Warner cartoons; "A Bone for a Bone" is one that comes to mind.
Carl Stalling composed Bell Hoppy, not Milt Franklyn.
ReplyDeleteYou're absolutely right, Anon, and I'll get that changed.
DeleteI always liked those Giant Mouse cartoons, I suppose many others liked them too if McKimson made so many of them. Maybe those shorts, and Mckimson shorts in general, are hated by people that watched them too many times in a rough.
ReplyDeleteTo be fair, networks did broadcast some cartoons too often.