Tuesday, 10 January 2023

Today's Inside Joke

A shot of a fake newspaper with some real names opens the pre-Bugs Bunny cartoon Hare-Um Scare-Um (1939).



There’s a drawing of co-director Bugs Hardaway, labelled “Happy Hardaway” (it looks suspiciously similar to a T. Hee caricature made at the studio in 1936). He was from Missouri, and the story above his picture is datelined Hog Hollow, Missouri.

The next column features a story about a “riot at the Looney Tune cartoon studio” caused by Tex Avery dealing from the bottom of the deck in a card game.

On the opposite page is a reference to Lu Cavett and banking. Lewis Lee Cavett was a Los Angeles High School grad who became an assistant animator at the studio after a brief career as a commercial artist. He was noted for loaning money to other employees to top up his pay. He left Schlesinger’s to work as an artist for a pottery company and was assigned to the 517th Airborne during World War Two. Corporal Cavett died in a parachute training exercise near Camp Mackall in North Carolina in 1944 at age 29.

And a box above the Cavett headline makes fun of the slogan “Movies Are Your Best Entertainment.”

The background artist is unknown but Art Loomer was still at the studio and it may be him.

Tubby Millar gets a story credit and Gil Turner receives the revolving animation credit.

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