Answer: Name a Chuck Jones cartoon just about everyone dislikes.
Actually, I think Jones and gag writer Rich Hogan accomplish their purpose with this 1940 short. Elmer Fudd is frustrated. So is the audience after 6 ½ minutes of watching this. One exhibitor in Saskatchewan, in a 1942 edition of the Motion Picture Herald, summed up the cartoon with the short phrase “Very poor reel.”
This is early, slow, artsy Jones. He seems to have decided to make this an experiment in variations of shadows on Fudd, who behaves like a silent film actor. The problem is, it’s not very entertaining.
Here are various angles as he tries to take off his jacket while holding a candle.
Just PUT IT ON THE FLOOR!!!
Carl Stalling fills the soundtrack with “When My Dreamboat Comes Home.” Other than “Good Night Ladies” over the opening title card, the rest of the music is Stalling’s.
Phil Monroe gets the screen credit for animation.
After this dud, Elmer resumed his much funnier pairing with Bugs Bunny.
The only thing I liked about this short *was* Carl Stalling's lower register smooth clarinet playing " When my dreamboat comes home ".
ReplyDeleteIn the running for the Hardest Warner Bros. Cartoon to Sit Through award, and that includes Buddy, Rudy Larriva's Road Runners, and anything pairing Daffy Duck and Speedy Gonzales.
ReplyDeleteThat said, it's hard to completely dislike anything so carefully and painstakingly animated. But c'mon, fellas, would it have killed you to throw in a gag here and there?
I'm glad Chuck Jones got this stuff out of his system early on.
I do admire the artistic commitment, but it does have to be classified as a misfire.
ReplyDeleteThe main problem is there's no reason for this to be an animated cartoon. "[B]ehaves like a silent film actor" sums it up nicely. It's dull but not really unpleasant enough to hate.
ReplyDeleteYou can say Elmer was the original "Mr. Bean" back in this cartoon. 🤪
DeleteSpeaking about silent film actors, I wonder if Harry Langdon was on Chuck's mind when he made this cartoon. You have a character who moves very slowly and can't grasp the very simple solution to a simple problem. I can see Harry Langdon having a whole skit with the same basic premise. The only difference is Harry would have made this skit much funnier.
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