Thursday 13 July 2023

Distaff Car of Tomorrow

Tex Avery’s Car of Tomorrow (released in 1951) has some topical gags making fun of the Hudson (step-down car) and the Studebaker (front is same as back), as well as some tried-and-true oldies (mother-in-law).

And the man who brought the world a sexy Red Riding Hood also gave us sex in a car.

Avery and writers Rich Hogan and Roy Williams concoct a sequence about a feminised car, with the clichéd description recited by June Foray. It’s a “stunning Paris creation...in a delicate shade of seashell pink.



The camera cuts to a close-up of the window curtains “in polka-dot Swiss organdy.”



There’s another close-up cut to what looks like pansies in the fender, but the narrator (or, in the ‘50s was she a “narratrix”?) informs us they are “Peruvian poppies.”



Cut to a longer shot of the side of the car with a description of the white lace, and then there’s another cut and a pan-down shot of the front of the car with a plunging neckline gag “revealing almost the entire fan.” This was a time when Faye Emerson “plunging neckline” gags were big.



Avery cuts back to the side view of the car and pans across revealing it has a butt “in a flattering bustle effect.” (He also pulled off a car/butt gag in One Cab's Family).



Background artist Johnny Johnsen saves money for producer Fred Quimby in this sequence. There is no animation at all, just camera movement over his paintings.

This was the second in Avery’s “Of Tomorrow” series, which began with The House of Tomorrow (1949), continued with TV of Tomorrow (1952) and ended with The Farm of Tomorrow (1954).

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