Friday, 8 December 2023

Cat Faces

Jerry attacks Tom with the lid of a garbage can in The Midnight Snack (1941).



MGM cartoons feature dry-brush work and multiples. You don’t see many of the latter because they are used as in-betweens to quickly move the characters. In this scene, you see a lot of them as the vibration action is on screen for several seconds.



This shows you MGM had a talented paint department, which is considered the lowest rung in the animation system (outside of a cel washer, which took no artistic ability). Ink and paint people get little recognition, which is why I was so pleased the late Martha Sigall published her memoires, giving fans of the Warners and MGM cartoons a fresh viewpoint.

Incidentally, publicity from MGM at the time of release named the cat and mouse Jasper and Jerry. The maid (played by Lillian Randolph) never had a name. You can read the story here.

1 comment:

  1. The model sheet of Tom for this short also referred to him as Jasper. That begs the question, did they change the cats name before, during or after production?

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