Look at this expression from animator Don Williams.
When you see multiple cascading eyes, you know it’s Williams. Here are some fun frames when Tom hides Daffy under a rock, then changes his mind and pulls him out.
Also credited with animation on this short are Emery Hawkins, Bill Melendez and Basil Davidovich, with layouts by Don Smith and backgrounds by Phil De Guard. Lloyd Turner gets the sole story credit.
The late '40s were a curious transition period in the history of Warner Bros. cartoons. Avery, Clampett, and Tashlin were gone for good, but the Jones-Freleng-McKimson triumvirate was not yet officially established, giving Art Davis a look-in with cartoons like this one. The studios hadn't yet had their theaters taken away, so budget restrictions on subsidiary products like cartoons--causing the animation to become increasingly limited, the designs simpler--hadn't yet happened. Nor, artistically, had the UPA influence: much of the humor was still slapstick-oriented, the backgrounds still dimensional, and the animal characters still animals. Daffy hadn't yet become the aggressive (if bumbling) huckster, nor had Bugs' primary trait become smugness.
ReplyDeleteMultiple cascading eyes are also seen in the two Bob McKimson Road Runners (Rushing Roulette; Sugar and Spies) when Wile E. Coyote starts a fall. Don Williams is credited only in the first; his presence there is also evident in ear movement when Wile E. is bouncing on springs before the fall. McKimson reused Williams' animation in Sugar and Spies without giving him credit.
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