In Happy-Go-Nutty (1944), Screwy lives up to his name by hacksawing bars on an open door at a mental hospital (for squirrels only), then climbing over a metal gate that’s already open to escape.
Here are three consecutive frames. The dry-brush makes the action look fast and smooth, instead of popping pose-to-pose.
“You know, those guys in there think I’m crazy,” Screwy tells us. He then gives us an indignant look.
Screwy then whips out the quintessential proof of insanity—a Napoleon hat. “And I am, too!” We get a demonstration (as if we need convincing)
These are consecutive frames. How about that in-between?
More dry-brush. This is part of a cycle of head pounding.
Finally Screwy rides off on an imaginary bicycle.
Director Tex Avery reprises the “fool the dog to jump over a fence” gag from Of Fox and Hounds (Warners, 1940). There’s an old vaudeville gag involving a phone call, an inexplicable second squirrel gag, a cave/darkness routine, a break from a chase for a Coo-Coo Cola and, as you might expect from Avery, a title card gag.
Heck Allen gets a story credit and Avery’s wartime crew of Preston Blair, Ray Abrams and Ed Love are the credited animators.
Screwy appeared in only five cartoons. I don’t know what else Avery might have done with him, but there are funny scenes in all of them.
Shame Tex Avery didn't seem to like Screwy Squirrel, because I always enjoyed him. Kinda strange Avery had these feelings, since Screwy seemed to embody so much of what he liked doing in cartoons.
ReplyDeleteThe problem with Screwy is he's so aggressive, Bugs Bunny without the charm. (Bugs, as the animation books point out, never initiates a conflict. They also describe Avery as a shy, gentle man, quite apart from the bombast of his cartoons.) With Woody Woodpecker and Bob Clampett's Daffy already on the scene, Screwy may have been one screwball character too many. But the Screwy cartoons themselves are very funny.
DeleteI like Screwy but I agree with you. His fault is his "aggressive" nature. Bugs and Daffy, particularly by Clampett, are superior because they are more charismatic.
DeleteOne thing I'm always curious about who did character designs/layouts for the first two Screwy cartoons. A lot of places say it was Claude Smith but it doesn't really fit the other cartoons that Smith was involved in. It looks more like Bernard Wolf to me.
ReplyDeleteJohn Canemaker's book might have some model sheets. My animation books have been packed away for a year due to bedbugs.
DeleteI did found some model sheets and drawings online for Screwy's first cartoon. Very fascinating that Screwy was supposed to have colored eyes during production, before they scrapped it during the ink-and-paint phase.
DeleteI like overly aggressive cartoon characters. They're silly. I wish Tex did more. I suspect that Screwy was very popular with kids but not MGM's management! He just wasn't classy enough for their tastes.
ReplyDeleteAvery was glad to get rid of him.
DeleteI think it's messed up how Avery killed him in Screwy's last short. I know he holds up sign that says, "Sad Ending, isn't it?" but he is dead.
ReplyDeleteI do not accept that he's dead.
DeleteFans say he's dead because a) they start with the conclusion that Avery didn't like Screwy, and b) no other cartoons were made with him at MGM.
If he had wings and floated upward (like the umpire in Batty Baseball), I would accept he is dead. Of course, Sylvester and Elmer Fudd died in Back Alley Oproar but came back to make other cartoons.
The reason why I say he's dead because at the beginning, the Lenny dog mentions how he accidentally crushes one of his pets to death. He then holds up the animal's dead body.
DeleteAt the end the cartoon, Lenny, again, laments that he killed a pet and he holds up Screwy's corpse. Yes, he is still moving and holding up a sign but it's still death in the absurd, Tex Avery sense. You have a point that usually, we see the ascension into heaven but I think this is still a "death".
I don't think there's a right or wrong answer to this. People can read in what they'd like. It really doesn't make much difference.
DeleteI still like most of the gags in the Screwy cartoons and I don't know if they would have worked with a gentler character (Screwy and Droopy are certainly an exercise in contrasts).
I agree. This is definitely subjective. I can see both sides of the argument.
DeleteI don't accept he died either. He lived on in MGM Tom & Jerry comic books. The only reason that Tex may have hated him is that Screwy was likely unpopular with MGM executives. I don't always trust later interviews with animators as they may be trying to please authors or perhaps their opinions have changed over the years.
DeleteYou can hear what sounds like a “cracking” noise after Lenny hugs Screwy. IDK. Maybe Lenny cracked all of Screwy’s bones and he died shortly after the iris out.
DeleteI don't accept he died either. He lived on in MGM Tom & Jerry comic books. The only reason that Tex may have hated him is that Screwy was likely unpopular with MGM executives. I don't always trust later interviews with animators as they may be trying to please authors or perhaps their opinions have changed over the years.
ReplyDeleteThe comics are not canon! Geez are you even a real fan? LOL!
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