I was watching Bear Feat (1949) the other day, and it was funnier than I remember it. And it’s a well-designed cartoon, too. There’s perspective animation with characters going toward and coming from the “camera.”
Notice above that Father Bear, who is about to drop into the chimney, still has the unicycle he was riding on the high wire when he was catapulted into the sky.
Bob Gribbroek is the layout artist. He has some settings looking up, others looking down.
Maltese has some inspired gags in this. We’ll get to one later this week.
Ben Washam, Lloyd Vaughan, Ken Harris and Phil Monroe are the credited animators.
I've felt that the period from about late 46/early 47 to about 1952 represented the peak of Jones' career at WB, when he had the right group of talents on his team, including consistently funny stories, something that held him up until he got Pierce in '42. Bear Feat has only one issue, in that the payoff gag duplicates the payoff gag in a 1940 Popeye cartoon, "Puttin' on the Act," though Jones does a much better job with his effort than Dave Fleischer (nominally) did with his.
ReplyDeletePersonally, I'd argue that 1945 - 1953 is the peak of Jones' career TBH (yes I know it's a two year addon but still...).
DeleteTo be fair, in 1953, we get "Bully for Bugs," "Duck Amuck," and "Duck Dodgers." But maybe we would extend the period to "One Froggy Evening" or even "What's Opera, Doc?" Unfortunately, then we get "Rabbit Rampage" in there.
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