Threatening a Straw House

Bob McKimson’s early cartoons are full of characters waving arms around, though it seems McKimson didn’t like it all that much. If you think of Bugs Bunny’s “death” scene in A Wild Hare (1940), the acting is subtle.

In an interview in 1971 with Michael Barrier, McKimson explained when Rod Scribner returned to his unit after an absence, he had to “calm” his animation.

Another animator McKimson inherited when he became a director was Manny Gould, who was responsible for exaggerated open-mouths and other fun drawings for Bob Clampett, after a tame career at the Mintz studio going back to the silent era. Gould didn’t have a chance to be “calmed.” He left for Jerry Fairbanks Productions in September 1947. The last cartoon he was credited on was The Windblown Hare, released August 27, 1949.

In one Gould scene, the Big Bad Wolf was priming himself to religiously follow the book “The Three Little Pigs” by rehearsing lines from it while walking. The scene is animated on ones. Here’s my favourite drawing.



The wolf strolls into the scene where background artist Dick Thomas has rendered a straw house based (I presume) on Warren Foster’s story sketches and Cornett Wood’s layouts. He delivers his famous line. Here are random frames by Gould and the studio’s in-betweeners.



Why would anyone want to “calm” this type of animation? And why are characters out of the frame in McKimson cartoons?

This is one of McKimson’s cartoons I really like. Foster’s story is solid. It’s so solid, he remade it with Yogi Bear (Oinks and Boinks, 1960). Chuck McKimson, Jack Carey and Phil De Lara are the other credited animators.

It’s a little sad, but a hunt through available copies of Daily Variety has resulted in less than a treasure trove about McKimson. There’s a June 1965 story about him directing the Road Runner series on CBS for DePatie-Freleng. But there’s also this story from July 28, 1969.

Hendricks, Blount Are Documenting ‘Space’ For W7
A two-planet space documentary, “Who Needs Space?”, currently is in production at Warner Bros.-Seven Arts.
Recounting progressive steps in American space exploration culminating in the Apollo 11 moon landing, “Who Needs Space?” is being produced by the studio’s animation-commercial division in collaboration with North American Rockwell Space Division.
William L. Hendricks and Earl Blount are producing the film, scripted by Jay Dresser, with Bob McKimson directing animation sequences. Hal Geer is editing with Buddy Eyanson coordinating film coverage.

Whether this was completed, someone may know, but McKimson spent the rest of his career at DePatie-Freleng. He was having lunch at the Smoke House with Freleng and others from the studio when he had a coronary and died, September 29, 1977. He was 66.

Jim Korkis spoke with Bob Clampett about McKimson and you can read the interview here. And Mark Nardone’s 1980 with McKimson from the Peary brothers' “The American Animated Cartoon” can be found here with an Internet Archive subscription.

Re-Used Gag Time

Warner Bros. cartoons occasionally re-used animation footage and, sometime, gags.

Here’s an example of the latter. First, from Friz Freleng’s The Wabbit Who Came to Supper (1942), written by Mike Maltese. Bugs is in Elmer Fudd’s house taking a bath or shower and singing “Angel in Disguise.” He’s off-key. He comes out to a convenient piano, gets in tune with the correct note, and goes back into the bathroom.



Ten years later, in Bob McKimson’s Upswept Hare, written by Tedd Pierce, Bugs is in Elmer Fudd’s house taking a bath and singing new lyrics to “There’s No Place Like Home.” He’s off-key. He comes out to a convenient piano, gets in tune with the correct note, and goes back into the bathroom.



Bob Givens laid out the McKimson cartoon. I prefer the layout of the earlier short because you can see Bugs' face, though the head position may have come from Pierce's storyboard.

McKimson and Pierce have a switch on an even earlier gag, Porky's Duck Hunt, from 1937; Pierce was on the writing staff then. Twice in the cartoon, Porky shoots a hole in the ceiling. The upstairs neighbour doesn't take kindly to it.

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In Upswept Hare, Elmer Fudd is conned by Bugs Bunny into shooting into the swimming pool. We see the resulting damage. This time, the downstairs neighbour gets his revenge, and with a little more than a punch.



There's also a shoot-the-apple-off-my-head scenario found in Avery's Daffy Duck and Egghead (1938, Bugs Hardaway credited with the story), and a take-a-shot-at-Bugs gag in A Wild Hare (1940, Rich Hogan credited with the story), though they're really not the same Bugs/apple gag as the one in Upswept Hare.

McKimson didn’t believe in Avery-style outlandish takes. In Upswept Hare, Elmer realises he’s floating in mid-air then goes into various poses before dropping (his face is brown from being shot by Bugs earlier in the cartoon). I like the individual frames here and wish they stood out more in the cartoon.



McKimson's animators are his brother Chuck, Phil De Lara, Herman Cohen and Rod "I calmed him down" Scribner.

Cartoon Video News

It’s always a good day to read about restored cartoons that can find their way to your home.

Once again, the Warner Archive Collection is coming through with what you see on the right as of March 24th. You can see the list of shorts HERE.

There’s a lot of Chuck Jones in this two-volume set, but there are some cartoons by Art Davis, one by Tex Avery (The Heckling Hare) and even two of Norm McCabe’s efforts (the less than exciting Hop and Go and the in-need-of-restoration The Daffy Duckaroo). And there’ll be a clean, clear version of Jim Backus as the Hubert Updyke III genie in Bob McKimson’s A Lad in His Lamp that was last seen on laser disc.

Don’t expect Bosko or Buddy to show up here.

If you’re a fan of Famous Studios, you’ll be happy to hear word from Cartoon Logic that a 1940s collection will be distributed soon by ClassicFlix. There will be more about this in the new year.

These shorts really needed loving care; it seems the versions I’ve seen are either faded or turning a shade of pink. In fact, the TV prints I watched in the ‘60s don’t strike me as being all that great.

You can watch a clip below. The restoration is exemplary.

Where's Bugs?

Bob McKimson’s early Bugs Bunny cartoons as a director baffle me.

There’s potentially good animation that’s lost in the odd staging. Whether McKimson was responsible or layout man Cornett Wood was responsible, I don’t know.

Here are a few examples (and there are more) in A-Lad-in-His-Lamp (1948). In the frame below, the genie, who was on the right half of the screen, has gone back in the lamp.



There’s a take as Bugs sees Caliph Hassen Pheffer coming for him. But the take is off-screen. You can’t see the animation.



McKimson’s cartoons go from huge open mouths to teeny mouths like the drawing below.



Bugs leaps into the air before running away. I really don’t get the point of having Bugs in mid-air when you can’t see the top half of him. It seems like a waste of an animator’s work.



McKimson’s shots can be either too close or too far. Below are consecutive frames. Look at the dead space in the second one. You can’t read the expressions later in the scene.



McKimson liked perspective animation in his earliest cartoons. You’ll see characters running toward the camera and back. Here’s a perspective example from this cartoon.



The genie is a fun character and would have got more laughs in 1948 as he was recognisable to audiences then. His character was lifted from the Alan Young radio show, the upper-crust, East Coast millionaire Hubert Updyke III, complete with catchphrases. This was Jim Backus' first cartoon appearance.

Chuck McKimson, Phil De Lara, Manny Gould and John Carey are the credited animators. Dick Thomas went from forest to caliphate in his backgrounds.

Tazzy Birthday (Not Quite)

Yes, we're back. But only for a week.

Music expert Daniel Goldmark sent me some information quite a number of months ago. I thought I had turned it into a post, but have discovered I hadn't. I don't want to waste his kindness, so I've come up with something which you'll read here next week. Since I've had a bit of spare time, a full week's worth of posts will appear starting Monday. Then it's back into retirement. (The Yowp blog will have posts monthly through the end of the year but it is essentially done).

Some cartoon fans have pointed out today is the birthday of the Tazmanian Devil. Indeed, Devil May Hare was released on this date in 1954 according to all trade publications of the time.

But hold on thar! It's actually not his birthday.

Cartoon scholar and noted Release-the-Remaining-Warners-Cartoons champion Jerry Beck has pointed out on many occasions that as soon as a cartoon arrived at a film exchange, a local movie theatre could show it. It may have arrived some time before the "official" release date; A Wild Hare is a great example.

So it was with Devil May Hare. To the left is an ad from the Escanaba Daily Press of Saturday, May 29, 1954. It advertises Devil May Hare will be on screens the next day. (You can click on the ad to get a larger view).

This doesn't mean the cartoon debuted in a small town in Michigan. That's just the earliest newspaper ad I can find. I don't know if any records exist of when each theatre showed any cartoon, and some newspapers will simply announce "Bugs Bunny cartoon" or "cartoon" without the short being named. After all, if it says "Bugs Bunny cartoon," do you need to know more?

I am not suggesting people who want to celebrate cartoon "birthdays" stop doing it. I merely point out that "official" cartoon release dates are not necessarily birthdates of characters therein. As a side-note, some years back Turner sent out a press release with "birthdays" of Hanna-Barbera characters. It was flat out wrong for the Kellogg's series and I've spent time on-line trying to correct the dates.

Below is another ad, this one from the Omaha Evening-World Herald. Omahamians (is that what they're called?) got a chance to Dial T for Taz on June 3, 1954.



Incidentally, the Warners featurette Frontier Days had an official release date of June 12, so it was being screened early in Omaha as well. Oh, and there was another Warners short with a June 19 release date, a Vitaphone Varities ten-minute reel named When Sports Were King. Warners was still offering movie houses various shorts, including sports and music reels, something called "Classics of the Screen" that ran 17 to 20 minutes, Technicolor Specials (like Silver Lightning, the story of a salmon) and George O'Hanlon as Joe McDoakes.

Bugs and other McKimson characters were drawn with hooded eyelids. An example is to the right.

Devil May Hare was written by Sid Marcus. Perhaps that's why the character is an original. Other writers for McKimson were content with purloining characters from radio (eg. Frank Fontaine's John L.C. Sivoney was turned into Pete Puma). Motion Picture Exhibitor rated it "fair." I suppose it is compared with other Bugs cartoons that year, such as Bugs and Thugs and Bewitched Bunny, but I quite like the Devil. There wasn't a lot McKimson and his later writers could do with him (see Dr. Devil and Mr. Hare for an example. If you dare) and he was eventually turned into a TV cartoon sitcom character for the kiddies.

Herman Cohen, Rod Scribner, Phil De Lara and Chuck McKimson animated this short, with Bob Givens laying it out. Dick Thomas supplied the stylised forest background art that isn't much more elaborate than his later work at Hanna-Barbera. By the time this was released, they were all unemployed. The McKimson unit was eliminated in March 1953 but, apparently after some debate, reactivated almost a year later.

We have more about the McKimson family and the T. Devil in this post.