The Sneeze

“Yowp, several years ago, you wrote about the catnip scene in Cat Happy. But what about ‘the sneeze’?”

A good question. Let’s give you some random drawings from this 1950 Terrytoons short starring the forgettable Little Roquefort and Percy the cat. Tommy Morrison’s story tosses in the worn-out pepper-makes-the-character-sneeze gag. But see what Jim Tyer does with it.

Tyer times his animation so some drawings are held on three frames, some on two, some on one. Percy's head goes back, then forward, then back some more, then... well, you get the idea... before letting go. For a sneeze, this is perfect. And Tyer eschews cycle animation in this scene.



You’ll see this at Lantz, MGM and elsewhere. The background changes to a solid colour to emphasize the violence.



Tyer is entrusted with the scene before this when the mouse shakes the pepper (the label simply says “PEP” close-up in the cat’s face. There’s another fun bit of animation where Little Roquefort turns into swirls when he skids up to Percy’s face.

The Exhibitor rated this short “fair.” But if you’re a fan of Tyer’s straight-ahead outrageous animation, he’s all over the place in this one. Cat Happy is for you.

The Vulture Punch

Vultures on the Mohave Desert think they are going to eat Mighty Mouse in Triple Trouble (1948). Foolish vultures. Haven’t they seen a Mighty Mouse cartoon before? It’s not like anything different happens in them.



The Mouse of Might’s fist grows to emphasize the punch. The background assists by changing into swirls. This is animated on twos.



Mighty Mouse takes off in perspective after a few stretched drawings that can only be the work of Jim Tyer.



Writer John Foster came up with yet another operetta. Eddie Donnelly directed.

Horning in on a Gag

Here’s a stretch in-between drawing from the Little Roquefort cartoon, No Sleep For Percy (1955). The mouse is trying to jar himself loose after Percy the cat rolled up a car window, with Little Roquefort’s head stuck at the top.



The mouse lands on the horn. The sound is pretty weak, at least on versions of the cartoon in circulation. Maybe they didn’t want to drown out Phil Scheib’s atypical score.



The horn is evidently loud enough to wake Percy. Here are random frames of Jim Tyer’s spasmatic animation. Heads that shrink and expand (and do it several times for emphasis), expanded fuzzy fur, eyes that are different sizes, it’s all here.



Percy gets up to chase after the mouse. The cat’s butt is on the ground. Tyer gives him impossible anatomy.



This is just in case theatre audiences mistook this for Tom and Jerry.



This was the final cartoon with Little Roquefort and Percy. Connie Rasinski was the sole director for well over a year and a half and new characters, like Good Deed Daily, were being tried out. Paul Terry hadn’t sold out to CBS yet, but when that happened, Gene Deitch came in to run the creative part of the studio, and another set of new characters arrived.

Jim Tyer is Nuts

Can we all agree on this?

Here is Exhibit A: the third scene from the 1951 Terrytoon The Cat's Tale. He animates the first scene of the cat getting chased by mice. It's got frizzy tails and weird shapes that only Tyer would do.

Then his animation gets crazier as the cat frantically seals the door to his cave home to stop the mice from getting in. Look at the angles. They're insane.



Tyer animates parts of this scene on ones, so there’s no penny-pinching going on.

That’s not all. The next scene features weird pupil shapes as the cat pushes his head toward the camera. And there’s Tyer smear animation.



Tyer wasn't credited on this cartoon. None of the animators were until Paul Terry sold his studio and Gene Deitch was hired in 1956. Good for you, Gene!