Showing posts with label King-Size Canary. Show all posts
Showing posts with label King-Size Canary. Show all posts

Tuesday, 24 September 2024

How To Get Into a House

A hungry hobo cat wants to sneak into a house to get at a fridge he thinks is bulging with food in King-Size Canary.

He can’t quite reach the window.



Well, that’s easy. Just stack some conveniently-placed nearby boxes on top of each other and climb in.



Hmm. Still can’t reach it. Since this is a Tex Avery cartoon, anything can happen—like ignoring the law of gravity.



The repealed law having done its job, gravity returns. Even before the cat has finished hoisting itself through the window.



Bob Bentley, Ray Abrams and Walt Clinton are the credited animators in this one, with Johnny Johnsen providing the backgrounds. This is one of those gags I am certain was used in another cartoon (I don’t mean Bugs “I never studied law” line, I mean one with climbing on boxes) but I can’t remember which one. Someone out there will know.

Bob Bentley, Ray Abrams and Walt Clinton are the credited animators in this one (the Tex Avery unit would soon go through some changes), with Johnny Johnsen getting no screen credit for the backgrounds. The title character is played by Sara Berner (who has one line), the cat is (I think) Pinto Colvig and Frank Graham gives the mouse a voice.

Tuesday, 28 November 2023

Good Night!

Perhaps this shot is the most famous ending of a Tex Avery cartoon.



The cat and mouse chasing each other, trying to get an advantage on the other by beefing up their bodies with a bottle of Jumbo-Gro, “run outta da stuff.” That means the cartoon has to end. After the mouse (played by Frank Graham) wishes “Good night,” Avery cuts to the two at the top of the Earth, giving a friendly wave goodbye to the theatre audience as the cartoon ends.

The final scene is a switch of the ending of Ride Him, Bosko! from 1932, where Hugh Harman and Rudy Ising run outta da stuff (in this case, gags) and abruptly end the cartoon.

King-Size Canary was released in 1947 with Heck Allen assisting Avery with gags, Bob Bentley, Ray Abrams and Walt Clinton animating, and Johnny Johnsen painting the backgrounds.

A theatre in Wichita Falls seemed to think Avery was a cartoon character but we know better. He was one of the finest directors ever to come along in animation.

Tuesday, 14 June 2022

Pill Pushing Cat

Tex Avery didn’t rely on dialogue for many of his gags; think of the huge eye-takes in some of his MGM cartoons.

In the 1947 short King-Size Canary, other than his old stand-by “Well, I’ve been sick,” a few labels, and the farewell at the end, there isn’t a lot of talking. Tex and gagman Heck Allen rely on sight gags augmented with Scott Bradley’s score.

An example is this routine when Atom the bulldog (whose eyes have turned into spotlights) runs toward the mangy cat. Avery cuts to the frightened cat against a suburban house. Fortunately, the cat has a pocket in his fur (they always appear at opportune moments in cartoons) with something that’s stall the dog. We’ll let these selected frames show the plot.



Like Bad Luck Blackie (1949), Avery and Allen allow the situation to grow and grow and grow until a surprise at the end. Both are heralded by some fans as among Avery’s best MGM shorts.

Bob Bentley, Ray Abrams and Walt Clinton are the credited animators in this one, with Johnny Johnsen providing the backgrounds.

Thursday, 23 January 2020

Brainstorm

A mangy cat wants to eat, but all there is in the kitchen is a puny, emaciated bird. But then he sees this:



Then the cat gets a brainstorm. Naturally, since this is a Tex Avery cartoon, the word is used literally.



What’s the brainstorm? Back to the bottle.



This truth in advertising sets up the plot of one of Avery’s fan-favourites, King-Size Canary, released in 1947. Heck Allen supplied gags; Bob Bentley, Ray Abrams and Walt Clinton are the animators.

Monday, 26 August 2019

Tex Smears the Cat

The starving bum cat who wants to eat a puny canary (“Well, I’ve been sick”) realises he saw something on the label of a bottle of Garden Jumbo Gro. He grabs the bottle. Here’s a type of a smear drawing that I don’t recall seeing in an Avery cartoon at MGM.



This, of course, is from one of Avery’s masterpieces, King-Size Canary (released in 1947). Bob Bentley, Ray Abrams and Walt Clinton are the credited animators.

Thursday, 16 May 2019

Emptiernell

The hobo cat in King-Size Canary gallops to a fridge (the Coldernell model) that he envisions is full of food.



Afraid not.



Here are some frames from the reaction take. There’s a head shake then the cat’s tail fur sticks out.



Tex Avery doesn’t let the tail just stay here. There are three other drawings, slightly different, giving the impression the stiff tail is wavering a bit.

Walt Clinton, Ray Abrams and Bob Bentley are the credited animators in this cartoon, released in 1947. Ed Love had been fired by Fred Quimby by this point; Preston Blair had been transferred out.

There is no dialogue in this cartoon for about the first 90 seconds after the credits and, actually, very little in the rest of the cartoon. The cat sounds like Pinto Colvig, Frank Graham is the mouse, Sara Berner plays the title character.

Monday, 19 February 2018

Cat Face

The King Size Canary realises the cat chasing him has grown. Here’s the gag Tex Avery and Heck Allen came up with.



Walt Clinton, Ray Abrams and Bob Bentley receive the animation credits in this cartoon released in 1947.

Friday, 18 March 2016

King-Size Canary Backgrounds

As the characters grow in Tex Avery’s King-Size Canary, so the scene of action gets vaster. They start inside a home, then around a suburban neighbourhood, then around big city downtown skyscrapers, then the great outdoors and finally, the whole planet.

Here are some of Johnny Johnsen’s backgrounds in the latter part of the cartoon. You can get the idea of the colours and shading he used for good effect. He even fits some green in the strata lines of the Grand Canyon. You can probably recognise the skyscraper designs; he used them in cityscapes in other MGM cartoons. Same as the lattice-work billboard signs; he liked that a lot, too.



John Didrick Johan Johnson was born on July 23, 1885 in Denver, at least according to U.S. census and military records. But his parents, Didrik Johan and Karen Assine (Aanonsen) Johnsen didn’t emigrate to the U.S. from Norway until 1893, and Norwegian baptismal records state he was born in Norderhov, Norway and christened there in 1886. So I’m stumped. (To add to the confusion, his sister Rakel was born in Norway in 1888. His brother Taule Arnt was born in St. Paul, Minnesota in 1894). By 1906, the family was in Los Angeles where Johnny was working as an artist for the Los Angeles Express in 1908. He was a commercial artist for Neuman-Monroe Co. in Chicago when he registered for service in World War One. By 1920, he was working in the Detroit area (Highland Park) and then back in Los Angeles by 1930.

Johnsen joined the staff at Leon Schlesinger some time in the 1930s; Griff Jay and Bugs Hardaway were on staff and both former newspaper artists. Johnsen’s work can be seen in Tex Avery’s Merrie Melodies and he stayed at Warners briefly before joining Avery at MGM in 1941 or 1942. When Metro got rid of its Avery unit in 1953, Johnsen retired. He died on February 7, 1974.