You're Not a Blue Fin Tuna

There was still life left in Tex Avery’s scenario of a character running outside to avoid making noise inside and waking an angry character. He proved that in The Legend of Rockabye Point (1955) for Walter Lantz. And he showed he could be as subtle as Chuck Jones with expressions.

In this scene, the polar bear realises that instead of a stack of blue fin tuna, he has the watchdog that’s been chomping on him to protect the fish. And then he realises he still has a stick of dynamite in his mouth that he ran outside with. Avery expresses this only with the polar bear’s eyes.



Then.... blam! The noise wakes the dog.



Chomp!



Cut to a wider version of the scene. Tex now employs the running gag—the polar bear sings “Rockabye Baby” to put the dog to sleep. This time, the polar bear rocks the dog with his butt.



Success! The polar bear removes his butt and, in a fine bit of timing, the dog stays in mid-air for eight frames, then drops to the ground in five frames.



Mike Maltese gagged this cartoon for Avery, but the situation is pure Avery. Chilly Willy was never funnier than in the two shorts he starred in for Avery.

Don Patterson, La Verne Harding and Ray Abrams animated this cartoon, my favourite of the four Avery made for Lantz in the 1950s.

The Old Pepper Gag

So what if Tex Avery borrowed from himself? He’s still funny.

The Legend of Rockabye Point (Lantz, 1955) uses the same structure as Rock-a-bye Bear and Deputy Droopy that Avery made earlier at MGM. One character tries to get another character to make noise and disturb a third character; the other character runs outside to a distant hill to make the noise and not disturb anyone.

I still like Rockabye Point. The gag variations are inventive, Avery moves things along at a brisk pace and Mike Maltese, who got a rap for not being strong at story structure, puts together a very tidy tale.

Here’s the old pepper/sneeze gag. Chilly Willy tries to get the polar bear to wake the guard dog. The shapes on the bear are fun.



The bear gallops up the hill. Clarence Wheeler plays a familiar bar from “The William Tell Overture.”



The sneeze. Avery has some of the drawings on ones, others on twos. I like the stretch in-between.



With a nice look of satisfaction as he turns, the bear rushes back to the ship for another round with Willy.



Don Patterson, Ray Abrams (who was in his unit at MGM at the start) and La Verne Harding receive the animation credits. Dal McKennon is the uncredited sneezing voice actor.

The Dog's Still There

Tex Avery and Mike Maltese both knew how to let gags talk without dialogue. Here’s an example from The Legend of Rockabye Point (1955). When a polar rushes into a locker full of frozen fish, a door closes revealing a sign reading “Beware of Dog.”

There’s a reason for the sign.



The dog taps the bear on the back. A look. A take.



A zoom skyward. End of scene. On to the next gag.



Don Patterson, La Verne Harding and Ray Abrams are the credited animators. This was the last cartoon Avery and Maltese worked on together. Maltese went back to Warner Bros. Avery made one more cartoon for Lantz and was preparing others when he walked away from theatrical animation for good.

More fun frames from this cartoon in this post, this post, this post and this post.

Rockabye Clarinet

Chilly Willy was never better than in The Legend of Rockabye Point (1955). With Tex Avery directing and Mike Maltese writing the story, how could it be otherwise?

The cartoon follows a pattern: a polar bear stealing fish tries to be silent so he doesn’t wake a guard dog. Chilly Willy interferes. The noise wakes the guard dog who bites the polar bear. The bear sings/plays “Rockabye Baby” to put the dog to sleep. Repeat cycle.

Maybe the best gag is when Chilly Willy sticks a clarinet in the dog’s mouth so the snores play the instrument and wake the dog. The frames below tell the story. I like how Walter Lantz’ musical director, Clarence Wheeler, goes from a solo clarinet playing “Rockabye Baby” to a loud Dixieland band playing the substituted song.



The dog taps the bear to get his attention. But he doesn’t get a chance to bite him; the polar bear bashes him with the clarinet and he runs out of the scene.



Don Patterson, La Verne Harding and Tex’s former MGM animator Ray Abrams are the credited animators (Patterson worked at MGM but not in the Avery unit).

By the way, I think the sheet music for “Rockabye Baby” is fairly correct, though the copy I have in that key is in 3/4 time, not 6/8.