“The worst thing about these nosy people is, they’re always interferin’ with somebody’s love-life,” says the voice of The Cat That Hated People (from the cartoon of the same name).
Further dialogue isn’t needed, like many fine gags in a Tex Avery cartoon. Animation tells all.
The animators in this cartoon are Walt Clinton, Grant Simmons and two ex-Disney artists soon to leave the Avery unit, Bill Shull and Louie Schmitt. The title character is played by Pat McGeehan.
Tom is sleeping and minding his own business for the first 4½ minutes of The Little Orphan (1949 general release). Then, thanks to Jerry and Nibbles mooching a feast put out on a long table by the maid, an orange is swatted out of the baby mouse’s body and flies into Tom.
This brings on a very swift cat vs mice war. For about the next 2½ minutes, Tom is bashed in the face with a champagne cork, stabbed in the butt with a fork launched from a tempting dish of delicious Jell-O (note the dry-brush), smacked with a spoon, swallows a boomeranged decorative bulrush he set on fire and splooshed in the face with a crème pie (we will guess it is banana).
Nibbles then fires a candle which lands on the cat’s tail. The flames go up his body and turn him into a black kid, complete with curls on his head. Someone will have to explain why this is funny. I don’t get it. (At least Scott Bradley didn’t put “Old Black Joe” in the background soundtrack like he would have in a Tex Avery cartoon).
Finally, a champagne bottle is popped open. The force of the bubbles turns it into a rocket that bams into Tom’s head, sending him flying.
There’s a crash. It’s off-camera. We see Jerry and Nibbles reacting to what we can’t see, as the camera shakes. It’s just like in a Pixie and Dixie cartoon of a decade later.
Mr. Jinks, er, Tom, is no longer a stereotype as he waves a flag of surrender.
The final scene shows the three giving Grace like good little Christians.
Someone at MGM smelled Oscar-bait with this film. It was shoved into a theatre to make it eligible for an award for 1948. The Miami Herald reported on December 8th.
HOLLYWOOD, Cal.—Preview reaction to M-G-M’s Tom and Jerry cartoon, “The Little Orphan,” resulted in the birth of a new star—Nibbles, baby mouse with ravenous appetite. Result—Nibbles series with William Hanna and Joseph Barbera co-directing. Fred Quimby producing.
Indeed, the cartoon did win the Academy Award for Best Short Subject (Cartoon). (1948 was the year Warners released What Makes Daffy Duck?, Back Alley Oproar and Bugs Bunny Rides Again. Not one was nominated. Boo).
You can see Quimby accepting the award below. I like how they didn’t waste time at the Oscars back then with endless speeches. Besides, what would Quimby say? “I really had nothing to do with making this cartoon. I’m just a mid-level executive.”
You can count on Screwy Squirrel for silly gags and the MGM cartoon studio’s artists for solid animation and dry-brush work to enhance the action.
In Happy-Go-Nutty (1944), Screwy lives up to his name by hacksawing bars on an open door at a mental hospital (for squirrels only), then climbing over a metal gate that’s already open to escape.
Here are three consecutive frames. The dry-brush makes the action look fast and smooth, instead of popping pose-to-pose.
“You know, those guys in there think I’m crazy,” Screwy tells us. He then gives us an indignant look.
Screwy then whips out the quintessential proof of insanity—a Napoleon hat. “And I am, too!” We get a demonstration (as if we need convincing)
These are consecutive frames. How about that in-between?
More dry-brush. This is part of a cycle of head pounding.
Finally Screwy rides off on an imaginary bicycle.
Director Tex Avery reprises the “fool the dog to jump over a fence” gag from Of Fox and Hounds (Warners, 1940). There’s an old vaudeville gag involving a phone call, an inexplicable second squirrel gag, a cave/darkness routine, a break from a chase for a Coo-Coo Cola and, as you might expect from Avery, a title card gag.
Heck Allen gets a story credit and Avery’s wartime crew of Preston Blair, Ray Abrams and Ed Love are the credited animators.
Screwy appeared in only five cartoons. I don’t know what else Avery might have done with him, but there are funny scenes in all of them.
There’s a narrator (John Wald) in Batty Baseball but Tex Avery and his anonymous writer are content to let the action do a lot of the talking.
There are a number of “pitching” gags. This one involves the pitcher hurling a shot put instead of a baseball. The force of nature causes the bat to shake when the heavy ball hits it.
What to do next?
Simple. The vibration from the bat transfers to the batter, then along the ground to the pitcher. Avery’s animator tosses in reaction expressions along the way.
Being a Tex Avery cartoon, there has to be a sign and commentary to the audience on the action. In the scene below, you can feel the weight as the pitcher struggles to lift the ball, dropping it at one point. A caption appears on screen, the pitcher gets some comic relief from it, and comments to us “Good joke!” before guffawing like Goofy (He’s played by Pinto Colvig so that shouldn’t be a surprise. Maybe Pinto helped with the gags).
My guess is Ed Love is responsible for the above scene. Preston Blair and Ray Abrams supplied animation as well.
