Disciplines, Schmisciplines

Some years after making the Roadrunner cartoons, Chuck Jones came up with his list of “disciplines” he supposedly etched in stone for the series.

The first was “The Road Runner cannot harm the coyote except by going “Beep-Beep.”

Here’s a gag from Hot-Rod and Reel (released in 1959).



Uh, what was that “discipline” again, Mark Twain?

Mike Maltese was the writer of this cartoon, and many others with the Road Runner. My recollection is he told (I think it was Mike Barrier) he had never heard of any “disciplines” when he had to come up with a story.

When I was a kid, a Road Runner cartoon was a good excuse to go into the kitchen and make a sandwich. I didn’t need to see the cartoon. I knew the Coyote would fail and this would happen.



In this short, the first two gags ends with the coyote going off a cliff.

Years later, watching the cartoons, I found some gags that did not involve cliffs, and were actually pretty creative. That couldn't be helped when you put Jones and Maltese together.

Personally, I prefer the “Super Genius” Wile E. Coyote who turns out not to be vastly superior in intellect to Bugs Bunny, but you know that old saying about mileage.

Tumbling Bear

Favourite scene in Chuck Jones’ Bear Feat? That’s an easy one.

Junior Bear grabs Papa Bear and tumbles him in an airborne somersault. Pa is in a six-drawing cycle animated on ones, as Junior da-da-das to one of Carl Stalling’s musical favourites, “Frat” (he also employs J.F. Barth’s old chestnut over the opening titles).



But the best part is Mama Bear zips into the scene wearing a curly-haired girl wig and a dress, joining Junior in the da-da-da version of “Frat.”



The whole idea comes out of nowhere and is completely ridiculous, as only Mike Maltese could dream up.

The Jones unit, being at the top of its game, ensures the cycle isn’t static. Junior raises and lowers his legs a little so Papa Bear’s tumbling goes up and down a bit on the frame. And Mama Bear twists and turns and looks toward and away from the tumbling.

Stan Freberg is Junior and the opening narrator, Billy Bletcher is the father and Bea Benaderet the mother who switches from the ultimate in deadpan to various facial expressions as she watches Pa get abused through the whole cartoon.

Second favourite scene? Papa Bear has had enough of Junior’s screw-ups and wants his kid physically harmed for it. Here’s how Maltese’s mind works. He comes up with a creative form of punishment.



Junior is such a head-headed dope that baseball has no effect other than to bounce off him with a metallic sound. Jones’ timing is great. Just the right number of frames.



That’s it. What else do you need? On to the next scene.

Jones made one more Three Bears cartoon after this, the 1951 release A Bear For Punishment, and then the trio retired from the cartoon short business. Too bad.

Bear Feat Layouts

If only Chuck Jones and Mike Maltese had made more Three Bears cartoons.

I was watching Bear Feat (1949) the other day, and it was funnier than I remember it. And it’s a well-designed cartoon, too. There’s perspective animation with characters going toward and coming from the “camera.”



Notice above that Father Bear, who is about to drop into the chimney, still has the unicycle he was riding on the high wire when he was catapulted into the sky.

Bob Gribbroek is the layout artist. He has some settings looking up, others looking down.



Maltese has some inspired gags in this. We’ll get to one later this week.

Ben Washam, Lloyd Vaughan, Ken Harris and Phil Monroe are the credited animators.

Hare-Less Wolf Backgrounds

Boris Gorelick came up with some neat backgrounds in Hare-Less Wolf (1958). It's filled with purple rolling hills and trees in various shades of autumnal red.



Here are some others. Several of these were longer than TV frame, but I can't snip them together without characters getting in the way. You can see cels outside the Charles M. Wolf cave entrance.



Gorelick is credited with only seven cartoons for the Friz Freleng unit, and then he is replaced by Tom O'Loughlin. We wrote about him in this post.

Maybe the best part of Warren Foster's story in this cartoon is naming the forgetful antagonist after Chuck Jones. Many of the gags are reminiscent of ones you've seen in other Bugs Bunny cartoons.

June Foray is here with her Marjorie Main voice as Mrs. Wolf.

The Adventures of Bosko in Comics

Bosko had already left Warner Bros. when Hugh Harman and Rudy Ising, through Hugh’s brother Fred, syndicated a Bosko comic in newspapers.

They are certainly well drawn and I like the how-to-make-cartoons panel.

This is only a smattering of them. The series went into the end of October with a prolonged story about Bosko going big-game hunting in Africa and meeting with some cannibals. These are from May 6, 13, 20, 27, 30, June 4, 10 and 15, 1934.



Next Oct. 8, 9, 10, 17, 22, 24, 26, 29, 30 and 31.



And Nov. 1, 2, 3, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 12 and 16.