Re-Using Harman-Ising

Reusing animation was not beneath Hugh Harman and Rudy Ising at Warner Bros. No, we don’t mean the same stomp-slide step Bosko and other characters did. Or the same three-quarters view, open-mouth-with-tongue expression found in all kinds of circle-headed characters. We mean whole scenes.

Here’s a good example from We're in the Money, released Aug. 26, 1933. It’s a pretty lacklustre cartoon. The same old toys-come-to-life-and-play-a-Warners-owned-song schtick. One scene has a toy with wheels for feet. He rolls along in a right-to-left pan, stops and twirls. It’s a cycle of eight drawings.

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Why, here it is again from A Great Big Bunch of You, released November 12, 1932.



The end title animation is reused, as the toy shouts “So long, folks!” From the Money ending.



And the Bunch ending.



Like a number of Harman and Ising, there are cycles in Money of cheering, applauding characters. Some cycles were used more than once.

The animation credits on A Great Big Bunch of You went to Ham Hamilton and Tom McKimson. On We're in the Money, the credits go to Friz Freleng and Larry Martin.

Money was the last Merrie Melodies cartoon from the Harman-Ising team. On May 4, 1933, The Film Daily reported Leon Schlesinger had ended his contract with them.

The title song was heard 55 times in a Warners cartoon, more than any other tune owned by the studio (The William Tell Overture was used 88 times and Yankee Doodle in 58 cartoons).

You Know How These Gags Will End

Literal gags found their way into all kinds of Tex Avery cartoons. Eventually, it got to the point where he’d top the gag with a sign or some kind of commentary on the gag.

In Screwball Football, he treats them as is. Football announcer Reid Kilpatrick tells us Slobbovitz gets the ball and fades back for a long pass. “He’s fading. Fading. Fading.” He does.



There's a touchdown. Kilpatrick: “The cheerleader is yelling his head off.” He does.



I think my favourite literal pun is when Blottovich “recovers the pigskin” and the football escapes from his arms, squealing like a pig.

These are all pretty hokey, but I suspect they went off okay in 1939. Too bad the football didn't turn into a real pig, stop and turn to the camera and say, "This is silly," then continue on its run.

Avery does switches on a few of these gags in other cartoons, like the multiple horns (Car of Tomorrow, 1951, though I’ve seen it in a Columbia cartoon, too), and the stop-to-listen-to-the-radio one (Thugs With Dirty Mugs, 1939).

The running gag is great. There’s a murder, just like in Avery’s Batty Baseball at MGM.

The rotating animation credit goes to Virgil Ross.

Carl Stalling loads the soundtrack with that college favourite, “Frat.” We hear J.S. Zamecnik’s “College Stunts” and a bunch of old favourites, including public domainers “I’ve Been Working on the Railroad” and “She’ll be Comin’ ‘Round the Mountain,” “The William Tell Overture,” and “Rock-a-Bye Baby” for the running gag.

Kal Kat Komedy

Friz Freleng and Tex Avery both remarked how they had to stop the comedy in Merrie Melodies cartoons and fit in a Warners-owned song.

The 1938 short Katnip Kollege is the opposite. It’s all-singing, all-dancing, all-smooching. But where’s the comedy? Or maybe it’s “komedy” because words in the title that start with “c” are spelled with a “k.”

Is it when a book is thrown at a cuckoo clock bird? (The freeze-frame impact is good).



Is it when an empty mesh wastepaper basket is crowned over the head of a student who then sings about Columbus being in the “juggaroo”? It looks like the student is behind bars. Like being in the jug. Get it?



Is it when the teacher sits on a tack and, well, that's it.



Apparently a dead can of oil against a fence came from the Bronx.



And there’s the inevitable dunce cap that populates cartoons. The Betty Boop short Swing School, released the same year, also includes a musically-inept animal forced to wear a dunce cap. When was the last time one of those was in an actual school?



I like inside gags, and there’s one during a pan shot of Professor Dalton. This cartoon was co-directed by Cal Dalton, who was born in 1908.



The cat on the statue isn't kissing it. He's bobbing his head on either side of Prof. Dalton's head. I guess his lips are pursed because everyone else's are.

However, I am again in the minority with my apathy for this cartoon. Motion Picture Daily’s review on June 3, 1938 calls it “A somewhat fantastic, but nevertheless entertaining cartoon in a standard sense is offered here.”

A theatre manager in the Sept. 10, 1938 edition of the Motion Picture Herald not only liked it, he preferred Warners’ releases over those from Uncle Walt.

KATNIP KOLLEGE: Merrie Melodies— As good a color cartoon as you could ask for. Disney will have to watch his laurels to keep first place. If Schlesinger used color as does Disney, I feel that the former would rank with Disney as his subject matter far surpasses the Disneys. Running time, 10 minutes. — A. J. Inks, Crystal Theatre, Ligonier, Ind. Small town patronage.

Joe D’Igalo is the credited animator, and the story credit goes to Dave Monahan. Thanks to Daniel Goldmark, we learn Monahan was the lyrist behind tune sung during the “Professor Dalton” sequence and when Johnny finally starts swinging (it’s called “No Name Stomp”).

The cartoon was officially released June 11, 1938 but, as you can see to the right, it was being shown at a theatre in Albert Lea, Minnesota, on May 31. Let that be a lesson to you.

How Not To Get Rid of a Starfish

Aloha Hooey is said to be a cartoon Tex Avery started before he left Warner Bros. and was finished by Bob Clampett directing his unit.

It’s a pretty tame cartoon for either of them. There’s a dullard crow with buck teeth (Pinto Colvig doing his Goofy voice, same as in Little Rural Riding Hood for Avery at MGM) and a slicker seagull (Mel Blanc, sounding much like Technical Fairy First Class in the Snafu shorts). They two engage in a competition for an island bird (Sara Berner). Unlike Avery’s Spike vs. Droopy at MGM, neither of them is evil; the bad guy shows up out of nowhere near the end of the cartoon and is quickly quelled. And the procreation gag at the end is familiar, too.

There are really few highlights, but one is for freeze-frame fans. Cecil Crow tussles with a starfish that attaches itself to various parts of the body, which seems like something in an early Jones cartoon. This provides dry-brush work for the ink and paint department. Cecil shakes his head to no avail.



Cut to a medium shot. The swirls remind me of the ones with Bugs and the sumo wrestler (by Virgil Ross?) in Bugs Bunny Nips the Nips (1944). First, the starfish attaches itself to Cecil’s butt (and kicks it), then puts him in a toe-hold.



Ross is the credited animator on this short, with story by Mike Maltese. Carl Stalling fills the soundtrack with Arkansas Traveler.

This frames above are from a laser disc.