The Forest Rabbits

Forest rabbit Bugs Bunny is reading “Little Hiawatha” and gets to a line about the “mighty warrior” hunting “the forest rabbit.” Bugs suddenly realises that means him.



Bugs runs around in circles before leaving, stage left. To make the exit seem faster, Bugs develops multiples of himself. Some drawings.



Maybe Leon Schlesinger liked this cartoon as he put it into Oscar contention, but Hiawatha is too much of a dullard for me. (Clampett. Re-used footage. Yes, I know).

The original credits said Gil Turner animated some of this short for the Friz Freleng unit.

What's Funny, Doc?

Mel Blanc made a very good living from network radio. But when it died in the 1950s, what next?

That’s what a number of radio actors were wondering.

In Mel’s case, he was still employed at Warner Bros. but, as you know, the studio would close in the early ‘60s. He found his way onto the Hanna-Barbera payroll. And, occasionally, he showed up on Jack Benny’s TV show, but that ended in 1965.

Much like Alan Reed had a novelty business, Blanc decided to go into business as well. At first, he teamed with former Warners boss John Burton. Blanc admits in his autobiography the partnership didn’t work out, so he set out on his own.

Blanc had been voicing TV commercials. This was pretty lucrative, especially when the cartoon characters he played being endorsers. Reed said when he wasn’t doing much else, he made a comfortable living being Fred Flintstone pushing cereal. Blanc would have being doing the same—plus raking in cash from being Bugs, Sylvester and all his other characters in TV spots.

However, Blanc eyed the profits the makers of the commercials took in. Local commercial radio had taken over the airtime formerly contracted to networks, and there was an opening for anyone canny enough to write and produce commercials and brief filler programming. That’s where Blanc put some of his energies.

Here’s how the Associated Press explained it on May 24, 1967.

Commercials Need Humor, Blanc Claims
By GENE SANDSAKER
HOLLYWOOD (AP) — Most listeners likely will agree that radio commercials featuring mindless jingles, strident voices or weird sounds are a nerve-jangling bore.
And that a few, made with taste and a light touch, can be charming.
But best of all, says one expert, are the ones with wit.
"Humorous commercials are stronger than dirt," quips Mel Blanc.
Mel is the man of many voices who did the talking for Bugs Bunny and Porky Pig in movie cartoons. Now he makes commercials—hopefully funny ones.
His competitors in Hollywood include satirist Stan Freberg, who kids his clients' prunes, chow mein, coffee, tea or airline service—and grosses $500,000 a year. A half-dozen other firms grind out plugs for everything from carbonated drinks and potato chips to a stomach remedy to take after overindulging.
Blanc, 58, squat and swarthy, with a glum face but cheerful disposition, is a onetime Portland, Ore., violinist, tuba player and radio-band leader.
In Hollywood 30 years ago he originated the voices of Bugs. Porky, Daffy Duck, Tweetie and other Warner Bros. cartoon characters. On the Jack Benny radio show he played a parrot and a Mexican character and even supplied the sputtering sound of Benny's dying Maxwell.
Six years ago, Blanc's commercial venture—and Mel himself—nearly failed to get off the ground. On the very day that brochures hit ad agency mail-boxes, announcing the formation of Mel Blanc Associates, a head-on collision accordioned his car and broke, he says, "every bone in my body except my left arm."
Hospitalized two months in traction, Blanc went home in a body cast and there continued recording the voice of Barney Rubble in the "Flintstone" TV series. He now uses a cane only on stairs.
Revived 3 1/2 years ago, Mel Blanc Associates has since doubled its business annually. With 22 writers, Mel says, he sells "entertainment, imagination and comic invention."
In one skit, elephants squirt suds from their trunks to prove that linoleum coated with the client's wax resists detergent. In another, insects cry alarm at the hiss of a bug spray. Another product, called "Superfun," consists of more or less hilarious sketches which radio stations can play between commercials or records.
Mel was at work the other afternoon in his studio.
Standing at a microphone, his bald spot shining under the fluorescents, he jiggled merrily in time with the recorded children's chorus he could hear in his earphones. In Bugs Bunny's voice he sang the praises of a kiddies' drink-mix "for fun that never ends."
"A little happier, Mel," said a visiting producer for whom he was providing the sound track.
Mel made it happier.

Mel’s company also put together public service announcements. Here’s one ironic campaign, outlined by a syndicated news service on March 4, 1968. It’s ironic because Blanc was a heavy smoker. (Reports say he eventually quit).

New Commercials Fighting Cigarettes
By LAWRENCE LAURENT
WASHINGTON — Radio stations across the nation are receiving a new collection of commercials. Some are 10 seconds long, some last 30 seconds and some run a full minute. All have the same punch line: stop smoking cigarettes.
The commercials were commissioned by the American Cancer Society. The creative work was done by Mel Blanc Associates of Hollywood. A humorous approach is used in all ten of the commercials.
One tells of a man being tortured to death. He is forced to smoke cigarettes.
Another uses the sound of a gunshot to illustrate "murder"; the sound of a crashing automobile to show "accident" and the sound of a cigarette lighter and a puffing man to demonstrate: "suicide: stop smoking cigarettes."
Here's an example of one of Mel Blanc's 10-second commercials: "the next time you think you're dying for a cigarette . . . you might be right."
One commercial is based on "hate" and offers this advice: "the next time you have to give something to someone you don't like, give 'em a carton of cigarettes. And if you really hate this person, give two cartons. Right?"
COMEDY ROLE
The "humorous,” approach comes naturally to Mel Blanc. For more than 20 years, he provided a variety of voices for Warner Bros. animated cartoons. These included Bugs Bunny and Woody Woodpecker. He still can be heard on tv in cartoons of Secret Squirrel and Sinbad Jr. (in which he furnishes the voice of the parrot). He can also be heard in tv commercials for Kool Aid, Raid and Kellogg Co. cereals.
Blanc's radio commercials are to be broadcast as part of a station's public service programing. No payment is made.
The station may feel obligated to broadcast them, in light of a Federal Communications Commission decision that smoking is 'controversial,' and, therefore, subject to the FCC's "fairness doctrine." In essence, the FCC says that a station carrying cigarette commercials has a "fairness" obligation to carry anti-smoking messages.
Blanc also claims: "We're telling the truth. We believe our campaign will be effective because it will force the listeners to have involvement through humor.”
His work on the commercials even had an effect on Mel Blanc. He switched from cigarettes to cigars, but "that was awful."
Right now, Mel Blanc is concentrating on "cutting down."
The anti-smoking tv commercials have been made chiefly by Tony Schwartz of New York. His main theme is the parental obligation toward children and the work is so subtle that the final pitch has the impact of an unexpected karate chop. Schwartz shows children putting on grown-up clothing. They chat happily. A narrator notes that children imitate grown-ups and asks, "have you thought about quitting smoking."
Another commercial has a child happily copying every action of his father. They sit under a tree and the father lights up. The child picks up the pack and plays with the cigarettes. Again, the narrator notes that the child likes to imitate his father.
Tony Schwartz, by the way, doesn't smoke.

Comedy radio commercials running on a national basis seem to be few and far between these days. For quite a number of years, a fellow named Dick Orkin created many. About the only criticism you could level is they all sounded the same, with Orkin’s droning voice cold-opening them, so it was a little difficult remembering what he was advertising.

Here's Mel talking in 1966 at a lunch gathering of the Independent Station Representatives Association.

Granny's Holiday Home

Granny (Bea Benaderet) will force the Christmas spirit on Sylvester (who has tried and failed to eat Tweety) and her bulldog (who has tried and failed to eat Sylvester) whether they want it or not in Gift Wrapped, a 1952 Merrie Melodies cartoon.

The short ends with Granny playing a secularised version of “Hark the Herald Angels Sing” at her old organ.



Cut to Tweety happily singing.



Cut to Tweety, and a glowering Sylvester and dog. There’ll be no more swallowing now. Fade out.



Whoever animated this has the characters’ turning from side to side and up and down a bit to ensure the scene isn’t static.

Ken Champin, Manny Perez, Virgil Ross and Art Davis are the credited animators for director Friz Freleng with fine backgrounds by Irv Wyner. If I had to pick a favourite Warners Christmas cartoon, this would be it.

Cartoon Video News

It’s always a good day to read about restored cartoons that can find their way to your home.

Once again, the Warner Archive Collection is coming through with what you see on the right as of March 24th. You can see the list of shorts HERE.

There’s a lot of Chuck Jones in this two-volume set, but there are some cartoons by Art Davis, one by Tex Avery (The Heckling Hare) and even two of Norm McCabe’s efforts (the less than exciting Hop and Go and the in-need-of-restoration The Daffy Duckaroo). And there’ll be a clean, clear version of Jim Backus as the Hubert Updyke III genie in Bob McKimson’s A Lad in His Lamp that was last seen on laser disc.

Don’t expect Bosko or Buddy to show up here.

If you’re a fan of Famous Studios, you’ll be happy to hear word from Cartoon Logic that a 1940s collection will be distributed soon by ClassicFlix. There will be more about this in the new year.

These shorts really needed loving care; it seems the versions I’ve seen are either faded or turning a shade of pink. In fact, the TV prints I watched in the ‘60s don’t strike me as being all that great.

You can watch a clip below. The restoration is exemplary.

Of Dog and Jowls

Tex Avery said (paraphrased) that if you gave him an idea and a string of gags, he could make a cartoon.

That certainly describes what he did in later years (think of The Legend of Rockabye Point), but he also had some nice cinematography and interesting layouts in his earlier shorts.

In several cartoons, he engages in a slow pan across one of Johnny Johnsen’s background paintings, with something in the foreground on a cel moving at a different frame rate to simulate depth without resorting to a multiplane camera (Disney) or sets (Fleischer).

One of a number of examples is Of Fox and Hounds, 1941 Warners release. It has been nicely restored so you can see the cartoon opening. The sign and stone fence are on a cel.



The scene fades into what I can only presume is rotoscoped action. There are no gags here, and these shots don’t really set up a gag (not like the opening of, say, Screwball Squirrel at MGM a few years later).



Even the next scene when Willoughby slides into the frame is Disney-esque in the way it handles follow-through and overlapping action as the dog shakes his head.



The cartoon is basically Avery (and writer Rich Hogan, I guess) doing a different take on the Bugs Bunny-Elmer Fudd relationship. Bugs and Elmer are stronger characters; the fox is far more casual. The difference is the dopey character wins in the end. I always liked that watching this over and over as a kid 60-some-odd years ago and I still like it today.

Newfoundland?

Charlie Dog had a routine where he was “50%” various kinds of dogs and enthusiastically went into cliché gags about different breeds (Often An Orphan, 1949).

There were earlier cartoons which foisted the same doggie puns on theatre audiences. One of them was The Pooch Parade, a 1940 spot-gag short from Columbia.

The puns in this one really make you cringe, and you can probably guess the punch lines before they happen. There’s a Spitz, a watch dog, a Mexican hairless, a bird dog, Doberman Pinchers, everything except the “setter” gag. But there’s one I don’t get.

The film cuts a couple of times to a Newfoundland dog, except he’s not there. The narrator wonders where he could be. A hand pulls down a map of Newfoundland. The map morphs into a barking dog. “Thanks a lot,” responds the narrator.



Someone is going to have to explain this one to me.

Allen Rose was responsible for the story on this one. Harry Love and Lou Lilly are the credited animators, but there’s no director mentioned on screen. Mel Blanc supplies his dullard voice and his falsetto/lady voice. The narrator is Jack Lescoulie-esque, but it’s not him.

Let There Be Light

In the 1930s, the Leon Schlesinger studio had a story department and everyone would pitch gags for each cartoon. In some cases, it’s a wild guess who may have come up with a gag, though Tex Avery is an exception as certain comedic bits were tried out and refined over the years in his cartoons.

One gag in Buddy in Africa (1935) strikes me as it came from the mind of Bugs Hardaway, who directed the cartoon. Buddy stars as a travelling salesman, hawking stuff from his truck to the natives of Snake-Eyes

One of the villagers buys a battery kit. To me, only Hardaway would come up with a routine where someone plugs light bulbs into his ears, sits on a battery to create electricity, and then reads a newspaper.



Tom Armstrong was the story director for the studio at the time. He was never credited on a cartoon (he moved on to Disney); no writer got screen credit in 1935. Hardaway ended up back in the story department when Tex Avery was hired to direct.

Jack Carr and Don Williams are the credited animators. Good portions of the score were from musical director Norman Spencer, who also includes “Marchin’ Towards Ya Georgia” by Carmen Lombardo and Cliff Friend. Motion Picture Reviews wasn’t impressed. “Loud, unpleasant music accompanies Buddy through Africa, surrounded by wild animals. Poor,” was its declaration. And that doesn’t even take into consideration the weak story. “Poor” is almost a compliment.

Familiar Duck, Familiar Gags

If you want to watch a Warner Bros. cartoon that isn’t a Warner Bros. cartoon, then seek out Columbia/Screen Gems’ 1947 epic Wacky Quacky.



No, that’s not Daffy Duck. It can’t be. This duck is green, with a red ring around its neck. Any resemblance is, um, coincidental. Just like the hunter isn’t Elmer Fudd.

The cartoon is filled with switches on familiar gags. There’s a log gag (without a cliff, like in All This and Rabbit Stew) which segues into brick building gag (kind of like Bugs Bunny Rides Again).

To speed the pace, director Alex Lovy uses multiple Daffys non-Daffys when building the wall.



Fudd The hunter hits the wall so hard, he knocks the mortar away from the bricks.



Cal Howard (formerly of Warner Bros.) provides a story twist. The duck grabs the gun and becomes the hunter.

The character, by the way, wasn’t named Wacky Quacky, if you want to go by a shorts list in Boxoffice magazine in 1947. I don’t know where it got the names. The Sylvester knock-off in several Columbia cartoons is apparently named “Klever Kat.” And the less said about “Mitey Mouse,” the better.

If the score sounds like something from a late-‘40s Woody Woodpecker cartoon, that shouldn’t be surprising as it was composed by Darrell Calker.