Happy Nude Year from Elmer Fudd

Bugs Bunny pulls the phoney New Year’s bit on Elmer Fudd in “The Wabbit Who Came to Supper” (1942) in a funny scene animated by Dick Bickenbach. Here he is about to get away when Elmer realises he’s been had.



The oddest thing in the cartoon isn’t the gag. It’s Elmer’s house. He has a women’s powder room, a pink bottle of “Sissy Stuff Petunia” in the bathroom and female nude portraits on the wall. Here are a couple.





And, for some reason, he has kind of a topographical map on another wall.



The cartoon was directed by Friz Freleng and anyone familiar with his unit knows that Paul Julian spent a number of years as his background painter. But Graham Webb’s Animated Film Encyclopedia says the backgrounds were done by Lenard Kester from layouts by Owen Fitzgerald. Julian left Jones’ unit in February 1941 but apparently didn’t join the Freleng unit right away. In 1942, he was creating murals for public buildings under a WPA programme.

Kester was born in New York City on May 10, 1917, grew up near the East River, studied at Cooper Union, then got a job at the Fleischer Studio in New York and went with it to Miami. In 1939, he took a vacation to Los Angeles and decided to stay. The Film Daily Year Book of 1941 lists him as an art director at Schlesinger’s (along with Johnny Johnsen and John McGrew). He then worked for Walt Disney, but I have no information about when he changed studios. So it could very well be Kester’s work on this cartoon.

Assorted Swell Stuff

Tex Avery never lets up. He starts a routine and then keeps going and going with different variations on a gag.

Here’s an example from “The Screwy Truant” (1945), where Screwy pulls stunt after stunt on the truant officer dog (with an interruption for a fairy tale). He just happens to find a convenient chest.



So, he uses it. But the gag is more than Screwy hitting the dog with one thing after another.



The dog keeps sprouting a different kind of hat every time he’s clobbered—including a top hat, a witch’s pointed hat, a crown and one of those Napoleon hats (with an ‘n’). Someone will have to explain to me the derivation of crazy-guy-thinks-he’s-Napoleon came from (it made it into a Winsor McCay comic so it goes back a way).

Heck Allen gets the story credit on this one, but some Avery gag favourites (including an anvil) make an appearance.

On Censorship, Dimes and Maxwells

Jack Benny did not slow down until the very end. He died on Boxing Day 1974 at the age of 80 and spent much of the year busy every day either with television, concerts, interviews or preparing for The Sunshine Boys, the movie he never starred in.

We’ve posted several of Jack’s print interviews from that year here on the blog. Here’s another one from Family Weekly, a weekend newspaper magazine supplement. It was published February 24th. Jack is asked about censorship, interesting in light of rigid inspection from the Hays/Breen office that films went through when he was making them. And he talks about why some of his long-running routines were retired and stopped appearing on his TV specials. His “Second Farewell Special” aired a month before this interview saw print..

Jack Benny 80 Talks About Jack Benny 39
By Peer J. Oppenheimer
The last time I saw Jack Benny was in his beautifully furnished, immaculate Beverly Hills mansion. This time I faced him across his cluttered desk in his Beverly Hills office. He turned 80 on Valentine’s Day, and we began talking about his proposed retirement.
FAMILY WEEKLY: Tell the truth now—could you ever think of yourself as not working?
BENNY: Let me put it this way. I could retire up to a certain point. And I’ll tell you what that point is. If I made a business of my concerts—and you know I give concerts for charity all the time—if I could do enough throughout the year, then I could probably retire. You see, I LOVE to play the violin. But I also love to get laughs. And I love to talk. So when I give a concert, I can do everything I do in Las Vegas. The difference is, the people who come to concerts are pretty sophisticated—the same people who maybe come to hear Isaac Stern, or Heifetz. In fact, Isaac Stern acts as an agent for me because he tells me where they need the money. I always say he gets ten percent of nothing.
FW: What do you think of today's permissiveness—particularly in movies?
BENNY: It's too bad. Producers are taking the easy way out. And the fact that the films are rated means nothing to me. I mean, either a picture should be permitted to be shown, or not, and not have an X rating or a G rating, or however they rate them.
FW: During the last election there was a Proposition 18 in California that, if passed, would have prohibited the showing of a lot of films. What did you think of that?
BENNY: I voted no because while don’t like obscene films, I don’t want censorship. Of any kind, anywhere. Otherwise someone can suddenly say, “Well, we don’t want this Jewish joke!” or “We don't want this Italian joke.” If a proposition like that went through, there's no telling how far censorship would go!
FW: As you grow older, are you growing more conservative?
BENNY: Not if conservative means stingy, careful with money. This I have never been. Neither has my wife. If I had, I should be the richest actor in show business. But politically—well, I am not a party man. I've never been a Democrat or a Republican. I don’t want to get hooked, I guess—I just want to vote for who is right.
FW: You say you aren't stingy. How did that joke start?
BENNY: By accident. In one of my old shows there were a couple of jokes about my being stingy. The audience laughed. A little later, when I did a weekly show, we used the same gag and it worked again. All of a sudden I became a stingy character. And then I realized how humorous it was, an element that is easy to laugh at. It’s easy to relate to.
FW: Has this ever gotten out of hand?
BENNY: Sometimes when I do guest shots, they plan on doing too much, and I’ll say, “Hey, wait a minute, fellas! I can’t be stingy throughout the entire show! There must be other things to do.” I’m so identified with it now that I don’t have to spell it out anymore.
For instance, on the Dean Martin show I walk into a restaurant and a reporter comes out and says there’s a big comet in the air and it’s going to hit the earth in about five minutes and the earth will be destroyed. I don’t say a word, but I go to the phone, and I say to the operator, “Who do I see? I just put a dime in the phone box . . . .” I don’t have to go any further. Just my going to the phone gets the laugh.
FW: Did anyone ever take your stinginess seriously?
BENNY: No. Everybody seems to know it’s a joke. But in order to compensate, it costs me a bloody fortune! Even with charities. I’m forced into giving a lot more than I can afford sometimes.
FW: How about your insistence that you are 39 years old? How did that get started?
BENNY: I kept the year 37 for a couple of years. When I was 38, I kept that up for about another three years. Then when I got to be 39, for some reason or other we thought 39 was a funny number. Also, a lot of little kids think that when you are 40, you are an old man. And who wants to be old?
FW: Did anyone ever object to your growing older than 39?
BENNY: Well, once we decided, for the publicity, to have a big 40th birthday. You can’t imagine the letters I received, including one from The Christian Science Monitor, begging me not to do it. The Monitor’s letter wasn’t humorously written, it was serious. They said that most people know my right age [Jack was born Benny Kubelsky on February 14, 1894]; but the people say, “Well, if Benny stays 39 and keeps working, I can keep on working, too!” So I stayed 39. But we don’t play that bit much anymore. Or the Maxwell car joke. That’s old stuff now—it's become corny.
FW: You don't look much older now than you did 20 years ago. How do you manage to stay in such good shape?
BENNY: Luckily I don't care much about eating. I love breakfast, but after that I can go on practically nothing. And I play golf—not as much or as well as I used to. But 1 think the most important thing is to do things mentally. I love to work.
FW: You once told me that one of the reasons you stayed young was because your grandchildren kept you young. Is that still the case?
BENNY: Maybe that was right at the time, but today I feel it’s my work that keeps me young. I like practically everything I do, and I don’t delve into myself. I don’t give a hoot how much people liked me on radio or in vaudeville. That’s gone. And when somebody asks me, “What did you like best, radio or television?” I say, “When I was in radio, I liked radio. But I couldn’t wait to get into television. If there is something after television, that’s what I will like!" You don’t live for yesterday or even today. You live for tomorrow.
FW: Did the fact that you and Mary worked together for such a long time help your marriage?
BENNY: Yes. But you know, it was quite by accident that we became a team. When I met her she was selling ladies’ hosiery at the May Company. In those days a lot of comedians would bring a girl out onstage to work for them. They were supposed to be dumb girls. All the comedians had dumb girls. Well, one day the one working for me became ill and Mary knew the part, and I said, "You know, you could do this beautifully!" And she did.
FW: After that, did you teach her a lot about the business?
BENNY: Mary’s knowledge about show business is absolutely amazing. She claims she learned certain things from me, which she probably did, but there are certain things that you instinctively have to do correctly to succeed. Like she would know enough not to try hard for jokes, that if it was written correctly on paper all she had to do was read it. That’s why Ronald Colman and his wife were great on my show. They were dramatic actors, but all they did was read the comedy lines exactly as they were written.

The Saturday Matinee

The movies ripped me off as a kid.

Saturday matinées where I grew up consisted of a Disney live-action feature and a really bad Woody Woodpecker cartoon. No wonder the only local theatre was torn down and turned into a parking lot (and remains one, more than 45 years later, as the photo to the right attests). But the 1940s were different. Kids could go to the movies and spend their afternoon enjoying a whole pile of cartoons and maybe some one or two-reel comedies.

Theatres advertised in the papers back then, nice big ads with drawings. Here are some random ads for different cartoon compilations.



This one’s from 1945. You’ve got to love the dog-looking Tom and the pig/bear in a civil defence helmet. And I don’t think there was a cartoon called “Confusions of Nutsy Squirrel,” though if Tex Avery made one called that, I’d watch it (I guess they mean the Norm McCabe-directed “Confusions of a Nutsy Spy”).



Four big cartoons and none of them are Woody Woodpecker titles. And kids got “Popeye’s Pappy” (1951), a cartoon where Popeye dresses up as a woman to lure his own father. Now that’s entertainment!



Someone better tell the Madison that “Jolly Frolics” is the name of a series, not a cartoon. At least the characters are more on-model in this one.



From August 1950. I’d go to a theatre today if they showed this line-up. “Three Bears in a Boat” starring Animal? Who know the Muppets were around back then (there was a Paramount short subject of that name in 1943; that could be it).



Not just cartoons, but Laurel and Hardy and the Stooges. Looks like the paper used studio publicity art.



“12 Big Units”? I thought they were showing cartoons, not big units.
I realised Beaky Buzzard had a Goofy-sounding voice, but apparently one theatre has mistaken the two characters in its ad for “Strife With Father.” And you all remember “Google Fishing Beer,” where Barney drinks then goes surfing the internet. Champion wasn’t a character, it was the name of the series of Paramount re-releases (just as MGM had the Gold Medal Reprints and Warners had the Blue Ribbons). The Edgar Kennedy two-reeler was the last one of the 1946-47 season. Plot: Edgar builds his own TV set to save money. Didn’t this get re-made into one of those hilarious Beary Family cartoons?



What better Christmas present than two hours of cartoons? This is from 1950, but “Jolly Little Elves” was released by Lantz in 1934 (it was his first colour cartoon). The Lum and Abner feature is from 1943.

Theatrical cartoon compilations like this proved one thing—kids will watch a show of old cartoons. It seems early television programmers made a note of that.

P.S.: In the comments, Mark Kausler noted the “Tom and Jerry Festival of Fun.” It seems to have been a durable compilation. I’ve found ads for it from 1962 to 1965. As the heydey of movie business was gone, few ads featured drawings of the characters, but here’s one that’s not very readable. It appeared on the bill with things like “Flipper” and a re-issue of “Seven Brides for Seven Brothers.”

It's a Cuckoo

Tex Avery’s anonymous cat discovers the cuckoo he wants to kill is sitting atop his golf club in “The Cuckoo Clock” (released 1950). These are consecutive drawings; the first five are on single frames, the next two are on twos.



Mike Lah, Grant Simmons and Walt Clinton are the only credited animators.

Hollywood Holidays, 1951

Last year, we went through a bunch of Bob Thomas’ Yuletide season columns; Bob was the movie columnist for the Associated Press based in Hollywood. We left off at 1950. So, let’s pick it up for a Year in Review.

Actually, these two columns from 1950 are more of the quotes-of-the-year-in-review rather than ones of a Yuletide nature. He didn’t interview the stars at Christmas-time. But these are fun nonetheless and shows that being overly preoccupied with celebrities and gossip is not something restricted to the age of web sites.

Some footnotes to the column: Thomas is understandably coy (it is 1950, after all), as to background of why the Granger story is a “yawn.” The Crosby story happened in May; he actually did get a room when a bellboy recognised the singer, who had driven straight from Idaho with writer Bill Morrow and hadn’t shaved or bathed. Hotel Vancouver Night clerk Art Cameron later told the United Press “I thought they were a couple of bums or Indians from up north.” Crosby loved coming to B.C. to fish; of course, he was originally from Spokane so he was familiar with the region. Wanger was given four months in 1952 for jealously shooting his wife’s (Joan Bennett) agent in an area men would rather not be shot in.

1951 Finishes in Hollywood With New High, Low Points
By BOB THOMAS
HOLLYWOOD, Dec. 25—(AP)—Another troubled year in Hollywood is drawing to a close, so it's time to sit down and pick the highs and lows.
Pardon the poetry, but it’s the season, isn’t it? So I tried a different approach for getting into the annual summation of the year’s events in Hollywood. Here goes: Biggest news story—The Walter Wanger shooting.
Second biggest and winner of long-run honors—The Franchot Tone-Barbara Payton-Tom Neal affair.
Yawn of the year—The Shelly Winters-Farley Granger “romance.”
Biggest industry news—Louis B. Mayer’s exit from MGM.
Almost the biggest industry news—Warner Brothers’ offer to sell their interests, later retracted.
Brightest new box office stars—Martin and Lewis, Mario Lanza.
Losses of the year—Robert Walker, Fanny Brice, Maria Montez, Leon Errol.
Biggest blow to the bobby-sox set—Elizabeth Taylor’s divorce.
Biggest blow to the dowager set—Clark Gable’s divorce.
Freak news event of the year—A Vancouver hotel’s refusal to room Bing Crosby because he looked like a bum.
Runner-up—Arrest of Charles Coburn and his poker pals.
Most recurrent news item—Hedy Lamarr’s announcement she'll retire.
Most notable homecoming—Rita Hayworth’s.
Worst public relations — Frank Sinatra.
Best musical film — “American in Paris.”
Best drama — “A Place in the Sun.”
Father of the year — James Stewart, parent of twins.
Best male performances —Humphrey Bogart, “African Queen”; Marlon Brando, “Streetcar Named Desire”; Gene Kelly, “An American in Paris”; Fredric March, “Death of a Salesman”; Gregory Peck, “David and Bathsheba.”
Best female performances — Bette Davis, “Payment on Demand”; Katharine Hepburn, “African Queen”; Vivien Leigh, “Streetcar Named Desire”; Shelley Winters, “A Place In the Sun”; Jane Wyman, “The Blue Veil.”
Most promising newcomers— Debbie Reynolds, Mitzi Gaynor, Dale Robertson. Aldo Ray. Best low-budget picture—“The Well.”
And a Merry Christmas and lots of them to patient readers.

And one more from a few days later. Joyce Mathews was married twice to Milton Berle and twice to Billy Rose, the first time in 1956. She was between husbands when this column was written.

More Memorable Hollywood Quotes of Year Listed
By BOB THOMAS
HOLLYWOOD, Dec. 27—(AP)—Talk, talk, talk. There was lots of it emanating from Hollywood this year.
This was one of the film town’s talkingest years. Film folk were yacking all over the U.S., trying to convince citizens that Hollywood was full of solid citizens. Meanwhile, there was a lot of gabbing in Hollywood, plus a bit of spitting and shooting, that created another impression.
One of the year of talk, I have tried to cull the more memorable quotes. Here they are:
Frank Sinatra, irate at reporters who trailed him and Ava Gardner in Mexico before their marriage: “It’s a fine thing when we can’t go on a vacation without being chased.”
Whisky Scares Bugs
Humphrey Bogart, explaining how he escaped insects in Africa: “Nothing bites me. A solid wall of whisky keeps insects at bay.”
Paulette Goddard, learning ex-husband Burgess Meredith had married for the fourth time: “I think it was quite normal of him. He always was domestic.”
Actress Kay Scott, divorcing auto dealer Douglas Nerney: “Music has been part of my life, but when I tried to play classics on the piano my husband turned on the television full force.”
Ethel Barrymore, learning that John Barrymore, Jr. had skipped out on a summer theater play: “John let the family down. It’s the first time in 300 years a Barrymore failed to comply with the billing. I’m deathly sick about it.”
Loves Razor Blades
Joyce Mathews, after slashing her wrists in Billy Rose’s bathroom: “I just love razor blades.”
Director Fletcher Markle in an interview: “Now please don’t write me up as a genius like some of the others have. I’m just a fellow who works hard.”
Tallulah Bankhead, asked if she would enter politics: “Heavens, I wouldn’t inflict that on any country.”
Katharine Hepburn, declaring that plain women—like herself—know how to make love: “The beautiful women are usually too busy being fascinating.”
“We’re Happy—Goodbye.”
Robert Mitchum, answering the Hollywood Press women who voted him “the most unco-operative”: “Your gracious award became a treasured addition to a collection of averse citations. These include prominent mention in several 10 worst-dressed-American lists and a society columnist’s 10 most-desirable-male-guest list, which happily was published on the date I was made welcome at the county jail.”
Fred Allen: “It took 18 years in radio to ruin my health. It took three shows on television to ruin my reputation.”
Franchot Tone, greeting reporters on return from a honeymoon appearance tour with bride Barbara Payton: “We're home and we’re happy—goodbye.”
Walter Wanger, after firing the shot heard ‘round the world: “I shot him because he broke up my home.”

Santa's a Monster

As Christmas has now transformed into yet another day, it is only appropriate that Santa transform into something else—like a hideous old crone. It happened in the fine cartoon “Felix Dines and Pines.”

Things are always turning into other things in a Felix cartoon, but the transformations move into the creatively grotesque when Felix is hallucinating. “Dines and Pines” may be the best of the Felix horror cartoons. Things are constantly changing and threatening him. He even gets caught in a psychedelic spinning wheel that could have come from the 1960s.

In one scene, St. Nick beckons to the out-of-it cat, then becomes a monster.



The drawings don’t actually morph. Otto Messmer, or whoever is animating, simply replaced each drawing. But it’s 1927, so who’s going to quibble? Bonus points for having a spider move about on the creature’s nose. There’s also cycle animation of Felix’s tail, where it registers fright by changing shape, a trick Carlo Vinci would still be using on Hanna-Barbera TV cartoons 30 years later.

Christmas Cards From Animation's Greats

Christmas is a time for animators and others who toiled during the Golden Age of Theatrical Cartoons to show their skill to friends and relatives. Many drew their own Christmas greetings. It’s felicitous that a lot of these cards have survived.

This year, Charlie Judkins has scanned some by Terrytoons employees that had been in the collection of animator Red Auguston. You can see them HERE.

Cartoon Brew has a bunch from the Lantz studio, right to the bitter end when a lot of good talent was wasted on crap. Click HERE and HERE. They came from Martin Almeyra.

The Fleischer Studio site owned by the Kneitel family has oodles of cards from old-time Fleischer staffers. Go HERE and click on the arrow to see each one. I believe some of them were published years ago in The Fleischer Story by Leslie Carbarga (my copy seems to have walked away for the holidays). And at Animation Resources, you’ll see Disney studio cartoons HERE.

Before you click on the links, take a look at these which I copied from elsewhere on-line. I didn’t make a notation whose collections they are from, for which I’m sorry. Here’s a great one for you fans of Flip the Frog (and you should be one).



If you don’t know who Friz Freleng, Hugh Harman, Rudy Ising and Tom and Jerry are, you’ve come to the wrong web site. The first three were posted by Kevin Coffey; Tom and Jerry comes from either Jim Engel or Jon Cooke.



Both Jevitronco Duro and Kevin posted this on Facebook. Tex claimed he could never draw, but this is just fine. It’s circa 1930.



More Tom and Jerry, you say? Thanks to Kevin Langley for this. Tom’s missing the white between his eyes but has the thatched fur there.



Finally, from Jerry Beck (you can find this in his Cartoon Research section at Cartoon Brew) comes this great staff photo/Christmas card from the Mintz studio, which made Krazy Kat and Scrappy cartoons that were distributed by Columbia. I’ll list some of the names here because this is really tough to see. Above the building is Ray Fahringer (second from left), with Reuben Timmins (fifth from left) and Ed Benedict next to each other and Irv Spector (second from right). The top row of the building has Emery Hawkins, Dick Marion and Irv Ellis (is he different than Izzy Ellis?) and Lou Lilly. The next row includes Ben Shenkman, Lou Zukowski, Ray and Don Patterson, Clark Watson (layout artist), Ray Patin (misspelled), Ray Huffine and Ed (not Fred) Moore. Ike Mellet, Al Boggs (layout), Paul Novak, Chuck Couch (writer) are in the next row; Mike Marcus, Joe De Nat (fine musical director) and Jimmy Bronis (production poobah) are in the row below; Felix Alegre (a Filipino), Preston Blair and Bill Higgins (both later of MGM) is the row below that. The great Art Davis is below Blair with Sid Glenar next to him and Jimmy Roth, Frank Powers (ink and paint supervisor) and Ruth Love farther down; Sid Marcus, George Winkler and Fred Jones (later of Warners) in the next row and the Rose brothers, Harry Love, Alice and Ed Rehberg, Al Jackson and Joe Voght (perennial assistant animator) included on the bottom. Mintz died just after Christmas six years later. There’s a pleasant Yuletide thought.



My thanks to those fine people who posted these cards and my thanks to you for reading this blog. It’s, more or less, a place for me to dump old screen grabs and newspaper clippings sitting in my computer and I hope you find some of them of interest.

A Hollywood Kid Christmas

What did you get for Christmas? A toy horse for just under $200 perhaps?

Well, you might have if this was 1952. And you were the child of a Hollywood star.

It’d be really trite to say Christmas is a time for children. Because it’s not. Christmas has a little something for everyone, though I’m not really a Christmas person. But I don’t need to tell you how you felt about Christmas as a child. After all, you were there.

And children of the stars no doubt felt the same way. It’s just that their parents could afford more expensive gifts, though a child’s fun can’t be measured in dollars and cents.

Here’s Aline Mosby with our final dig through the archives of old newsprint, revealing what kids of Hollywood’s celebrities got for Christmas 60 years ago. To your right you see a photo from 1949 of the toy store mentioned in the article owned by Bernie Sher. It was at 309 North Rodeo Drive and was noted for having a tree that dispensed free lemonade. There’s a Christian Dior store at the address now. We doubt it has a lemonade tree.

Movie Queens Get Minks, Small Fry Also Score
By ALINE MOSBY
United Press Hollywood Correspondent
HOLLYWOOD, Dec. 25 (UP) — Many a movie queen found cellophane-wrapped mink coats under their Christmas trees, but the small fry of Hollywood got just as fabulous presents.
Movietown moppets this morning tore the wrappings off such glamorous gifts as junior size four-poster beds and a huge toy lion who blinks his eyes and yawns, or roars, depending on your sound effects.
Jungle Feline
Eve Arden’s offspring got the jungle feline from Uncle Bernie’s fancy top shop in Beverly Hills. Uncle Bernie also delivered a big bear, four feet high on all fours, to the children of radio-TV star Ralph Edwards.
“But our biggest sellers were space helmets that you can see out of but not into,” chuckled Uncle Bernie.
Maureen O’Sullivan’s seven children unwrapped seven of those, as did the small fry of Jane Wyman, Jerry Lewis and Red Skelton. Mrs. Skelton also purchased a space helmet for her biggest “child,” Skelton himself. Skelton, who recently had a major operation, opened his gilt in the hospital.
Suit of Armor
A suit of armor, just like in “Ivanhoe,” now adorns Charles Beyer’s child. Gloria de Haven’s little girl whirled about in a grown-upish ballet costume this morning, while the blonde actress gave her boy a frontier gun.
Other lucky children got a five-foot gorilla, at $260; horses, at $195, and playhouses, at $199, from Uncle Bernie’s. One society belle bought a $29.25 tiny four-poster bed — as a Christmas present for her cat.
The “Enchanted Cottage” children’s shop, run by ex-movie queen Gail Patrick, sold lunch boxes to Laraine Day for her children. Ex-football hero Tom Harmon and wife, Elyse Knox, gifted their boy with a bathrobe printed with the colors and number of Harmon’s football suit at Michigan.
Space Patrol Outfit
Dorothy Lamour's son got a space patrol outfit; Joan Crawford’s twin girls found painting smocks and paints in their Christmas stockings, and Lana Turner’s daughter unwrapped a be-jeweled party sweater just like mama’s.
The grownups got quite a haul today, too. Jane Wyman’s new husband gave her a $15,000 mink coat from designer Don Loper’s shop. Loper also sent a cellophane-wrapped white ermine cape and black broadcloth coat to June Allyson, gifts from husband Dick Powell.
“It’s the Republican election. I think,” shrugged Loper. “Spending was quite heavy this year.”
The most luxurious gift was claimed by Jeanne Crain. Producer Len Goldstein gave her a jewelled fly sweater after she complained about the insects on her movie set.

A Wile E. Christmas

Christmas comes but once a year but a fall from a cliff comes every cartoon to Wile E. Coyote. Well, it seems that way.

Christmas and a cliff were combined in one of Mike Maltese’s gags in the first Roadrunner/Coyote cartoon, “Fast and Furry-ous” (released 1949). There’s a pan over a background by Pete Alvarado showing various items Wile E. has combined to try to catch the speeding bird. I can’t clip the whole background together so you all you get is about two-thirds of it below.



Rhe snow-making contraption works but the plan fails right away because the Roadrunner simply stops on the road. Wile E. skis past him along the path of snow made by ice from the fridge churned through a meat grinder. He skis over a cliff and along the path being made in mid-air. But the plan fails again. The ice runs out while the coyote is in the air and he drops in a shot from above that became a cliché.



After crashing at the floor of the canyon, the ice contraption starts up again. And that’s when Wile E. wishes us a Merry Xmas.



Lloyd Vaughan, Ben Washam, Ken Harris and Phil Monroe animated the cartoon for Chuck Jones.