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Reviews
Goofy Groceries (1941)
It's gigantic!!! It's titanic!!!
Okay, perhaps it doesn't quite rival the scope or length of James Cameron's epic, but considering this marks the Technicolor debut of Bob Clampett (up to this point pretty much head of the black-and-white Looney Tunes division), it's still quite remarkable. The cartoon is set in what appears to be a small-town grocery store after hours during the Christmas season (the grocery store window at the beginning reveals a snow-covered scene that would do the likes of "It's a Wonderful Life" proud) where grocery store characters, including a dog from a dog food box, cows from cans of condensed milk, and a rabbit intended as a parody of Jack Benny ("Jack Bunny" -- get it? Interesting, considering the fact that Tex Avery's original name for Bugs was "Jack Rabbit"...), come to life for a night of fun and entertainment. Of course, a complication does arise, here in the form of a gorilla from a box of animal crackers (stored ominously on a high shelf amongst a series of cobwebs, away from the other containers), quickly turning the film into a grand-scale send-up of -- what else? -- King Kong. And, this being Clampett, you can bet that it hardly ends as that film did, but rather takes an unexpected turn for a final gag that in today's society is decidedly controversial.
Clampett was known for being ever the experimenter and envelope-pusher in his work, and with a full pallet of colors to play with, he has obviously gone to town. Much has been made of the camera angles and technique of Frank Tashlin, anticipating that director's career in the fifties as a live action director rather than an animation director, but there are several elements of this early Clampett effort that seem to suggest some similar efforts on his part at live action simulation, or tribute in any event, once the gorilla makes his ominous presence in the film known. (And, this being Clampett, you can bet that it will be offset by a remark to the audience that causes the gorilla to acknowledge what we ourselves have observed of the character thus far.) As the gorilla gazes at the festivities, we see an overlay of the more cheerful scenes we have seen thus far across an intense close-up of his face. A bit later, the gorilla swings from a lamp, sending the store into a brief darkness, and several pairs of eyes come flying in all directions, some directly at the audience, as the characters are fleeing in horror. Naturally, all of this will be offset at the very end, and even the villain will be proved not quite as villainous and/or vicious as we have been led to believe that he is; after all, Clampett's work is nothing if not ultimately full of surprises.
The pace isn't quite the breakneck speed Clampett is more famous for...that is to say, it's fast, but not quite as rapid and "catch one's breath" as one is used to expecting from Clampett. Still, what with the wild chases and the crazy ideas, it's still highly recommended, and one heck of a colorful start.
The Crackpot Quail (1941)
No Wild Hare, but still worth a look
Okay, so Tex Avery's "The Crackpot Quail" was released the same year as "The Wild Hare" and featured an animal protagonist facing a less-than-brilliant antagonist, addressed by the animal protagonist throughout as "Doc." So the plot features not a great deal more than a dog in pursuit of the quail in hopes of achieving his dream as a Pointer. So neither the dog nor the quail really achieved the status throughout pop history as the likes of Elmer Fudd and Bugs Bunny.
All of this can easily be forgiven, and is saved, by two key elements: the brilliant animation of Bob McKimson (easily one of Warner Brothers' best animators of all time, yielding stronger work as an animator than as a director imo) and the terrific-as-always score by Carl Stalling. Both of these two elements blend into a great marriage of expression: we are well aware of the emotions at all times of protagonist and antagonist alike.
McKimson manages to achieve a great deal of this for Avery's title character through his decidedly unwieldy black top; we are introduced to the character as we see the top fly up several times in time to its soon-to-be familiar whistle before a pan down shows that the obscured bird has been attempting to blow it out of its eyes. The black top soon shows us a great deal of emotion: at one point, when the bird is submerged in water and encounters the dog, we see the top transform from a submarine telescope to the shape of a question mark! A bit later, in a moment of particular distress, when the quail is trapped, the top suddenly sprouts into a series of spikes that would make a porcupine proud.
The dog also has a fine moment of emotional expression, highlighted in no small way by Stalling's score. When he comes to the realization that his prey has duped him into a game of fetch, a series of short piano crescendos reveal his realization, and McKimson shows the pro he is at the expression of sheer fury through two major facial features: the eyes and the teeth, the latter of which clench so tightly that the stick inevitably breaks. Though he does point out the obvious, true to his character, the dog need not inform us that he's "getting' plenty sore!"; McKimson has helped us to understand that well enough.
"The Crackpot Quail" might not have been a candidate for the Oscar. It might not have spawned any great recurring protagonists or series per se, though plenty of "dumb dogs" cropped up in Warner Brothers animation since the release of this cartoon. But it definitely deserves a bit of recognition, and is well worth a look. Not for anything particularly great, but for the smaller elements that are often overlooked.
Thugs with Dirty Mugs (1939)
Take that, you rat! Take that...and that...and that!
Excellent spoof of the gangster genre of its day! Very fast-paced and funny -- perhaps a bit slower in pace than, say, the "gasping-for-air-by-the-end" pace of Bob Clampett, but that in and of itself is a pace matched by few, with the possible exception of Frank Tashlin. On the whole, there are plenty of Avery trademarks and gags throughout, from the great split-screen-gag to the great audience member silhouette moments, where an apparent audience member directly addresses characters in the film. Avery's claim to fame, of course, was that he was responsible for "breaking the fourth wall," acknowledging the presence of the audience and, in many cases, trying to incorporate the audience within the actual plot via various signs and, of course, the silhouettes. I'd love to see some of these silhouette scenes on a big screen someday, as they look a bit odd on an enclosed TV screen now where proportions are concerned, but it's still brilliant.
Interestingly enough, Avery's "Gonna pin it on ya, see? Pin it on ya!"-gag resurfaces some seven years later in Clampett's "The Great Piggy Bank Robbery" -- proof positive that, long after Tex Avery was gone from the Warner Brothers studio, making the raucous MGM-cartoons he is now more famous for, he was hardly forgotten by his Warner pupils.
Very worth checking out, if one is able.