Warden's Coming

Prison inmate Spike hears the Warden’s footsteps in Cellbound, released by MGM on Nov. 25, 1955. There’s no huge-eyed take like everyone thinks of in a Tex Avery cartoon. Instead there are a few drawings which end with a two-frame shake-take, where a character become a vibrating version of himself for a number of frames.

These are all consecutive frames. Yes, Spike is so shocked, he loses an arm for a frame.



Here it is slowed down.



Avery had been gone from the studio for 2 1/2 years when this cartoon finally hit screens. Mike Lah took over the direction and handled the animation along with H-B unit members Ken Muse, Irv Spence and Ed Barge. Ed Benedict laid out the cartoon and Vera Ohman painted the backgrounds. Daily Variety reported on August 2, 1954: "Fred Quimby, MGM cartoon producer, has signed Paul Freese [sic] for the “voice” of “Cellbound.”"

Dog On Snow Cycle

Here’s a five-drawing run cycle from I'm Cold, the first of two Chilly Willy cartoons by Tex Avery for Walter Lantz.

A dog guarding a vault of furs races after Chilly, who has grabbed a fox fur to keep warm in his igloo. Who needs both feet showing?



Let's slow down the cycle so you can get a better idea of how it works.



And here is it at about the speed you see it in the cartoon.



Tex's animation crew in this cartoon is La Verne Harding, Don Patterson and Ray Abrams, who worked under him at MGM. Both were at Lantz in the first half of the 1930s. The first cartoon where they shared screen credit was on the Oswald short The Singing Sap, released Sept. 8, 1930.

The cartoon was released on Dec. 20, 1954, however it made an appearance starting Dec. 5 in Anniston, Alabama, billed with John Wayne.

Daws Butler provides a very low key version of his Southern Wolf/Huckleberry Hound voice, who comments directly to the audience throughout the cartoon. He’s funny. He’s either stating the obvious, or commenting on what’s happening on screen. Homer Brightman is given a story credit.

Chilly was never better than when Tex was taking care of him.

Shining Tex's Shoes

The running gag in The Peachy Cobbler doesn’t run very long as Tex Avery and writer Rich Hogan cram in as many shoe/shoemaking gags as possible.

Twice, an elf is polishing only to have another elf driving a boot splash some convenient mud on it.



This happens twice. Avery puts other gags between them. Then we get to the third time. The elf sees the boot coming around the corner. He decides to splash mud on his shoe so the other elf can’t have any effect.



The elf, instead, drives the boot into a shoe stall. The gag is the reaction. No wide eyes here, just some claw-hands.

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Mike Lah, Grant Simmons and Walt Clinton are the animators. Voices by Daws Butler. Footwear by Johnsen.

What's In the Cave?

Fast chases, odd characters (two-headed camel, two-bodied giraffe) and Tex Avery seeing how far a cocoanut can journey are the highlights of Half-Pint Pygmy.

There's a darkness gag. George, Junior and the pygmy run into a cave. It's dark. George strikes a match.



A tiger! And a tiger take.



George, Junior and the pygmy rush out of the cave and hide behind a rock. The effects artist gets out the dry-brush.



Junior comes out of hiding behind the rock. George is under Junior. The pygmy is under George. And it turns out the tiger is under the pygmy.



Take. Exit.



Boxoffice magazine quoted from an MGM news release in its July 19, 1947 the cartoon was in “preparation.” Daily Variety reported on December 17 the cartoon was completed. It was released Aug. 7, 1948.

Said Boxoffice:

Half-Pint Pygmy
MGM (Technicolor Cartoon) 7 Mins.
Good. Two half-human creatures read an advertisement offering a reward for the smallest pygmy in the world and immediately make tracks for darkest Africa. There after super-human efforts that include encounters with lions, tigers, elephants, giraffes and other fauna, they finally capture a tiny pygmy—only to learn there is another still smaller.

Said the Motion Picture Herald:

HALF-PINT PYGMY (MGM)
Technicolor Cartoon (W-941)
Into darkest Africa where pygmies dwell goes cartoon director Tex Avery. He brings the sad story of a pygmy with an inferiority complex.

Said The Exhibitor:

HALF-PINT PYGMY. MGM—Cartoon. 7m. When a reward is posted for the capture of the world’s smallest pygmy, the two bears set sail for Africa to pint the prize. Spying what they think is the tiny treasure, they make many vain attempts to capture the pygmy, with ensuing chases causing the hunters much grief, they finally catch up with the small pygmy, the bears are then introduced to an even smaller pygmy, who scurries away into the distance. Thwarted, the hunters shoot themselves. FAIR. (W-941)

Perhaps Tex really did kill them off. He made no more cartoons with George and Junior.

Keith Scott has determined Avery played Junior while Wally Maher (the voice of Screwy Squirrel) was George.

Heck Allen was Avery’s gagman in this. The credited animators were Bill Shull, Louis Schmitt, Walt Clinton and Grant Simmons.

Tex on Blu-Ray

One of my favourite gags in a Tex Avery cartoon comes from Lucky Ducky when a chase stops because everything has turned black-and-white.



I like most of the other gags in this one, too. But it’s never been put out on higher definition home video because of one particular gag.

Readers here are intelligent and knowledgeable, so you know what I’m talking about.

So imagine my surprise to get up this morning and discover that Warner Archive has come to the rescue of Lucky Ducky.



On December 1, all of Tex’s work at MGM is being released. Uncut. That means, yes, you will see Uncle Tom's Cabaña and, yes, you will see Half Pint Pygmy.

What are being called “Original Release” shorts are bonuses. It sounds as if Lucky Ducky’s ending with the conga-dancing title card is included, as well as war-time gags in The Shooting of Dan McGoo and Wild and Woolfy.

And it will be “accompanied by a lavish 72-page booklet, special features and archival rarities.” Circulating on the internet in recent days has been publicity art from Avery cartoons not found in the actual cartoons. (Someone with facts can tell me if this is part of the booklet).

Could this year be much better? Warner is giving us Quick Draw McGraw (regretfully, the whole 30-minutes of each show cannot be completely reconstructed, but some mini-cartoons will be bonuses) and all of Tex’s MGM shorts. On top of that Yogi Bear has been upgraded to Blu-ray.

There’s more information about the Avery release at this link.

Get Lost, Droopy

Droopy is a pest, as far as the bull is concerned in Señor Droopy (1949). First, the bull pushes him aside with a hoof with the laugh Tex Avery voiced in other cartoons. Next, he twists Droopy’s montera (hat) like a wind-up toy to send him away. Then he turns Droopy’s cape on a stick (don’t ask me where the stick came from) into sail and blows him away.

Then, Droopy returns. “It’s me again.”



Droopy interrupts the bull's self-congratulation and tries again. The tail turns into a hand. (The same kind of gag goes back to Van Beuren's Radio Racket in 1931).



Droopy rolls away grasping his copy of Filmland magazine. He gives up the bullfight, and resigns himself to not winning the hand (or lap, as it turned out) of singer and starlet Lina Romay.

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But the bull makes Droopy mad by drawing a moustache and Van Dyke beard on Romay's picture and laughing uproariously. End of bull.



End of cartoon.

Grant Simmons, Bobe Cannon, Walt Clinton, Mike Lah and Preston Blair animated this short.

Romay had a busy 1949. She was signed to play a nightclub singer in The Big Wheel with Mickey Rooney, Hattie McDaniel and Dick “Whoa Nellie!” Lane for United Artists and The Lady Takes a Sailor for Warners with Eve Arden, Fred Clark and Bill Frawley. She was also injured in a car crash in May.

Yes, she did appear on a bill with herself. A theatre in Lake Elsinore, California booked the cartoon with West of Laramie.

To the right is an article from the August 1948 issue of Home Movies about the cartoon.

Incidentally, Romay was born in Brooklyn and lived in California.