Red Hot Riding Hood (1943) was one of his earliest efforts, and one so ahead of its time that few appreciate its prescience. Lindsay Ellis pretty much sums up the cartoon's lasting influence as well as its "reverse cautionary tale" meaning and that "no means no":
Saturday, June 7, 2014
Saturday Morning Cartoons
I learned about Tex Avery by accident. Several years ago, impelled by memory alone and enabled by Google, I arrived at his name. Never mind that his name was already in plain sight of practically everyone who laughed at cartoons starting in the 1940's.
Red Hot Riding Hood (1943) was one of his earliest efforts, and one so ahead of its time that few appreciate its prescience. Lindsay Ellis pretty much sums up the cartoon's lasting influence as well as its "reverse cautionary tale" meaning and that "no means no":
Red Hot Riding Hood (1943) was one of his earliest efforts, and one so ahead of its time that few appreciate its prescience. Lindsay Ellis pretty much sums up the cartoon's lasting influence as well as its "reverse cautionary tale" meaning and that "no means no":
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15 comments:
Great stuff! I stole this for my Facebook page ;-)
Thanks, TT. I went looking for a Youtube version of "Red Hot Riding Hood" and found that video which I embedded. The other link goes to a dailymotion link of the complete cartoon.
The Tex Avery cartoon that I was looking for several years ago was called "Rock-A-Bye Bear" and it still cracks me up.
Good to see Droopy - she must be moonlighting from her no-show teaching job, eh?
I would like for people to mention their favorite cartoon short from growing up, even if they can't remember the name. Maybe together can figure out which one it is.
I liked Mighty Mouse, Felix the Cat and Astro Boy. They were dubed in Spanish.
"Dubed"? Is that Spanish for KY Jelly?
They were dubed in Spanish.
When I lived in Germany I learned there were long-time character voice actors who specialized in dubbing American movie lines. For example, there was one guy who did John Wayne. When the dubbing studios tried to replace a familiar voice, the public would notice and resist the change, much like people raised a stink when George Lazybee* took over from Sean Connery.
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*I believe that was Mad Magazine's name for him. Too young to see most of the Bond films when they came out, I read their plots in Mad. The first Bond movie I saw in the theater was "Diamonds Are Forever" - my dad took us to see it.
They were dubed because Lem had lit up a splif while he was watching them.
I couldn't get past her resemblance to that horrible Garofalo creature.
Yeah, but Meade loves her.
According to Dickens, if the law assumes that a man approves of everything his wife does, the law is an ass.
She misses the most amazing aspect of Red, which I'll get to in a minute.
Tex's cartoons don't hold up that well to my viewing, unlike Chuck Jones and Frank Tashlin. Freling had a few gems but repeated himself too much, at least as far as someone looking back over his entire career in the course of a few weeks (over and over again, thanks after-day-"care"!).
She gives Tex a little too much credit, too: When Tex transplanted his vision of Bugs' character on to Screwy Squirrel, he created one of the most unpleasant cartoon characters of all time. Our modern views of Bugs, Daffy, Elmer and Porky are largely Jones', Freling and McKimson. Avery provided the spark, which was important, if not enduring.
A lot of Avery's better cartoons are his more sentimental ones, like the one about the jets and the nearly identical one he did about cars that have surely informed Disney/Pixar's cars and planes movies.
Also among his more memorable toons were the ones that were just series of character-less gags, like The Home Of Tomorrow.
But a lot of times, he let his anarchic tendencies get the better of him, like with The Cat Who Hated People
You might enjoy Tex Avery: King of Cartoons, which was published in the early '80s, I believe, long before the revival of interest in the "Golden Age" of cartoons that started around 1990 and led to things like Bugs Bunny on Broadway.
So, what's the most amazing thing about Red, in my opinion? Per the Tex Avery book, Red Hot Riding Hood (the character) was totally and completely animated by one person, Preston Blair.
Per Tex, he was very protective of her and refused to let anyone else do the drawing. I think that's part of why she's so good and natural looking, without the broader, cartoony movements of the other characters.
Avery provided the spark, which was important, if not enduring.
The spark, the catalyst, the sine qua non, It sounds to like Avery was about attitude as much as anything else. It's not easy to see where else that was coming from in those days. Mad Magazine picked it up for sure in their own medium and a generation ran with it.
Bob Clampett's about it. And maybe Tashlin.
Bob Clampett. Tashlin. But Avery was important.
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