Cartoon a Day: Goofy Groceries

Goofy Groceries
1941
Directed by Bob Clampett
Available on: Looney Tunes Golden Collection Vol. 3

Sorry for the delay on yesterday's entry. I had to watch it late last night and was too tired to blog, so I'm catching up.

This short represents a style used in several Warner Brothers films where images from products or books come to life in parodies of the names of those items. Another Clampett directed short, "Book Revue," is perhaps a more famous example of this style. "Goofy Groceries" came five years earlier and focuses on products in a grocery store.



Clampett could be one of the most extreme directors in the Warners stable. The cows in the opening of this short are classic Bob Clampett style. Though there are some great pieces of animation, much of the humor has unfortunately lost it's timeliness. We just aren't familiar with some of the product names being poked fun at.



Still, there's a lot to enjoy. The first half of the film, which develops into a Busby Berkeley style presentation with various foods doing the show works quite well.



The second half has various characters doing battle with a gorilla who has escaped from a box of animal crackers. The turtles who emerge from a can of turtle soup and turn into tanks are pretty funny, but overall I think the film might've worked better if they'd stuck with the theme of the first half.

Cartoon a Day: Bacall to Arms

Bacall to Arms
1946
Directed by Bob Campett (uncredited)
Available on: Looney Tunes Golden Collection Vol. 5

This cartoon is a real treat! The premise is simple, a night out at the movies. Gags come from the newsreel, feature, and the antics of the audience. There are both black and white and color segments, and the character design and animation style varies throughout. It's interesting that the characters in the audience have the look of early generic Warner Brothers characters, but the characters in the movies, and the Avery-esque wolf have a different style altogether.

The newsreel segment features a story about the new technology of radar being used in the home. It ends up being used to detect an approaching mother-in-law, which brings to mind the mother-in-law jokes often used by Tex Avery in his shorts at MGM.

The feature film parodies "To Have and Have Not," so we are treated to some wonderful caricatures of Lauren Bacall and Humphrey Bogart.

There just so happens to be a wolf in the audience who becomes quite...uh...enamored with the lovely Miss Bacall. The expression of his excitement, once again, draws to mind thoughts of Tex Avery. Avery had left Warner Brothers in 1941 and in 1943 brought "Red Hot Riding Hood" to the screen for MGM. It's hard to believe that Riding Hood didn't have an influence on this cartoon, but "Bacall to Arms" is still a fun short.