Puppets on the Weakest Link

This clip has been on YouTube for almost a year now, but this is the first I've seen it. Apparently "The Weakest Link" is still going strong in it's home country and they did a program where all the contestants were famous British puppets. Now I must admit, I don't really know these characters, except I do recognize the guys from "Rainbow" (thanks to David Hellyer for that). It's interesting to hear the reactions of the audience members...they're into it! It just goes to show what I've always said, everybody loves puppets!!

I can't embed this one...but here's the link

Cartoon a Day: Music Land

Music Land
1935
Directed by Wilfred Jackson (uncredited)
Available on: Walt Disney Treasures - Silly Symphonies


"Music Land" may very well be one of the best of the Silly Symphonies. This short, written by Pinto Colvig (the voice of Goofy), has absolutely no spoken words, but is highly original and completely off the chart visually.



The story concerns two islands, the Land of Symphony and the Isle of Jazz, separated by a sea of "disharmony." However, the young prince of the Isle of Jazz, a saxophone, has eyes for the princess, a violin, of the Land of Symphony. He sneaks over to court the princess and ends up being captured by the queen's forces. This sparks a war of epic proportions which blazes away until true love wins out.


To start, the design of the characters is great! The look of these instruments turned into semi-human form is as good as what we would seem from the same studio when they brought clocks and candelabras to life in "Beauty and the Beast" almost 6o years later.



The design of the sets and props is also amazingly inventive. Beyond the castles made of organ pipes and brass instruments, we have a raft made of a xylophone, soldiers with violin bows as spears, and a jail which is a giant metronome. But it goes even further when the pipes and bells of the castles turn into cannons for the battle. The imagery is closer to what you might see in Disney's "Victory Through Air Power."

Of course, probably the best aspect of "Music Land" is the music itself, which serves not just as the score but as the dialogue track as well. The timing of the visuals to the music is perfect and represents a huge step forward for the studio on the path to making "Fantasia."

Can you tell this is one of my favorites?

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: Walky Talky Hawky

Walky Talky Hawky
1946
Directed by Robert McKimson
Available on: Looney Tunes Golden Collection Vol. 3

I say it's about time...listen to me when I talk to you son...I say it's about time we had a Foghorn Leghorn short for Cartoon a Day! This pompous rooster is one of the great 2nd tier characters from the Warner Brothers studio. Never the celebrity that Bugs or Daffy was, but star of some very funny films. "Walky Talky Hawky" was the characters first appearance.



Henery Hawk is actually the leading man of this short. After realizing that he is a chicken hawk, Henery sets out to eat his first chicken. Running into Foghorn Leghorn first, the rooster convinces Henery that the dog is really a chicken and assists the little carnivore in trying to capture the canine.



Though there are plenty of visual gags in this short, the real humor comes from the characters. Foghorn is one of the funniest characters in the Warner Brothers stable. The voice along with the quirks (repeating himself) and catchphrases (I say boy...) are a hilarious combination. Foghorn's voice is not quite the voice we know in this short, it sounds a bit more like Yosemite Sam here, but it still works great and really helps drive this Oscar-nominated short.

Cartoon a Day: Father Noah's Ark

Father Noah's Ark
1933
Directed by Wilfred Jackson (uncredited)
Available on: Walt Disney Treasures - Silly Symphonies

Time for a deep theological study! Well, not exactly. It's pretty rare to find a Bible story as the basis for an major studio animated short. This entry in Disney's Silly Symphonies series is one of at least three film's from that studio to use the story of Noah (the others being the 1959 stop motion short "Noah's Ark" and a segment of "Fantasia 2000"). This certainly isn't going to be the springboard for any Sunday School curriculum, but it's a great little short.



The animators really seem to have a field day with coming up with unique ways to have the animals assist with preparing the ark for it's voyage. My favorite sequence involves the wives of Noah's sons loading the food on the ship. They send a bunch of fruits and vegetables heading down a chute, at the bottom the food is impaled on the backs on porcupines which create a conveyor belt that loads the food onto the ark. The visual gags are fun, but there is also a lot of really beautiful artwork. The opening wide shot of the animals working on a half-finished ark is amazing, as is a shot toward the end of the ark with the rainbow overhead.

The Silly Symphonies were very much a workshop of sorts for Disney's artists. The animators were clearly trying new things with this short. There are a lot of advances in the design of some of the animal characters, and the design of Noah and his sons have some good aspects, but they aren't quite there yet on the female characters. The wives of Noah's sons don't exactly have a wide range of expression, but the Disney crew would improve female designs as the series continued.

World's Most Interesting Olivetians

Recently, Olivet Nazarene University had a bit of an election on their website. People were invited to vote for the "World's Most Interesting Olivetian," that's what they call their alumni. Amongst those nominated were the folks that started One Way Street, Dale and Liz VonSeggen. Well, in a landslide, these puppet people won. Here is the video that was presented at recent festivities at the school. Congratulations Dale and Liz!

Cartoon a Day: Three For Breakfast

Three For Breakfast
1948
Directed by Jack Hannah
Available on: Walt Disney Treasures - The Chronological Donald Vol. 3

Before home movies were on video tape you actually had to set up the movie projector and watch reel to reel films. Amongst the movies of family vacations and Easter egg hunts at my childhood home was an edited copy of "Three For Breakfast." There was no sound, and it was about half the length, and it may have even been in black and white, but it was one we watched just about every time the projector got pulled out.



In this short, Chip and Dale are living in the chimney of Donald's house. When they smell something cooking, the decided to check it out and become obsessed with getting some of the pancakes Donald is fixing.



Some people say the Disney shorts are brilliant from an animation standpoint, but not that funny, well this is proof that's not the case. There are several great gags in this short, but they aren't just gags for gags sake. These progress the story. It's pretty early in the short that Donald ends up with a pancake made out of rubber cement to try and trick Chip and Dale, but that element ends up being used for the final, very elaborate, gag of the film.



Donald actually is pretty calm in this film. He doesn't just fly off the handle right away, it's a bit of a slow burn for him, which is somewhat unusual. Donald is a a great character, the "Gable of our stable" as Walt Disney called him, and this is a great example of why he was such a popular star.

Crooked Teeth

On a recent episode of the do-it-yourself film making podcast "Indy Mogul," they featured a guy by the name of Rob Schrab. I found the episode really interesting as he talked about something he calls "drawless animation." It's kind of a combination of animation and puppetry. This video for the song "Crooked Teeth" by Death Cab for Cutie was directed by Schrab and it shows this cool technique in action. I'm interested in trying some of this puppetry style myself someday. Enjoy...

Guilty Pleasure 7: Popeye

I remember the Christmas my family got it's first VCR, the first movie we recorded off of TV a few days after Christmas was "Popeye." I haven't done a guilty pleasure movie article for awhile, but since "Popeye" came around on my Netflix que it seemed like a a good one to highlight.

Released in 1980, this film brings the world of Popeye to live action. The casting is brilliant...Robin Williams as Popeye, Shelley Duvall as Olive Oyl, Ray Waltson as Poopdeck Pappy...all inspired choices. The supporting cast is also great, including many very physical actors bringing some of the lesser known characters from the Popeye comic universe to life. The one odd personnel choice is not in the acting category, but rather the choice of director...Robert Altman.




Altman is considered by many to be one of the greatest American directors of all time. I'll give him that for movies like "M*A*S*H" and "Nashville," but he's also had some disasters ("Pret-a-Porter," yikes my eyes still burn). As good as Altman can be, he was an odd choice for a film aimed at a family audience. Altman is known for his films in which characters talk over each other, "Popeye" is no exception. To say this makes the film a bit hard to follow, especially for young audience, would be an understatement.




Still, "Popeye" succeeds in creating a world. The town of Sweethaven seems to exist in it's own universe. With the antics of it's residents, it is literally a slapstick cartoon brought to life.

Some call this film a mess, others say it's brilliant...I think it fits somewhere in between, but I enjoy it.

Look out Build-A-Bear...Here comes Build-A-Muppet!

It looks like the folks over at FAO Schwartz are working with the Muppets on something pretty cool. Over at their website you can design your own Muppet Whatnot! You choose from three body types, and then add eyes, nose, hair and costume. But then, you can actually order the character you designed as a puppet for $90. It's hard to tell how workable of a puppet it is from the website, I'm sure it's designed more as a toy than as a professional performance puppet...but still it looks pretty cool!

Cartoon a Day: She was an Acrobat's Daughter

She was an Acrobat's Daughter
1939
Directed by Friz Freleng (as I. Freleng)
Available on: Looney Tunes Golden Collection Vol. 3

A few weeks ago "Bacall to Arms" was featured on "Cartoon a Day." Some gags from today's cartoon, "She was an Acrobat's Daughter," were used again in that film. Like "Bacall," this film is about the movie going experience. There are gags about the lousy view you get of the screen in the front row, people who are always walking past you during the show, and noisy kids in the audience.



Several gags poke fun at old newsreels and one section is devoted to a parody of the movie "The Petrified Forest." These gags don't really stand the test of time, but the animated caricatures used in the "Petrified Florist" scenes are great.



My favorite sequence of the film involves a noisy little duck, asking questions and chattering on during the film. He ends up wandering up to the projection booth and getting tangled in the gears of the projector in a scene reminiscent of Chaplin's "Modern Times."




I'm sure that in 1939 audiences were rolling on the floors for this one, but today it's kind of a mixed bag. Oh, and in case you're wondering, the title of the film comes from a sequence where the theater audience sings along with a song called "She was an Acrobat's Daughter." This sequence actually features one of the best gags in the film, when a slide with a picture of a spittune that states "Please do not spit on the floor" is accidentally mixed in with the lyrics of the song. The audience just sings that line as if it were part of the song.

Cartoon a Day: For Whom the Bulls Toil

For Whom the Bulls Toil

1953

Directed by Jack Kinney

Available on: Walt Disney Treasures - The Complete Goofy

There's still one classic character that hasn't participated in bullfight week yet. You just had to know that Goofy ended up as a matador once, in 1953's "For Whom the Bulls Toil."

Goofy is a tourist in Mexico when a bull gets in they way of his car. His efforts to move the bull, completely oblivious to the danger, convince some locals that he would make a great matador. They dress him up and throw him into the ring, which is when he realizes the trouble he's in.

The Leonard Maltin introduction to this short on the DVD points out the background designs of artist Eyvind Earle, which really are one of the highlights of this short. Earle would later go on to work on "Sleeping Beauty," which has some of the most amazing designs of any of the Disney features. This short gives a little bit of a hind to what was to come.

I also really like the design of the bull in this short. The bulls in the other four shorts we've looked at have their similarities. This guy, with his prominent chin, snarling jaw, and nasty eyes just looks like pure evil in bovine form.