The Valiant Tailor
Occupational Hazard Week continues with “The Valiant Tailor,” a 1934 Ub Iwerks ComiColor cartoon. Two things here. First, all those wacky special effects! Iwerks may have been a slave to that loopy, 1930’s rubber hose and basketball style of character design, but films like this are full of visual whammies very advanced for their era. The use of color, water effects and, most impressively, multiplane backgrounds really enhance the cartoon and give the production a little extra oomph.
Which brings us to another point: isn’t it interesting how some early talkie cartoons (particularly Iwerks’ ComiColors) borrowed so many silent screen story telling techniques? This one hasn’t any real dialogue, but has no problem moving along a clean, well structured narrative with tactics like strategically chosen close ups of key visual details, and strong pantomime from the three lead characters. Of course that peppy music track doesn’t hurt either!
I wonder who decided to make the evil giant so damn jolly. His relentless “ho-ho-hoing really creeps me out — keeps you guessing what exactly he has up his raggedy sleeve for that chubby little king he keeps chasing.
ReFrederator — working hard everyday!
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On May 17th, 2006 at 12:00 am
Hello! I was wondering if there’s a possibility of requesting a cartoon.
If so, where can I do this?
On May 18th, 2006 at 12:00 am
We don’t have a formal request process going — but tell us what you are looking for and we can tell you if it’s a title in the upcoming line-up.
On May 20th, 2006 at 12:00 am
Well, I’m looking for cartoons starring Droopy and those cartoons that are “The House of tomorrow!” They also have the car of tomorrow, I believe. They always had terrible things for the mother-in-law (her medicine cabinet only contained poisons.)
On May 18th, 2006 at 12:00 am
I’m happy with whatever Refredator offers, but I would love to see “Porky in Wackyland” or the color version “Dough for the Do-Do”. Clampett’s surrealism was wonderfully bizzarre. “Coal Black And De’ Sebben Dwarfs” also deserves to be shown inspite of it’s politically incorrect stigma. “Chow Hound” would also be great to see, as long as you “don’t forget the gravy”!!!!!
On May 18th, 2006 at 12:00 am
I thought of one more thing, old 3-D. George Pal’s Puppettoons, and Ray Harryhausen’s Fairy Tale series would also be good for artist’s technical studies.
On May 19th, 2006 at 12:00 am
Ooooh, sorry! Most of the titles listed in your first note are not in the Public Domain, and are therefore unavailable to us at this time. Happily, much of the George Pal and Ray Harryhausen stuff is P.D., so we’ll see what we can do!
On May 20th, 2006 at 12:00 am
I’d also be interested in seeing stop-motion, or indeed alternative (to cel) animation techniques in general. I’ve also noticed that some stop-motion by Starewicz and Charley Bowers occasionally shows up on public domain compilations, as well.
With regards to “Coal Black and de Sebben Dwarfs”: for those on the West Coast, ASIFA-Hollywood’s Animation Archive does have a copy of it that can be viewed by the public:
http://www.animationarchive.org/2005/10/filmography-coal-black-and-de-sebben.html
On May 19th, 2006 at 12:00 am
You rule DAVE! One of Pal’s shorts won an Oscar during the war, but I can’t remember the title. Here’s a link I found to a page with some photos from Harryhausen’s fairy tales.
http://lavender.fortunecity.com/judidench/584/motgoose1.html
One of our local TV stations actually played the stuff during the 70’s.