Magpies in the Face
Introducing Heckle and Jeckle — sort of. Birdbrain Week continues with “The Talking Magpies”, a 1946 Terrytoon that, technically, stars Farmer Al Falfa. A bickering couple of married birds show up early in the show, and they don’t act much like any cartoon characters we recognize. Then the old geezer starts to chase them and suddenly, two stars are born! Mr. and Mrs. Magpie mutate into two preposterously resourceful smart alecks (both with male voices) who are way too fast for our silent-movie-leftover hero. They are back to being magpie and wife for the closing gag, but the damage was already done, and Terrytoons would never be the same (thankfully.) These wise guys would soon star in their own series, snapping up the pace for the entire studio!
And a word about that Talking Magpies stuff. Heckle and Jeckle were always billed as “The Talking Magpies.” I guess there was a pre-cartoon era when you had talking magpies, the same way you had laughing hyenas and bald eagles — the adjective just came with the package. But to folks born after 1946, that formal title “Heckle and Jeckle, the Talking Magpies” was just plain weird. Any red blooded kid would ask himself why TALKING Magpies? Why not Daffy the TALKING Duck, Mickey the TALKING Mouse, or Goofy the TALKING… whatever?
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On July 24th, 2006 at 12:00 am
I missed the credits for today’s Willie Whopper Cartoon entitled “Statos Fear” but I could tell right away, from the well above average animation and solid drawing that someone really good had worked on the short. Later I went back to see that the short was credited to Ub Iwerks. Of course that made perfect sense. Really nice, inventive stuff. Loved the clever vocals from the alien mad scientist and the fun visals like the telescope man and the nail and hammer birds. From what I am seeing, Ub’s animation seemed to really transcend the mediocre material he seemed to always be mired in. Thanks from letting us see what might have become forgotten cartoons. They still inform and entertain.
On July 25th, 2006 at 12:00 am
I think that more credit has to be given to the animators who often stayed for a short time at a studio and moved on, especially during the depression. Cartoon historians (I’m thinking Barrier here) consider Iwerks cartoons to be sloppy until Grim Natwick came over from Fleischers. Other artists probably followed Natwick and raised the quality of Iwerks cartoons.