Snafued
October 18th, 2006
ReFrederator Blog
Archive for October, 2006
We are experiencing….
October 17th, 2006
It seems that a few of our viewers are having a few technical difficulties downloading the podcast today. We’re checking the servers and hopefully it’ll be fixed soon. Sorry.
–Fred
Be Prepared to Laugh
October 17th, 2006
“The Good Scout.” Long story short —Willie Whopper as a Boy Scout. That means once we get rid of the lame-o jokes about helping little old ladies cross the street (and some ghastly ethnic stereotypes) we’re into car chases, kidnappings and some eye popping Harold Lloyd type high jinx (with special emphasis on the “high”). Man, that kid can lie!
In the pantheon of roly-poly cartoon characters, I think there should be a special place for Ub Iwerks’ fabulous fibber. Even most non-morbidly obese animated heroes would have a hard time matching the elephantine grace our Willie exhibits while dangling from a flagpole or rolling down the street on a spare tire. What a star!
Tomorrow — another day, another uniform!
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Familiar Faces
October 16th, 2006
Ever notice how much animators love to crack each other up by sneaking caricatures of colleagues into their cartoons? Check out some of the G.I.’s in today’s ReFrederator installment, “Rookie Revue.” I think that’s Tex Avery on the left — not sure who the other Warners’ guys are. Any guesses out there?
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At Ease
October 16th, 2006
We march right into Humor in Uniform Week with “Rookie Revue” a Merrie Melody from Friz Freleng. This short is usually lumped together with typical World War II era material, but it was, in fact, released months BEFORE Pearl Harbor — which may explain why the gang at Warner Brothers thought stuff like suicide squads and incompetent generals was still suitable for mass entertainment.
We have some more Army toons up our khaki colored sleeves, as well as some other service related novelties, so report to duty every day this week at ReFrederator!
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Short on Sniffles, Long on Laughs
October 13th, 2006
Okay! Okay! Okay! We cheated LOTS by sneaking “I Wanna Be a Sailor” into Heart Tug Week. I mean on paper it sounds like the sort of tearjerker Disney and MGM used to spit out like popcorn hulls: Cute youngster disobeys loving parent, is nearly killed then has tearful reunion with Mom. The end. Only this ain’t no Silly Symphony. It’s a Warners’ cartoon — directed by Tex Avery, no less, and none of the all bird cast seems to take their roles very seriously. For one thing, they keep busting that fourth wall, stopping dead in their tracks just to talk to us!
Yeah, things are pretty sob free today, but brace yourself — there are one or two laugh out loud moments that might have you tearing up anyway.
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Heart Tug Week Continues
October 12th, 2006
In the mid-forties, Disney veteran David Hand went to England and took a stab at running his own studio. Most of his Animaland Cartoons at least tried to be ha-ha funny, but, appropriately enough, “The Australian Platypus” turned out to be a bit of an odd duck (yeah, yeah… I guess that should be duckBILL.) That one plays a lot like “Bambi” with marsupials (Oh, settle down! Nobody’s mother gets shot!) Very gentle stuff — cute final gag though!
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Toys with Poise
October 10th, 2006
The classic fairy tales of Hans Christian Andersen are wistful… touching… timeless… what else? Oh, that’s right … DEPRESSING! And I’m not sure the crazy folks at Ub Iwerks would have been my first choice to bring that masochistic masterpiece, “The Brave Tin Soldier” to screen (their characters usually looked like they were made of ring bologna.) But, what the heck! The studio gives it their all in this 1934 release that features some graceful animation by Shamus Culhane, among others. We also get plenty of peppy music and a happy heavenly finale to distract us from the fact that at the end of the story, the hero and heroine are, you know… dead.
For cryin’ out loud, it’s Heart Tug Week at ReFrederator.
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