"Henpecked Hoboes" marked the first appearance of George and Junior. Both of whom were inspired by George and Lenny in "Of Mice and Men". I can't watch that movie without laughing. I just always think of the George and Junior cartoons, or "Lonesome Lenny". The awesome model sheet was drawn by Irv Spence.
7 comments:
I can't understand why their series lasted only 4 cartoons. I think they had a lot of potential.
I know, just like Screwy Tex made a few shorts with them and then abandoned them. Only Droopy, Spike and the various incarnations of the Wolf had any staying power with Tex.
He even killed them in their last cartoon, just like Screwy! Tex sure knew how to end a series if he did'nt like it.
From what I've read about Avery, it seems he didn't have any interest in making a series of cartoons with a recurring "star" character.(I guess Droopy was an exception, because the gags didn't usually involve him.)He had characters that he liked to reuse, like George and Jr., but then sometimes he'd take the same characters and make them dogs instead of bears,or he'd radically change their design for one cartoon,like "Pint Sized Pygmy".
I read that Walter Lantz was really disappointed with Tex when he came back to work with him because he had hoped that Tex would take over the Woody Woodpecker shorts, but he turned him down. He only agreed to do the Chilly Willy cartoons because 1, it was a new character and 2, because Lantz let him do whatever he wanted for those two cartoons.
Nothing I have ever read has been able to adequately explain WHY he had such an aversion to continuing his characters in a series, the nearest that I could figure is that he feared that it would restrict the type of gags he prefered.
I think you're probably right, the gags and what you can do with a character were always more important in Tex's cartoons than the character himself. Some never even get a name. Like the cat in "The Cat Who Hated People" and "The Cuckoo Clock".
Tex didn't even like Chilly Willy, he called him a "nothing". I could see why Lantz wanted Tex to make Woody cartoons since he was the only major star character. I'm glad he didn't though. I really like one-shot cartoons. "Crazy Mixed Up Pup" is really great cartoon. Same goes for "Sh-h-h-h" too.
Funny cartoon. I have a question though, who animated one of the shots with the rooster staggering home? Its the shot before the chicken suit gag. I'm not experienced with Tex Avery animators.
Great post!!Thank you.I really love Tex Avery shorts.
Post a Comment