This was Tex's last cartoon for MGM which he co-directed with Michael Lah. Ed Benedict's design of the warden is great. You'd be surprised how many different people have emailed me to post about this short. I do remember it being on TV more frequently than some of the Avery shorts when I was a kid so maybe that's the case with so many other people.
17 comments:
It's pretty clear that Tex was leaving at the time, and that Michael Lah, after being a top MGM animator ("Anchors Away","Invitation to the Dance"), was finsihing Tex Avery's film for him.
Pretty funny. For once after all the charater-pops-up-everywhere here the one who IS popping up is THE convict/criminal HIMSELF!
--Steve Carras
gcarras@aol.com
you double posted "Cellbound" even so, great toon
Whoops, blogger was acting real funny when I tried to publish it last night. Thanks for the heads up.
That was fantastic! Did Tex do "Bars and Stripes Forever"?
Glad you enjoyed it William. "Bars and Stripes" was directed by Bugs Hardaway and Cal Dalton.
Kevin, I thank you for giving me the good advice from my incident. Also, you are doing a great job with your blog (I study and copy the images on the model sheets you posted). And I think I will get my self a credit card, and buy the books you use.
BTW, this may be a stupid question, but have you ever watched the Tex Avery cartoon "The Cat that Hated People?" Personaly, it was, and still is, my favorite Tex cartoon.
Bruce, of course I've seen "The Cat Who Hated People" :) What kind of Tex Avery obsessed freak would I be if I hadn't? It's classic. I have to see if I have a model sheet from that one. I'll post it soon if I do.
How's that Popeye set treatin' ya?
I've probably seen "Cellbound" more than any other Tex Avery cartoon, & it still holds up to me to this day.
Even though Ed Benedict's "stylized" & "UPA-like" designs are simple & sorta flat, they're absolutely fantastic, especially the design of the warden. It definitely shows that Tex Avery & his humor work in any style.
I’m flabbergasted, really. The popumentaries are informative, includes a Popeye Talkartoon (“let’s sing along, and follow the Bouncing ball”), the black and white cartoons are beautiful; if as though they were made just yesterday. I enjoyed the two colour reels’, especially Popeye V.S. Sinbad. But the best part about the whole set, personally, was that the packaging; it was mighty pretty, unlike for the other covers for Warner’s other DVD boxsets. The concept art was illustrated by one of my favorite illustrators, Stephen Destefano.
Inother words, the best $55.00 (Canadian, of course) I ever invested for a set of plastic disk's.
In this cartoon the close-ups of Spike's face showing him with pink irises(well at least on my DVD they are pink)and his black pupils sort of jutting out from the eye's surface really remind me of Ren's eyes.
I remember seeing this one at a drive-in with my family back in the 'sixties! My dad recognized the "Produced by Fred Quimby" credit and remarked that "his" cartoons were always funny. (Least ways, that's how I remembered it.)
That jawdrop was always known in our family as "Doing a full Tahiti". (The expression was used when anyone was truly and completely flabbergasted.)
Thanks for the memory!
It is a funny cartoon. But there's a problem, the angular, simplified designs make it pretty difficult to spot who is animating a certain scene. I can spot Ken Muse's animation here and there as well as some of Mike Lah's, but it is incredibly difficult to spot Ed Barge and Irv Spences animation in this cartoon.
Yeah I find it hard to pick up on animators style when the designs are more stylized. Like a lot of the early Hanna-Barbera stuff, I can only pick out Michael Lah and sometimes Ken Muse. At least I think I can.
The only reason I was looking for this cartoon was to see the warden dance (5:00).... Priceless!!
My favorite part of this cartoon is the Warden's hysterical laugh after he teases the convict that he's only got 500 years to go. That never fails to make me laugh.
I can't stress enough how much i love this cartoon.
Simple plotline, cute designs, superb gag animation.. What's NOT to love?! :)
One of my TOP Avery cartoons(*and not much violence in it too)
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