Tuesday, November 27, 2007

A Foolish Fable - "Dig That Dog"

I'm not terribly fond of a lot of the cartoons made by Lantz when he reopened the studio in 1950. I guess 1956 is probably my cut off point. Anything after that is of little interest to me. This cartoon was made in 1954, shortly before the arrival of Tex Avery and was written and directed by two of Tex's former co-workers at MGM, Ray Patterson and Grant Simmons. Some of the expressions and incidental character designs are very reminiscent of MGM characters. "Dig That Dog" was produced by Patterson and Simmons own studio Grantray-Lawrence for Lantz.

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5 comments:

  1. Thad11/27/2007 11:20 PM

    I am guessing this was probably Walter Lantz's favorite cartoon. He was a big lover of great danes and merchandised the HELL out of Cuddles. It's a classic though. I hope it's on Woody Vol. 2.

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  2. Kevin Langley11/28/2007 10:11 AM

    It's surprising he licensed a character that only appeared in one short.

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  3. Anonymous11/29/2007 2:29 PM

    It's surprising he licensed a character that only appeared in one short.

    Well, not quite. Cuddles did make one more apperance in a 1970's Beary Family cartoon, but since the short was made near the end of the studio's run and was directed by Paul J. Smith (who by this point was both leagly blind and bland), it's best not to see nor talk about it.

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  4. John A12/06/2007 3:57 PM

    I'm always amazed at how much better other studios interpreted the UPA look than UPA themselves. and the other studios made cartoons that were actually funny,too.

    BTW, what happened to the title card? The copy that ran on TV always had the dog biscuit title.

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  5. Pokey12/08/2007 12:31 AM

    The narrator of that cartoon was Frank Nelson.

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