Old
Animated Cartoons
I am far from being an expert on animated movies but
there was a brief period in my life from about the age of about 6 to the age of
about 13 when I was fascinated by animation. I think that fascination
diminished somewhat around 1960 when I was 13. That was the year that
Hanna-Barbera introduced The Flintstones. Up until then, animated cartoons
seemed to be mostly geared towards kids. Most of the stuff from the 50s and
before was about one animal chasing another it seemed.
I never thought that The Flintstones were that funny.
“The modern stone age family” in some ways was a rip off of the 50’s comedy
show The Honeymooners with Jackie Gleason playing Ralph Kramden. Fred Flintstone
and Ralph Kramden were a lot alike. Both had quick tempers, got involved in
crazy schemes, liked bowling, and belonged to a men only club. Both characters
had pretty wives who tried to steer their husbands towards some common sense
and both had not too bright best friends. A later effort by Hanna-Barbera, Top
Cat, pretty well ripped another 1950s TV hit, Strike It Rich with Phil Silvers.
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| The Flintstones |
From the age of 13 on I would occasionally watch several
minutes of an animated cartoon on TV like The Roadrunner and Wiley Coyote but
would become bored with it pretty quickly. When I got older, I wasn’t one of those
“stoners” who could watch cartoons on TV for hours.
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| Wile E. Coyote and The Roadrunner |
Back in the 50s TV was only available in black and white.
We kind of had to imagine colour. In the early 50s TV stations were desperate
for cheap content. There was a lot of boxing and wrestling on the tube. Kid’s
shows mostly involved puppets which may have been fine for a 5 year old but not
so much for a 10 year old. The powers that be at the time quickly discovered
that they could dig up old B westerns to entertain kids on TV and William Boyd
who played Hopalong Cassidy became a bigger star than he ever was in the 1930s
or1940s. The character, Hopalong Cassidy, dates back to 1904.
Also found in the storage warehouses where the old movies
were kept were a number of animated shorts that had played in movie theatres
years before. Some of them, including Felix the Cat, were from the silent movie
era and someone figured out that you could run them on TV by just adding peppy
background music. Betty Boop cartoons were quite popular in the 1930s but
seemed a bit dated when they turned up TV in the early 50s. Betty Boop’s
character was supposed to be a flapper from the Roaring Twenties.
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| Felix The Cat |
Walt
Disney
Walt Disney started his career in making animated movies
in the early 1920s and worked in collaboration with a cartoonist and animator
named Ub Iwerks. One of their first characters was Oswald The Lucky Rabbit.
Disney lost control of the Oswald character and vowed that this would never
happen to him again. In 1928 Disney and Iweks came up with a new character
called Steamboat Willie who was a mouse. Their first short film utilizing
Steamboat Willie was also the first animated film with synchronized sound. Steamboat
Willie later morphed into Mickey Mouse.
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| Steamboat Willie |
By the mid-1930s Disney had added the characters Donald
Duck, Goofy, and Pluto to his repertoire. Over the years some have wondered
about the dog characters Goofy and Pluto. Why did Goofy wear clothes and why
was Pluto a pet when they were both dogs? Some also wondered why cartoon
characters always had 3 instead of 4 fingers.
In 1938 Disney introduced the first full length animated
cartoon in Technicolor. It was called Snow White and the Seven Dwarves. It was
spectacular compared to any previous attempts at animation and appealed to
audiences of all ages. Disney became the gold standard in animated cartoons.
By the time TV had become popular in the early 1950s
Disney had a lot of stuff in the vault that he could edit and show on his hour
long TV program that started in 1954 on the new ABC network. Originally the
show was called Disneyland and was then called Walt Disney Presents from
1959-1961. In 1955 The Mickey Mouse Club first appearedon weekday afternoons on
the tube. There usually was a cartoon segment. Although Disney left the
animation up to others over the years he was the voice of Mickey Mouse for
about 20 years. He was more of an idea guy and an entrepreneur in the 1950s and
his big dream was to open a theme park in Anaheim, California called
Disneyland. A lot of the capital he needed came from his TV shows and full
length animated cartoon movies. Disneyland opened for business on July 17th,
1955.
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| 1956 post card sent from Disneyland-Sleeping Beauty Castle |
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| Postcard from Shelley Unger-1956. |
Here is a list of some of the full length animated
cartoon movies Disney produced up until 1960.
Snow White and the Seven Dwarves… 1938.
Pinocchio… 1940.
Fantasia …1940.
Dumbo…1941.
Bambi…1942.
The Advenures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad…1949.
Cinderella…1950.
Alice In Wonderland…1951.
Peter Pan…1953.
Lady And The Tramp…1955.
Sleeping Beauty…1959.
If Walt Disney knew one thing it was how to pull on the
heart strings of his audience.
My all-time favourite Disney Classic is The Wind In The
Willows. I can still visualize the camera panning in on Toad Hall Mansion down
by the river and the shy Mole, Badger, and the more assertive Ratty discussing
what to do about their dear friend Mr, Toad who had developed an insatiable
appetite for a new-fangled invention called a “motor car”. Mr.
Toad had a history of being caught up with the latest fad. Previously to his
fascination with motor cars he had roamed the countryside in a caravan pulled
by a crazed talking horse. “We’re on our way to nowhere in particular.” Other
scenes of note are the takeover of Toad Hall by a group of weasels and ferrets
that Mr. Toad had befriended and the police chase after Mr. Toad escapes from
prison on Christmas Eve and steals another car. To me this is one of the best
children’s stories ever written.
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| Toad Hall |
My second favourite Disney offering would be Pinocchio.
Was there ever a more likable animated character than Jiminy Cricket? This
movie introduced the song When You Wish Upon A Star. There is something
touching about that song. An innocence much like Somewhere Over The Rainbow
from The Wizard Of Oz. In some ways Pinocchio was kind of a parable about
principles without the sermon. Lying can get you in a whole lot of trouble.
Then again being too honest with your opinions can also get you in a whole lot
of trouble.
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| Pinocchio |
If you have ever seen Fantasia you might wonder if it is
appropriate for children. My guess is that more than a few kids had nightmares
after viewing this movie. For some reason Walt Disney decided to have Mickey
Mouse play off character in this movie. In fact there wasn’t much humour at all
in Fantasia. Mickey is a sorcerer’s apprentice and has picked up a few of his
boss’s secret methods. Mickey attempts to use these powers and the events that
follow turn into uncontrolled madness. Broomsticks start marching en masse and
buckets of poured water turn into flooding. Layered on top of all this is a
symphonic orchestra led by Leopold Stokowski compete with crashing cymbals. At
the end of the movie the bearded sorcerer turns up, casts a spell and stops the
madness, and Mickey sheepishly creeps away. At this point my guess is that some
had a WTF moment. What the hell just happened here? And what were those dancing
hippos in tutus all about?
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| Fantasia |
Walt Disney wasn’t the only game in town when it came to
animated cartoons back in the day. It would be safe to say however that he was
considerably more sophisticated than his competitors. The story lines, at least
in his full length presentations, were far more elaborate.
One thing that I found strange about the Walt Disney
stuff was why Mickey Mouse was a bigger deal than Donald Duck. As a kid growing
up in the 50s I saw a lot of other boys doing Donald Duck impressions but I
can’t recall any of them trying to imitate Mickey. Maybe it was because Mickey
kind of had a girl’s voice?
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| Donald Duck |
Warner
Bros.
“This is it. You’ll hit the heights. And oh what heights
we’ll hit. On with the show this is it!”
Warner Bros. started producing animated cartoons in 1933
to accompany their feature movies in theatres. These cartoons were usually
about 10 or 15 minutes long and without too much effort they could be packaged
together in the 50s to provide a half hour of entertainment geared mostly to
kids. Mel Blanc was the voice of many of the Warner Bros. cartoon characters
for decades including Bugs Bunny.
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| Bugs Bunny |
Here is a list of some of the Warner Bros. cartoon
characters and when they were introduced.
Daffy Duck and Porky Pig…1937.
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| Daffy Duck and Porky Pig |
Bugs Bunny and Elmer Fudd…1940.
Tweety…1942.
Sylvester, Pepe Lepew, and Yosemite Sam…1945.
Foghorn Cleghorn…1946.
Wiley Coyote and The Roadrunner…1949.
Probably more than any other cartoons, Warner Bros.
characters were the ones most often imitated by kids in the 50s. “Eh what’s up
doc?” “I taught I saw a puddy cat?” “Th-th that’s all folks!”
Woody
Woodpecker
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| Woody Woodpecker |
The Woody Woodpecker show turned up on the tube in 1957.
A middle aged guy who invented Woody, n Walter Lantz, hosted the show. When
Woody made his first appearance in the early 1940s Mel Blanc did his voice.
Later on Lantz’s wife did Woody’s voice for close to 20 years. “Ee-ee-ee-ya-who,
ee-ee-ea-ya-who!”
Mighty
Mouse Playhouse
Popeye
The Sailor Man
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| Popeye The Sailor Man |
Unlike other cartoons that had animals as characters
Popeye The Sailor had people. Weird people. Popeye had enormous forearms one of
which had a tattoo of an anchor. He smoked a corn cob pipe. His girlfriend was
the very skinny Olive Oyl. There was a baby called Swee’ Pea whose parentage
didn’t seem determined. Popeye’s nemesis was Bluto, a big bearded guy who also
had the hots for Olive Oyl. Popeye also had a friend named Wimpy who would say
“I’d gladly pay you Tuesday for a hamburger today.” (In the early 1950s a
hamburger chain called Wimpy’s was opened in the UK.) The basic plot of any
Popeye story is that he would get into difficulty, usually with Bluto
(sometimes called Brutus) and he would haul out a can of spinach that would
give him strength to beat the crap out of Bluto.
Tom
Terrific
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| Tom Terrific and Manfred |
Tom Terrific was a cartoon short shown on the Captain
Kangaroo Show on Saturday mornings. For some reason Tom wore a spout as a hat.
His best friend was Manfred the Wonder Dog. These cartoons were pretty
primitive in that there wasn’t much effort put into them. For something like 50
cents you could send away to Captain Kangaroo for a plastic sheet that you
could put on your television screen and draw on the sheet an object that Tom
was using but you couldn’t see. You were given a description of what this
object should look like. This may have been one of the first attempts at
extracting money from kids on TV. Perhaps the best attempt to get money from
kids back then was when Soupy Sales once asked kids to send him some green
money.
Tom
and Jerry
Tom and Jerry (a cat and mouse) were created by the team
of William Hanna and Joe Barbera in 1940. They spent about 17 years producing
Tom and Jerry short animated movies for MGM before striking out on their own in
the late 1950s. They then created Huckleberry Hound, Quick Draw McGraw, Deputy
Dawg, Yogi Bear, Top Cat, Magilla Gorilla, The Jetsons, and The Flintstones. It
was quite obvious back then even to a kid, that Hanna-Barbera cut more than a
few steps out of the typical animated cartoon process. There wasn’t a lot of
movement by the characters and the same scenery would go by repeatedly in the
background if there was a chase scene. Characters never ran with their legs
moving. The legs turned into spinning circles instead. This was all masked
somewhat with clever dialogue and catch phrases like Yogi Bear describing a
tree….”Looks more like a sycamore to me.”
As they say, imitation is the sincerest form of flattery
and Hanna-Barbera quite often used real life TV and movie personalities’ quirks
and mannerisms in creating their characters including well knowns at the time
like Jackie Gleason, Phil Silvers, Arnold Stang, and Peter Lorre. They knew
they had a good animated character if kids were imitating them.
The
Huckleberry Hound Show
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| Huckleberry Hound |
The Huckleberry Hound Show came out in 1958. I was about
11 at the time and in grade 6. The program had 3 segments with the first one
featuring Huckleberry Hound. It wasn’t until colour TV came out that we got to
see that Huck was actually a blue dog. The 2nd segment featured Yogi
Bear and his pal Boo Boo. They lived in Jellystone Park. The 3rd and
last segment was Pixie and Dixie and Mr. Jinx, two mice and a cat. It never
caught on as much as Huckleberry and Yogi.
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| Yogi Bear and Boo Boo |
Hanna-Barbera, the creators of The Huckleberry Hound Show
had no problem ripping off famous people’s name or characteristics for their
own benefit. At one point Yogi Berra, the New York Yankee baseball catcher
attempted to sue them but later dropped his charges.
Comedy on TV in the 1950s was full of catchphrases that
stuck with viewers old and young alike. Hanna-Barbera were masters of the
catchphrases when it came to animated cartoons. “Hey there Boo Boo.” “I’m
smarter than the average bear.” “Heavens to Mergatroyd!” “I’ll tear you little
mieces to pieces.” “Exit stage right.”
Heckle
and Jeckle
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| Heckle and Jeckle |
Heckle and Jeckle were twin magpies. One of them (I don’t
know which one) had a kind of British accent while the other spoke in a kind of
New York accent. They sometimes called each other “old chap” or “old boy”. They
were brash and antagonistic. There were a number of layers to their characters.
They could be quite sarcastic at times or con artists trying to suck in the
gullible. It is possible that Heckle got his name from the word “heckler”.
Rocky
and His Friends
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| Rocky And His Friends |
Peabody’s Improbable History took us back in history with
a kid who wore thick rimmed glasses named Sherman along with his dog. Odd
explanations that had little to do with facts or reality were used to explain
events. Fractured Fairy Tales was narrated by Edward Everett Horton who spoke
in a droll voice. Horton was second banana to Fred Astaire in a number of 1930s
movies. William Conrad, who later played Cannon on TV, was also one of the
narrators on the show. The content on Rocky and His Friends probably went over
the heads of a lot of the kids who watched it and more and more teenagers and
adults started tuning in.
Crusader
Rabbit
In doing some research about animated cartoons on TV in
the 1950s I came across Crusader Rabbit. I guess this cartoon character was a
big deal, at least for part of the 1950s, but I don’t remember the character or
the program at all.
Later
On In Life
As I said earlier my interest in cartoons kind of waned in the early 1960s. Back then we didn’t have clickers to change the channels but I would make the effort to get off my ass and switch channels if Beany and Cecil, George of the Jungle, The Jetsons, Mr. Magoo, The Mighty Hercules, or Roger Ramjet were on.
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| Beany and Cecil |
As I said earlier my interest in cartoons kind of waned in the early 1960s. Back then we didn’t have clickers to change the channels but I would make the effort to get off my ass and switch channels if Beany and Cecil, George of the Jungle, The Jetsons, Mr. Magoo, The Mighty Hercules, or Roger Ramjet were on.
What brought me back to animated cartoons was the birth
of our twins in 1989. I went out and purchased a whole whack of Disney classics
when they were about 2 years old. I wanted to share with them what I had seen
as a kid. Videos were also a great baby sitter and having 2 young kids in a
house one does need a break every now and then. During that time I also
discovered Disney’s Jungle Book and got to know all of the characters and the
lyrics to the songs. I can still hear Phil Harris as Baloo the Sloth Bear
singing “The Bare Necessities” in my mind. I may be wrong but I think Dean
Martin stole a bit of Phil Harris’s character in the 1960s. They both sang and
they both were known to walk around with a drink and a smoke in one hand with
an attitude that they weren’t concerned about very much.
When my kids were very small we had a den where they
watched TV and videos. One day I tried to open the door to the den but it
wouldn’t budge. It turned out they had stacked about 100 books or so against
the door. Another time I opened the door to the den to find my son up on a
stool with some kind of stick in his hand and pretending he was directing the
orchestra in the animated cartoon Fantasia. I can’t recall if we cut back on
his sugar intake around then.
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| Jungle Book |
There was also a brief time in the mid-70s that I revisited
cartoon animation. I went to see both Fritz The Cat and Heavy Traffic at movie
theatres. The movies were kind of a combination of social commentary, soft porn,
and anti-establishment humour. These kind of movies had a hard time getting
into movie theatres and it seems to have been a short-lived venture for the
most part. Personally I think there is still room for these kind of films
because we seem to be living in pretty ridiculous times even more than back
then.
I know they have done some amazing things with digital
imagery over the past number of years but I have to confess I haven’t seen much
of it. I once saw a bit of Polar Express and was a bit blown away by the
special effects. For some reason I just never got around to watching the whole
thing. Not only have I not seen a number of animated movies that have come out
in the last 20 years I also didn’t have much interest in sci-fi. Star Trek
bored me to tears on TV particularly. I guess I’ve always preferred reality.
Still I have a feeling I might have missed out a bit. Maybe I will take a
gander at that penguin movie, whatever it is called. I like penguins.
Oh yeah. Yes I've watched the Simpsons from time to time and it is pretty funny but I find it is kind of like eating an apple. I need to take that first bight and I'm not always inclined to but once I'm into it I really like it. On the other hand, the voices on South Park drive me crazy. I can't watch it.
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| Fritz The Cat |
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| Heavy Traffic |
Oh yeah. Yes I've watched the Simpsons from time to time and it is pretty funny but I find it is kind of like eating an apple. I need to take that first bight and I'm not always inclined to but once I'm into it I really like it. On the other hand, the voices on South Park drive me crazy. I can't watch it.
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| The Simpsons |
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