Wednesday, May 30, 2007

Tex Avery - "Cock-A-Doodle Dog"


Here's a clip, some layout drawings and screenshots of the corresponding scenes from another Tex Avery classic starring Spike. I'm not sure who was doing the layouts for Tex around the time of this short. I'm too lazy right now to go look it up. Anyway, I like reading all the notes on the layouts intended for John Johnson when painting the finished backgrounds. Anyone know if those notes are from Tex or the layout artist? Also, the last two layout drawings are from a scene that's not in the cartoon I have. Was there any cuts made to this short or maybe it's from a scene that never made it past layout? I can't remember ever seeing that scene.


Wednesday, May 23, 2007

Barney Bear - "Barney's Hungry Cousin"

I'm going to interrupt these Screwy Squirrel posts to throw in one of my favorite Barney Bear shorts directed by Dick Lundy, "Barney's Hungry Cousin". Though Lundy's shorts aren't on the comedic level of Tex Avery's I think they're real funny and he at least had Tex's great animator's working on them. I love the bear's design in this one. He reminds me of the "hick" wolf in Tex's "Little Rural Riding Hood". Here's some model sheets I found online some time ago. Though they're not from Lundy's unit, they're most likely from one of Rudy Ising's shorts or possibly even George Gordon's.



Tuesday, May 15, 2007

Tex Avery - Lonesome Lenny


I'm going to keep the Screwy cartoons coming over the next couple of posts for those of you who enjoy them. "Lonesome Lenny" was released in 1946 and would be Screwy's last appearance. After four Screwy cartoons were released between 1944 and 1945 it seems that interest in Screwy started to wane and that was probably the main reason he didn't appear in any other cartoons. I think this cartoon has the greatest chase scene ever on film. Enjoy and check out the Screwy Squirrel label for some model sheets and animation art from some older posts.


Wednesday, May 09, 2007

Tex Avery - "The Screwy Truant"


This is without a doubt one of my all-time favorite cartoons, definetly in my top five. Screwy's design isn't as slick as in his earlier shorts but it's very fitting. I can only assume it's closer to Avery's own drawing style than say Louis Schmitt's or Claude Smith's designs for Avery's unit. I still can't for the life of me understand why more people don't really like Screwy that much. The scene where the truant officer blows out a foot is hilarious. Perfectly animated. Enjoy!

Oh, I finally got around to adding some labels to most of my posts so it should be easy to sort through all this stuff.