Blog Post #5: Blitz Wolf (1942)

As we all know, World War II started in 1939 and ended in 1945.  Sometimes it’s difficult to determine whether an animation is influenced from history or not.  This is not the case when looking at Blitz Wolf, another short animation directed by Tex Avery and produced by Fred Quimby.  The title of this animation alone hints at the fact that it deals with the second World War.  In this post, I will give a brief history lesson on World War II, a brief summary of this animation, as well as an explanation on how this animation is reflective of World War II.

World War II started on September 1, 1939 with the German invasion of Poland.  A couple of days after Germany’s invasion, Britain and France declared war.  The United States entered the war after Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7,1941.  After 1941, the main allied powers consisted of Britain (Churchill), China (Kai-shek), the Soviet Union (Stalin), and the United States (Roosevelt).  The main axis powers consisted of Germany (Hitler), Japan (Tojo), and Italy (Mussolini).  There are different dates the war was considered to be over, however, we acknowledge the end of World War II to be September 2,1945, when the Japanese surrendered and signed documents of surrender (Germany surrendered prior to this date around May).

I’m going to briefly explain what this short animation is about.  This animation took a very simple story and tweaked it.  Tex Avery took the story of the Three Little Pigs and modified drastically, in order to create what is known as Blitz Wolf.  This animation is about three pigs who built their houses out of three different materials, one with straw, one with sticks and the last with bricks (with a lot of ammunition).  The pig who built his house out of bricks has massive guns surrounding his house and also has a trench around it.  The pig who built the house out of bricks (who wears an army helmet) tells the other pigs to start working on their house and stop messing around before the wolf comes.  However, the other two pigs signed a “treaty” with the wolf.  Later, we find out the wolf doesn’t uphold the treaty and blows down the houses of the two pigs.  The two pigs take shelter in the brick house and war starts between them and the wolf.  Ultimately, the pigs end up defeating the wolf, whom ends up in hell.

Where to start with this animation.  This animation has World War II written all over it.  First, pay attention to the fact that this animation was created in 1942, a few months after the United States entered the war.  This little fact tells us that this animation was influenced from the war.  It is definitely an anti-German cartoon, as well as, a propaganda cartoon (because it is against the enemy and it tells us to buy bonds in the cartoon, to support the troops).  Now, let’s just look at the physical ways this cartoon was influenced by WWII.  The wolf is dressed up like Adolf Hitler.  He has the little mustache and the bangs of black hair dangling on his forehead.  The wolf also speaks with a German accent, which sounds like jibberish, poking fun at Germany, if you will.  Throughout the animation, you can swastikas shown all over the place (on the tanks, in the paper, which are made from meat, etc.).  This animation doesn’t only make fun of the German’s, but it also makes fun of the Japanese, who were also enemies of the United States during World War II.  In the cartoon, the house of the third pig has the words, “no Japs allowed.”  Also, there is a part in the animation where Tokyo gets bombed, referencing the Doolittle Raid.  These parts, making gags at Japan, were actually censored later.  Also, due to censorship, the wolf’s German was dubbed later and the ending was also changed.  At the end, there is a sign that says, “The End of Adolf:  If You’ll Buy A Stamp Or Bond – We’ll Skin That Skunk Across The Pond.”  This was cut due to censorship issues.  This also shows how this cartoon was propaganda for the United States during World War II.

There is also a scene where the two pigs at the beginning sing to the third pig.  The picture freezes for a couple of seconds and the pigs finish singing.  This is done because it the words “son of a bitch” are supposed to follow, but it is inappropriate for a cartoon.  This chant the pigs recite is most likely a chant the soldiers sang in the army or was used to get people to join the army.  Before the cartoon even starts, the lion from MGM roars in a peculiar way.  This was done to give it the rhythm of “Hold That Tiger,” which was a jazz song from the early 1900′s known for its fighting rhythm.  Sergeant Pork also holds up Esquire magazine to distract incoming shellfire, which I’m assuming was a magazine popular during the war.  There is so much going on in this cartoon, it is difficult to pick out every single aspect.  Overall, I hope you get the basics and understand that this cartoon was used for the United States as a means of propaganda during the second World War.  How do you feel about this cartoon?

ETA:  I commented on the Blogs of Christopher DeMarco and Megan Pettry.

Til Next Time…

Blog Post #4: Magical Maestro (1952)

After discussing the Academy Award Winning Pixar Short Animations, I’d like to transition to Tex Avery Animations.  Tex Avery was an animator for over 40 years.  His works have been honored on a show called The Tex Avery Show.  He has done several famous animations in his time.  However, I would like to discuss a particular cartoon from Tex Avery this week called Magical Maestro.  Magical Maestro is an animation about a Magician named Mysto who asks a snobbish opera singer, the Great Poochini, if he can have an opening act for the show.  Poochini screams no and kicks Mysto out.  Outside, Mysto realizes his magic wand can be a conductor’s baton.  Therefore, he goes inside and freezes the real conductor, taking off his clothes, glasses, hair, etc. onto himself.  Mysto, taking the place of the real conductor, starts to use his magic wand to do various different things to Poochini as he is singing Largo al factotum.  However, towards the end, Poochini realizes his “conductor” was actually Mysto in disguise.  So Poochini takes Mysto’s wand and freezes Mysto as he is running away.  Poochini then makes Mysto do everything he was forced to do on stage.  The animation ends with the curtain falling on Mysto and the rabbits saying “The End.”  In this blog, I will discuss some background on Tex Avery and this specific animation, as well as, discuss how this animation shows racism.

Tex Avery started animation in the early 1930′s at the Walter Lantz Studio.  In 1935, Avery moved on to work at the Leon Schlesinger Studio.  There, Avery was given his own production unit for his animations.  Due to termites, Avery and his unit called their studio the “Termite Terrace.”  This later became the nickname of the Warner Bros. cartoon studio.  Avery’s first short was called Gold Diggers of ’49, which was the first animation to give Porky Pig a main role.  Tex Avery went on to introduce great animation characters from our time, including Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck.  At MGM, Avery developed several short animations, such as Lucky Ducky, King-Size Canary, and Magical Maestro.  Avery also developed the character Droopy (1943) at MGM Cartoon Studios.  Later, Avery directed animation commercials for such companies as Raid, Frito-Lay and Kool-Aid.  His last job was working at Hanna-Barbara Productions, where he wrote gags for the Saturday morning cartoons.  On August 26, 1980, Tex Avery died from lung cancer.  Even though Avery died, his animations have lived on to influence future artists and are still being shown today.

Growing up as a kid, I remember watching The Tex Avery Show every time it came on television.  I remember a number of them.  However, the one cartoon that always stood out for me when I was younger was Magical Maestro.  Magical Maestro was produced in 1952 by MGM Cartoon Studios.  Like Pixar’s Tin Toy, Magical Maestro was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress in 1993.  The name “Poochini” is actually a pun to the famous composer Giacomo Puccini.  In many of Avery’s animations, there are situations that imply something to the audience.  For example, in this animation, there is a part where Poochini has a male and female rabbit on each arm.  He puts them behind his back and when he brings out his arms there are several baby rabbits.  This implies the rabbits had sexual relations.  Tex Avery was also known for his “adult” humor, which is clearly seen here.  Tex Avery also likes to “break the fourth wall” in his animations.  This means he has his characters cross the boundary between the character and the audience (i.e. A character talking to the audience, etc.).  For example, it is very common for a piece of hair to get stuck in a projector.  This causes a line to flutter around the screen as the projector is running.  In this animation, Avery has a little piece of hair flickering around the screen.  Avery breaks the fourth wall when he has Poochini stop singing and pluck the piece of hair out of the bottom of the screen, creating humor.  In Avery cartoons, this type of humor (gags) is what makes his animation stand out to the audience.

Like I said above, Avery enjoyed using adult humor in his animations.  In this particular animation, Avery uses very strong stereotypes, as well as, two alleged offensive (racist) gags.  While Mysto is doing all these things to Poochini, he changes him into different characters while singing.  The stereotypes that weren’t found offensive in this animation are the country singer, the tribe dance and chant, and the Spanish dancing woman.  Personally I feel all of these gags would be offensive, however, the company figured it wasn’t that over the top.  I laugh at them because it’s funny and humorous to me, but I would think other people would have found those offensive.  Anyway, the first offensive gag in this animation short is the part with the Chinese stereotype.  People found it offensive when Mysto threw the cymbal on Poochini’s head and he started to speak in Chinese, as well as, walking and looking like someone from China.  The second offensive gag of this animation is the part with the pen ink.  This one I can understand for people to find this offensive and racist, if you will.  A man on a balcony squirts ink on Poochini’s face.  By doing this, Poochini starts to sing in the style of “The Ink Spots.”  The an anvil drops on him and he sings interludes in a deeper voice.  I still find this humorous because I feel comedy is based on all our different races.  I can laugh at my own race and the jokes there are for my race, so I’m no bothered by this personally.  However, I would completely understand if someone did get offended by this.  Because of these two offensive gags, they were cut from the animation in the 1990′s version, depending on the station it was being shown on.  On Cartoon network, these parts were cut.  However, the above animation is the unedited version so it can be viewed.  Overall, this animation bases its humor mostly on stereotypes.  Does this bother you?

ETA: I commented on the Blogs of Joseph Gayk and Bonnie Hansen.

Til Next Time…

Blog Post #3: For The Birds (2000)

This is the final Pixar short animation I would like to talk about, For The Birds.  This short animation was directed by Ralph Eggleston and produced by John Lasseter.  This Pixar short is about a group of small round birds sitting on a wire.  To communicate with one another, the little birds make high-pitched squeaking noises.  As the little birds are “arguing” on the wire, they get interrupted by the noise of a taller bird sitting on top of the electric pole.  As they all look at him, he makes a deeper squeaking noise to them as he waves.  The smaller birds start mocking him (and laughing) and are interrupted by him making another noise again.  The smaller birds move away from the taller bird.  Then the taller bird flies over to them and sits in the middle of the smaller birds, which making the wire sink low (due to his weight) and the smaller birds crunched up against him.  The small birds get angry and one pokes him in the side, making him fall and hang upside down.  They start to peck at his feet, until some the birds notice something; the wire is hanging all the way down to the floor.  Before they can prevent him from falling, the larger bird lets go, flinging all the little birds up in the air.  As the bigger bird gets up (with feathers all around him), one of the small birds falls naked.  This makes the large bird squeak loud into laughter.  All the other birds fall naked and he continues to laugh at them as they hide behind him.  In this post, I will discuss a little background of this short animation, as well as, how the animators used expression to show the characters feelings, instead of actual talking.

For The Birds was made on June 30, 2000.  It was distributed with the movie Monster’s Inc. on November 2, 2001.  It won 5 different awards between the years 2000 and 2001.  In 2002, For The Birds won an academy award for Best Short Animated Film.  This was Pixar’s third academy winner in this category.  As of today, it was also their final award for Best Short Animated Film.  The short birds from this Pixar animated short can also be seen in other movies.  Basically, they were “re-cycled” in other movies, if you will.  In the 2006 Pixar film, Cars, the birds can be seen sitting on power lines and you can even hear some squeaking form them.  Unlike Cars, the reference in the 2003 film, Finding Nemo is a little more subtle.  One of the boats in the movie is called “For The Birds, ” the name of the Pixar short.  Looking at this short, as well as the other two previous posts, an assumption can be made that Pixar likes to re-use animations from their shorts in their films.

Like Geri’s Game and Tin Toy, For The Birds don’t use any words to convey emotion.  Instead, they use sound to convey emotion.  For example, the little birds only squeak.  The animators could have made them talk if they wanted to.  However, they decided to make it more natural and just let them make “bird” noises.  Not only does it set a more realistic approach, it also makes the birds more enjoyable to watch.  It also makes sense to have the bigger bird make a deeper squeak because he is a lot bigger than the smaller birds.  In a way, the size of the birds complement the noise they make, which gives off a greater impression on the viewer than just having them make any noise.

The sounds of the birds may be an important factor to this short, however, it is not the only factor.  Another major factor that works with the sound, are the expressions of the birds.  We have learned that the eyes in animation are exaggerated to give a greater expression of the character.  This can clearly be seen in this animated short.  If you look at the little birds reactions to the big bird, you can tell when they are annoyed.  For example, when they become squished with the big bird after he weighs down the power line, you can see their bottom eye lids come up really high and their eyebrows slant down.  This creates how angry they are.  If that doesn’t help, the animators also have them chatter away in a complaining reaction.  The whole time this is happening, you can tell the big bird is still happy, because of the look on his face.  He looks like a goofy type of bird with his expression, but that can be interpreted as either dumb and/or optimistic.  By looking at these factors alone, we can tell that the animators created a very impressive short animation (it helps that they also won an academy award).

ETA: I commented on the Blogs of Sarah Askri and Courtney Webber.

Til Next Time…

Blog Post #2: Tin Toy (1988)

(Sorry About The Sound)

Like last week’s post, Tin Toy is another short created from Pixar Animation Studios.  It was created in 1988 and directed by John Lasseter.  Tin Toy tells the story about a one man band mechanical toy (apparently named Tinny) and a baby (apparently named Billy).  First, you can notice Tinny  is delighted by the baby, however, once he sees Billy slobbering on another toy, Tinny gets scared that he’ll be next.  He starts to move away, but finds out every time he moves, he makes a noise.  The then gets chased around the room by the baby and he ends up hiding under a couch, finding several other toys hiding.  The baby then falls and starts crying.  Tinny decides he needs to help Billy, so he gets out from under the couch and cheers him up.  Billy picks him up, but then throws him on the ground to play with a box.  Tinny ends up getting mad that Billy is ignoring him and this is where the credits start rolling.  In this post, I will discuss some background on Tin Toy and talk a little about the drawing and the story.

In 1988, Tin Toy won an Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film, becoming the first Pixar animated short to win an Academy Award.  In 2003, Tin Toy was also selected for “preservation in the U.S. National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being culturally, historically, and / or aesthetically significant.”  There are also a couple of references to other shows in this short.  For example, the theme song to Captain Kangaroo is heard at the beginning and you can also hear Bob Barker on the Television from the Price is Right.  Also, initially, Pixar created Tinny to be the main character in Toy Story, however, Buzz Lightyear was created to fill the role of Woody’s counterpart.  Tin Toy was also mentioned in an episode of the animated Buzz Lightyear series.

The drawing in this short animated film was aesthetically pleasing to the eye.  However, there was one aspect that bothered me personally.  That aspect was the baby, Billy.  While watching this short, I noticed Billy seemed a little stiff when he moved.  Billy also didn’t look perfected.  For example, his diaper looks almost like a block and it seemed like it was too big for him, but it “fit” him perfectly in the video.  The toys looked perfect.  Again, John Lasseter does a terrific job giving his characters expression.  The only technical problem with the video was the baby.  This was created in 1988, so that could be a valid reason for the way it looked.  If you look at the previous post, Geri flows better with his looks and movements (created in 1997).  Considering the 9 year different, Tin Toy was quite an accomplishment back in 1988.

The story is a major aspect of the animation.  Without a story, nothing would make sense to the viewer.  I remember in class, we had to watch a Pixar animation without sound.  We could distinguish the general idea of the animation, but sound really helped us make out what the character was actually doing at moments.  I think this is done in the same manner.  If you watch the video above, you can tell what is happening based on the actions and the facial expressions.  However, without sound, you would never hear the Captain Kangaroo theme, Bob Barker from the Price is Right, or the noise the toy makes when it moves.  Overall, the viewer can tell what the story of the animation is, even with the absence of sound, which makes the animation short more powerful in telling the story.

ETA: I commented on the Blogs of Katherine Danoy and Alissa Potter.

Til Next Time…