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…
