Academy Award in Short Subjects, Cartoons - 1932/1933

Academy Award in Short Subjects, Cartoons - 6th Academy Awards - March 16, 1934

In the early days of the Oscars, it was a relatively small event. Sometimes nominees skipped it because they were busy. But there were early signs that it would be a big thing.

The 6th Academy Awards covered an extended period due to a rules change that endeavored to make the calendar for the event match the calendar for the year. The nominees could be released between August 1, 1932 and December 31, 1933. The ceremony was hosted by Will Rogers, a major star of film, vaudeville, radio and a columnist.

The Nominees

The Merry Old Soul - Walter Lantz

This cartoon requires a content warning for the presence of caricatures from the film the Jazz Singer. These characters are depicted as wearing blackface. I felt Oswald's pain at the dentist. I've had a bit of dental work done. This Oswald cartoon features caricatures of popular actors like Laurel and Hardy and the Marx Brothers. It's a very lively cartoon with a good variety of gags.

Building a Building - Walt Disney

The Mickey Mouse cartoon features the same overly repetitive motions of Mickey's Orphans. But they're not as noticeable because they didn't spend as much time with the scenes featuring the repetitions. This cartoon is not on Disney Plus so I watched it on YouTube. I feel the action of the cartoon is not dynamic enough to support the silence. The foley artist was lacking. This was the least interesting of the three.

The Winner

Three Little Pigs - Walt Disney

The Three Little Pigs made me wish for a Too Many Cooks style twist. It is basic retelling of the story. The pigs don't have personalities beyond the straw guy, the wood guy and the brick guy. The whole cartoon feels like prestige chasing. The highest praise I have is the Wolf's design is nice and the brick piano in the third pig's house is a nice detail. The portrait of their father being a picture of a ham hock is an interestingly dark touch. I've seen the joke before but it's not fair to judge a cartoon from the 1930s for having a dated joke. It's just a pretty gross idea if you imagine a human having a similar portrait. Their little song is brain curdling.

Who I Think Should Have Won

I love the work of Fleischer Studios. Betty Boop's Museum was released in December 16, 1932. The look of the museum, the creepy gags, Betty Boop. Koko abducts Betty for a trip to the museum. Betty becomes trapped in the museum after closing. Chaos and confusion ensue with an out of nowhere ending. It's another classic in my view.

Academy Award in Short Subjects, Cartoons - 1931/1932

Academy Award in Short Subjects, Cartoons - 5th Academy Awards - November 18, 1932

There were twelve awards in the 1931/1932 Academy Awards (about half of the current number of awards). This was the first award show to include Short Subjects, Cartoon. The eligible films were those shown in Los Angeles between August 1, 1931 and July 31, 1932.

For the Academy Awards, Walt Disney produced a short featuring his characters and caricatures of contemporary celebrities. He also received an honorary award for the creation of Mickey Mouse. The short's good. I particularly like the Jekyll and Hyde. It's interesting that he was given an honorary award about four years after Mickey premiered and Ub Iwerks was not. I don't know the story behind the lauding of Walt but it seemed to have been an award for the prestige Walt had attained in the industry as the cofounder of Walt Disney Studios.

The Nominees

It's Got Me Again! - Leon Schlesinger

It's Got Me Again! was released on May 14, 1932. I'm just going to say it. The mice look like Mickey. The rubber hose style of the era was popular in this time period and there were a few characters that looked like but it's a bit glaring. The voice in the cartoon kind of sounds like a version of the voice I've come to associate with Mickey. I found this to be the most enjoyable out of the three cartoons. The action is kinetic and the animation is well done. The characters are memorable. The cat design is cool. The attack with the drumsticks made me pause. I felt bad for that cat even though he was going to eat those cats.

Mickey's Orphans - Walt Disney

Mickey's Orphans was released December 9, 1931. The premise of Mickey and Minnie adopting a bunch of abandoned kittens on Christmas is nice. There's no point in reanimating the same sequence from scratch more than once, so animators use the same sequences more than once. You'll see this on display in pixel games with the walk cycle. Animation where characters walk all have walk cycles but it's easy to see this in the pixels because the sprites are so small and simple. You can find the sprites for famous games on websites. It feels like this cartoon lets the animations repeat just a little too long. It makes it stand out. The cartoon felt padded.

Flowers and Trees - Walt Disney - The Winner

This Silly Symphony cartoon was released on July 30, 1932. It's a beautiful work of art. A masterful display of animation. This was the first color film to win an academy award. It was also just a novelty. The cartoon did well due to Walt Disney's exclusive contract with Technicolor. The cartoon is beautiful and it tells a story but I find the story slightly dull. The cartoon wouldn't have had the same impact in black and white. It would have had nearly the same level of success. The short's significance would have been relegated to just another cartoon on Disney's filmography.

My Take

Flowers and Trees made me want to animate something but it doesn't make my favorites list. The animation work is beautiful. It's technically beautiful. I see why it won the Oscar even though I'd rather watch It's Got Me Again! I prefer the anarchic frenzy of Merrie Melodies.

BUT

I think Minnie the Moocher should have won. It's release date was within the eligible time period. This cartoon featuring Cab Calloway is a classic. There were reasons why Minnie the Moocher didn't even feature on the nomination list but whatever those reasons were were wrong. Minnie the Moocher is a classic.

The Bug Parade - Merrie Melodies - Toonstalgia

The Bug Parade - Merrie Melodies

An announcer describes the strange behaviors and adaptations of bugs and insects.

The Bug Parade premiered in 1941. The official release date was October 11, 1941. This was two years into World War 2 and just two months before the United States entered World War 2. The Maltese Falcon came out on October 18th. The first Wonder Woman comic came out on the 21st. My only point with these facts is to offer a brief idea of what the world was when this cartoon was showing in theaters. It's one thing to watch the cartoon now. The people watching it then were dealing with totally different chaos.

The short was inspired by contemporary educational shorts that would show in the same theaters as the cartoon shorts. The bug jokes are a traditional kind that can be found in books like Alice Through the Looking Glass where Lewis Carroll described the Rocking Horse Fly, the Bread and Butterfly and the Snapdragonfly. This cartoon is less pun fueled. They take commonly known insects and anthropomorphize them. Each part of the segment ends with a subversion of expectations (as jokes will).

This is an expertly done cartoon. The only big historical note for this cartoon is it was the last Tex Avery worked on before leaving Warner Brothers.

My Art

I love the fly in the short. I love his happily creepy, "I See You". I love his eyes. So I drew him with my usual mix of ink, markers and colored pencils.

Snow White - Betty Boop, Bimbo and Koko the Clown

 Snow White - Betty Boop Cartoon

This cartoon was released in 1933. It's kind of the story of Snow White with Betty Boop playing the titular role. The short was released in theaters 4 years before Disney's Snow White. Based on the early concept art for Snow White, Betty Boop may have influenced Disney's initial designs for the film.

"St. James Infirmary Blues" 

The two Betty Boop Cartoons I have rewatched the most are Snow White and Minnie the Moocher. This is for one reason. Cab Calloway! His singing in these cartoons bring them to a higher echelon.

Cab Calloway was a Jazz singer and band leader who became popular in the 1930s and continued performing until the mid-90s. He was extremely popular and influential. He was a trail blazer. He could sing and he could dance.

The song "St. James Infirmary Blues" was kind of a cover. It's a song with legends and speculation explaining its origin. Many artists have recorded the song or a variation of it. The song tells the story of a dying gambler. An alternative title for the song was "Gambler's Blues".

Beyond the song, Cab Calloway provided his dance moves. Fleischer Studio created rotoscoping. They used rotoscoping on film of Calloway dancing to animate Koko the Clown's dancing in this cartoon. The man had smooth moves.

The Cartoon

The characters are animated in the rubberhose cartoon style with the added detail of Cab Calloway's dancing. The backgrounds of this cartoon deserve special attention. They feature beautifully rendered pale images of skeletons and monsters. The devastated expressions on Bimbo and Koko's suits of armor when they're ordered to behead Betty are great details.

Psychedelic Pink - The Pink Panther

Psychedelic Pink - Pink Panther

I did not grow up on Pink Panther. Maybe because Nickelodeon aired more Looney Tunes or maybe because I gravitated towards Looney Tunes. I only started watching the Pink Panther cartoons when they began airing them on Toon in with Me on MeTV. I first saw this cartoon when they first aired it on Toon in with Me.

The cartoon often features a subdued laugh track that was commonly added for television in the 60s. I grew up on Scooby-Doo and sitcoms so that doesn't bother me but others might find it bothersome. The Pink Panther YouTube channel features both the laugh track free version and the version with canned laughter. The Psychedelic Pink featured in one of the compilations has no laugh track. The stand alone short has a laugh track. The short works better without the laugh track. 

I think this is one of the best because the distorted reality of the Pink Panther is further distorted by psychedelia.

Plot

The Pink Panther gets hypnotized to enter the Bizarre Book Shop. There he gets recommended a saucy book by the Little Man. Then the usual Pink Panther hijinks ensue until the twist ending.

The Writer

Jim Ryan wrote this short. He wrote for many projects through out his career including Pink Panther cartoons and the Scooby-Doo franchise. He wrote Scooby-Doo and the Reluctant Werewolf and Scooby-Doo Meets the Boo Brothers.

The Director

Hawley Pratt was the co-creator of the Pink Panther. If you like Looney Tunes or Pink Panther cartoons, you have probably seen the work of Pratt. He worked with Friz Freleng at Warner Bros Studios and later at the DePatie-Freleng Enterprises.

Aesthetics

The cartoon drew inspiration from the psychedelic art movement. The style reflects the the colors, the lettering and patterns scene in the art style. If this style speaks to you, I would point you towards the work of artists like Gary Grimshaw, Wes Wilson and Bonnie McClean. 

The events of the story also embrace the title. The plot moves along like free association. Out of the way things happen but nothing feels out of place. The fact that the book the panther is trying to read is a dirty book is really funny.

Noodle the Animated Cat

Noodle and Bun (and Bean)

Noodle and Bun are TikTok and YouTube channels where animated shorts featuring Noodle the cat, Bean the dog, Bun the mouse and other animals.

I was introduced to Noodle by my nephew. I saw him watching this cat with the weirdest body shape and oddest movements and I got curious. At first I found the jiggly and unnatural movement a little off putting but I fell under the sway of this quirky cat's charms. 

The series lacks definitive episode titles, an episode guide and official premiere dates. That's not uncommon in contemporary internet series but it does make it a little tricky to talk about specific episodes when there are no common episode numbers, dates or titles to refer to.

My Favorite Character

I am a cat person. But Bean is my favorite character. I love the jelly bean design of that little dog. I love the look his face makes when he's upset. I love the way his mouth drops open. I love the sounds he makes. Every time I see that dog he makes me smile.

The Heart of the Shorts

My favorite short is called "What's Wrong with this Dog?" on YouTube. In the short, Bean is sick and Noodle is trying to nurse him back to health. The short is sweet and full of great visual gags.

The Baby Versions

I am very partial towards baby versions of cartoon, puppet and cartoon puppet characters like the Scooby gang in A Pup Named Scooby Doo, baby Toony Tuna from Toon in with Me and the Muppet Babies. One Christmas special sees Noodle get trapped outside and instantly flashback to being an abandoned kitten in a box. Another Christmas special features the dog, Bean, struggling to prepare the perfect Christmas. When Bean thinks he hasn't received a gift, he remembers the loneliness and abandonment of his puppyhood. They are sad circumstances for the introduction to even cuter versions of the main characters.

Sculptures

I tend to make little sculptures. It's my natural inclination to work in a small scale. Maybe it's because I've always loved miniatures. 

This was my second attempt at a Noodle sculpture. I gave up on the first one after I hated the way my attempt a wire armature came out. 

I used a mix of Cosclay, Sculpey and Arteza based on the color I needed. To create Noodle, I sculpted a tinfoil armature and slowly added Cosclay till I was happy with the silhouette. The eyes, ears, mouth and nose were little pieces of clay added to that. The most important thing I've ever learned about polymer clay is that you can bake it multiple times. After creating a Noodle that I was happy with, I moved on to Bean, baby Noodle, baby Bean, Bun and the Daffy looking duck. I used a piece of wire for Bun's tail and a little paint for details but the sculptures are predominately clay and aluminum foil. They have joined the menagerie of Toon in with Me and Sventoonie figures I made.

Watching every Simon's Cat Short on YouTube - Toonstalgia

Simon's Cat

The short of it is if you like Mutts, Garfield, Noodle Cat or are a cat person then this is probably for you. Simon's cat is one of the best channels on YouTube. It's a cartoon series created by Simon Tofield including shorts and a few longer projects.

How I Found Simon's Cat (I don't remember)

I develop amnesia when it comes to how I discovered YouTube channels. Did someone recommend it to me? Did I look up cartoons? Was it mentioned in another video? I haven't a clue. YouTube is one relentless blur of film and television clips, music videos and whatever other random stuff I fill my brain with on a regular basis. The best I can figure is sometime after 2008, when Simon's Cat premiered on YouTube, I watched it for the first time. As a cat person who grew up on comic strips about cats, I was very happy to find the series.

My Thoughts

I decided to binge the Simon's Cat shorts playlist. With each video averaging about 2 minutes, the playlist still promised to entertain me for a while with the playlist currently being 118 videos long.

Simon's Cat sits in my brain in the same place as Peanuts, Mutts, Calvin and Hobbes and other class comic strips. The art is simple, black and white (aside from a few color specials) and iconic character to tell brief stories. Traditional newspaper comic strips are printed in black and white, except on Sundays when they are printed in color and some comics publish their comics on the internet in color. Though some comics (like Garfield and Pearls Before Swine) publish color versions of their black and white comics on the internet. The storytelling is funny with simple events.  

The aesthetic of the character designs are cute with little ball eyes that remind me of Muppet monsters in the best way. Maybe it's a cat person, maybe it's not but the titular cat is adorable while begging for food or causing general chaos. Simon's Cat even includes a spider that this arachnophobe finds a bit cute. 

The characters draw the eye even when the surrounding scene is more detailed. This is impressive to me because the style of the art is all line art with minimal line thickness variation. It could become mixed up and look messy but it doesn't. The characters stand out.

The main difference between Simon's Cat and the other classic examples like Mutts and Garfield is Simons' Cat doesn't talk. The cartoon Simon barely talks. It's not the first cat character who couldn't communicate in English with either the other characters or the audience but it is a well done version. Simon's Cat communicates as expertly as my cat when she sits by my desk, fixes me with a stare and meows until I get up and refill her food bowl.

Scooby-Doo (2002) - Film Fixation

Scooby-Doo (2002) Not a Review

I am incapable of giving this movie a review that isn't colored by nostalgia for both Scooby, the actors and the movie itself. I saw it in the theater and bought the soundtrack soon after. 

The advertising campaign featured a bait and switch trailer that pretended to be a Batman movie trailer before revealing Scooby. It confused me at the time because I knew there wasn't a Batman movie coming out. When the movie was out, I was deeply disappointed at the line of toys. They didn't have enough and I wanted them to make figures that looked like the actors in the film. 

To me, Matthew Lillard was the biggest star in the film. Between Hackers and Scream, I had known his name for years. I'm so happy he's continued as the voice of Shaggy. He nailed the role. He brought the heart it needed. He is my favorite part of this movie.

Freddie Prinze Jr was the star of She's All That and I Know What You Did Last Summer and the sequel. This is my favorite role of his. But those movies were huge. He doesn't get enough credit. I think he's a charming actor. 

I did not recognize Linda Cardellini when I first saw the film. I didn't know her but I knew her characters like her turn as Chutney in Legally Blonde. I had see her in multiple films and television shows before her turn as Velma. She's a really good actress who embodies Velma.

Sarah Michelle Gellar was Buffy. I didn't find what they did with Daphne's character too interesting. It was fine. I liked Sarah Michelle Gellar in the movie. But Sarah Michelle Gellar was already Buffy and the addition of the fight scenes made it feel a little like Buffy with dyed hair.

The production design is a close second to Matthew Lillard's turn as Shaggy. Spooky island is filled with details like concession booths in the background of their arrival to Spooky Island. The locations and props are fantastic.

Sugar Ray attacking Shaggy and Scooby as monsters was really fun to see.  The film might have missed a trick by not using them to reference the classic "The New Scooby-Doo Movies" that featured a celebrity cameo in each episode.

The movie does a good job of adapting Scooby-Doo to the big screen and bringing in original ideas.

Many people criticize for a variety of reasons specific to them. My big issue with this film is the computer graphics. CG Scooby I'm okay with because they translated an animated character to an animated character. Matthew Lillard helps bring that character to life through his performance as Shaggy. But details like the background theme park would be more visually compelling if they had the physical reality of models but that's just my opinion on the matter.

Spoiler for a 20 year old film

If you know this movie, you probably know the identity of the man behind the mask. It was Scrappy all along. I don't hate Scrappy-Doo. I have seen every episode of every show with him. He was not the problem. The writing was the problem. Particularly the Scooby and Scrappy shorts where they just did things. They did random things.

I feel for the writers in that situation because they were trying something different and new. It didn't always work but they tried and it kept the show going. We probably wouldn't have this film if not for Scrappy-Doo. 

The only character from the Scooby-Doo franchise that has my deep and unending hatred is Deputy Dusty. I hate him. I curse his creation. He was the worst.