In 1933, Betty Boop was at the height of her cinematic fame. The Fleischer-animated shorts–racy, daffy, and wonderfully musical–were immensely popular. Audiences couldn’t get enough of sweet Betty and her crazy adventures, and the Fleischers continued to churn out one appealing cartoon after another. Over the course of her 1930s filmography, Betty Boop hosted any…
When I was given the chance to review Warner Archive’s new manufacture-on-demand release of Parachute Jumper (1933), I was so excited: it was a Bette Davis film that I had never seen. No more than ten minutes into the film, however, I realized why I had never heard of it before. The dialogue and plot is…
Hello, readers! It’s time for our monthly wrap-up/look at the upcoming weeks here at True Classics (albeit four days later than usual). So, getting down to business: We wrapped up our Tex Avery tribute earlier this week, and have chosen a winner for the Tex Avery “prize pack”: it’s Ivan from Thrilling Days of Yesteryear!…
Today we present to you a brief look at the 1947 one-off cartoon short King-Size Canary, an unrelenting bit of frenzied absurdity that may very well be Tex Avery’s masterpiece. King-Size Canary takes all of the typical Avery hallmarks and elevates them to the next insane level. Everything in the cartoon builds continuously, with one uproarious bit after…
“Hello, all you happy people. You know what? I’m the hero.” In the 1943 animated short Dumb-Hounded, Tex Avery debuted a new character, a laconic, quick-witted, slow-talking hound dog. Originally dubbed “Happy Hound” (though this is never explicitly mentioned onscreen), the dog spends the entire cartoon tracking down a wolf who has escaped from jail,…
The 1943 animated short Red Hot Riding Hood begins innocently enough: the insipid narration of an unseen storyteller introduces us to little Red, her sweet grandma, and the big, bad wolf who’s stalking her through the forest. But before the tale can get underway, the characters rebel. The Wolf, breaking the fourth wall, complains to…
When Tex Avery moved from Warner Bros. to MGM in 1941, he announced his arrival with a timely parody that not only took on current world events, but also outright challenged the predominant Walt Disney model of animation. Blitz Wolf, released on August 22, 1942, was not the first cartoon that Avery directed for his…
On July 27, 1940, an unassuming gray rabbit was born in Brooklyn. And from those humble beginnings, he would go on to become one of the most famous anthropomorphic animals to ever grace the silver screen, a legend on par with longtime rodent rival Mickey Mouse. Bane to clumsy hunters, diminutive mustachioed criminals, and greedily…
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