Rating: 5/7

A retread of Dan McGoo, the action's less loaded and inspired. It mainly amounts to a lengthy chase with tons of bizarre interruptions. The posse shaking forward while their horses do 3500 rpm is a rush. The wolf hogs even more of the spotlight and is in practically every scene, though oddly enough he's given less opportunity to behave like a horny bastard or do anything really callous. He mostly relies on funny motions, like sticking his head out from behind a rock backed by a twirling flute along with his horse, also a funny character in his own right.

The chase itself has a lot of cool moments - Sliding down the cliff, crossing the railroad tracks where a train comes out of nowhere, picking up the road and moving it over to the abyss, not to mention how it begins like a horse race. Droopy shows up, looks pitiful, apathetically aids the wolf in entering and exiting the bar, yet shows up at the worst moments to irritate and whack the wolf. Characterization was never Avery's strong suit, so instead of Droopy throwing a fit of happiness at the end, he does something as bad as the wolf. Oh well, we love him for it anyway.

The bar scenes have the wolf shooting at everyone which lives up to The Shooting a bit, especially these guys shrinking, leaping up and running for their lives. The Red scene, though, just has her prancing for a bit while the wolf's eyes roll on the table. She's worth looking at for the near-realistic movement of her torso and legs.

Rating: 4/7

Would anyone like to drive me insane? Then explain to me why this is your favorite cartoon. There are a couple of gags I laugh at, which I'll save for dessert after discussing the rest. It's even more boring than the forest cartoons where some dog is chasing the squirrel. Maybe because pairing a Lenny-esque dog against Screwy, a complete anarchist who doesn't let a little thing like reality stand in his way, is like pairing the North Pole with the South Pole. Sure they're on opposite ends, but at the end of the day they're both made of ice.

The other dogs may have been dumb but they reacted to Screwy's hijinx, while this dog is too passive to let anything but ignorance be his motive for chasing Screwy, making all the assaults and outwits redundant, and these don't even rank among Tex Avery's Most Twisted. The dog's head shrinks, the dog goes down the drain and out the shower head, the dog loses all his fur, the dog reaches under and grabs the squirrel from 2 miles away... It all just makes me yawn.

On the outskirts, the petstore owner in the dog house, the cameo by the wolf in a mini-reenactment of RHRH, and Screwy's first scene acting his usual inane self make the fatty middle more digestable. The best gags really have nothing to do with the characters or even the plot - Screwy lifts the door like a Venetian blind, easily the most twisted gag in here though you can find more of 'em in Slap Happy Lion. The centerpiece though, is the hallway scene with tons of animals running out the doorways. It's so ridiculous to see elephants roaring while three Screwys run in the background that, well, it's ridiculous. Plus I like the screen shaking when Lenny crumples Screwy.

This is one of Avery's least effective cartoons, and if not for the few good moments this could all go to Bill Hendricks Niffleheim.

Rating: 5/7

First time I saw this, it bored me. Now I think of it as a Clampett cartoon with hyperactive timing 'cuz the gags are realistic (relatively speaking, that is) and mostly pay off in character reactions rather than visuals.

If you thinks hillbillies are funny, Lance's, "Welp, heeere I am!" will leave you in stitches, and so will the many inopportune moments of his face getting punched that sounds like sheet metal. There's good, speedy, swirly animation of him dancing and the black-suited rooster's skunk-like stance when he spots Daisy is a refreshing change of pace from stiffening. Oh yes, and it cracks me up when Lance is distracted from Daisy with corn.

It's not true that there are no twisted visual gags in here - They're just incidental instead of treadmilling. Like the black rooster jumping in Lance (!) and the bull losing his fur three times.

Rating: 7/7

Very sequelish to Dumb Hounded, and almost a complete clone, except…not. Technically not a single gag from the previous outing has been reused, but the skeleton of those gags, that’s a different matter. The major theme of Droopy haunting the wolf as he runs every which way has been resurrected; this time it consumes all the focus. There’s little variety in the gags and only the bookend gags deviate from the formula, both of which (the wolf escaping and at the end, questioning how Droopy could have followed him everywhere, which gets an answer this time) are rather predictable. The rest of the gags, which I’ll get to in a minute, aren’t.

Droopy’s characterization was handled better in his debut. Once again, he’s set-up as a pathetic wimp who succeeds despite all odds. The tinge of mystique is still there, but Droopy was able to be sarcastic and creepy at once, here he’s more sarcastic than creepy. Maybe I’m nitpicking, but last time he evoked an aesthetic that isn’t here. And his voice is whinier. Whether this has anything to do with Avery substituting for Bill Thompson I don’t know, but Droopy’s voice was deeper and richer in Dumb Hounded. If you watch one of the two ten times in a row and watch the other one, the altered voice will take some getting used to.

So aside from the masterful positioning of signs in the background that inform the wolf he’s being hounded, every gag is the wolf reacting to Droopy’s presence. Each one consist of four main ingredients: The ridiculous lengths the wolf will go to get away from Droopy, Droopy’s greeting, the wolf’s reaction, and the little twists and turns in the wolf’s movement as he reacts. Even though I did nitpick in the last paragraph about Droopy, I can’t interpret this as anything other than the Holy Bible on how to do cartoons. Nothing here is wrong and everything is right.

Some of the wolf’s reactions aren’t as outlandish as one would expect. The first time he sees Droopy waiting for him, I expected his mouth to get very wide and his eyes to bulge out. Well, we do get that stuff, but not the first time. Instead the wolf’s jaw drops to the floor. Until you notice that big jaw betrays such a pathetic facial expression, it might seem underwhelming at first. But the reaction shot turns out to be funny enough, and it does a fine job of introducing the routine, as the screen scrolls right over to Droopy who taunts the wolf with, “Hello Joe”.

From here on out it’s all a frenetic mix of the wolf’s crazy attempts to get away from Droopy. Instead of one big chase scene with ever-present Droopy showing up as the payoff, there’re a bunch of little chase scenes, each one machine gunned out after the last, and it never lets up. Each situation is more bizarre than the last and everything just flows together so well. And except for one gag that was recycled from Dumbhounded, which you can see for yourself, the rest are brand-spanking-new.

As repetitive as the premise could have been, it never grows stale because the components in every gag are mixed and matched so as to change the shape of the puzzle pieces. You’ll be on edge just wondering where the wolf will go next, and he goes into some pretty unlikely places. Droopy’s taunts are just damn funny; sometimes he doesn’t have to say anything at all. When the wolf goes under water or to the plastic surgeon, the poodle’s presence is taunt enough. Just watch the darn thing and let the waves rush over you.

Even though I said the end gag is rather predictable, don’t think I’m putting it down. It’s only predictable because every piece of art riding Tex’s coattails has ripped it off. If you’d only ignore the fact that you’re expecting it well in advance, it’s actually funny.

Rating: 5/7

Does anybody mind if I review these three “George and Jr.” cartoons together? It would make my life easier. They’re hardly different from one another (more similar, in fact, than the Screwy cartoons) and any differences in quality are too trifle to notice.

This trilogy is Avery’s full-blown take on Of Mice and Men. George and Jr. establish their goal, devote the whole cartoon to achieving it, and well, fail (except in Red Hot Rangers, and even then at a terrible cost). Each and every failing is due to Junior’s inability to learn anything, yet he’s eagerly willing to carry out George’s instructions (often making George the victim of a trap meant for something else). George’s voice and speech-pattern completes the picture.

Not all the gags are amazing, but the way they’re handled is. Be it Junior’s stupidity, George’s practicality and anger, an insane physical feat, or George’s ridiculous schemes to accomplish their goals, every gag has something to offer. The cycle never becomes as repetitive as it often threatens due to the variety. Like when Junior willingly submits to the punishment for fouling up in advance and is kicked off-frame (you don’t even have to see George to know the expression on his face by this point). Heck, they even pull a role reversal in Hound Hunters when Junior comes up with the scheme and George fouls it up because he couldn’t resist the bait (except he’s still the one caught in the trap).

Not all the gags are like this of course – We have the double take of Junior running through the vast scenery in Forest Rangers synchronized with the silly fast music that predicts the similar gag in Robin Hoek (and there was me thinking John K. should never try to emulate Avery), the hilarious death of the flame guy, the businessman throwing his cigarette in the forest, cut-a-ways to the angry rooster marching back to the farm from the North Pole, another WB-era pastiche, Junior and George’s foiled disguise schemes where they end up kissing each other and even get to play around with a bulldog’s severed dentures, a touching Oedipal complex when Junior gets too into his role as the Chicken’s adopted son, aaaaand a bunch of other stuff. The amazing thing is how consistent all three of these cartoons are – they never become boring and not one of them overshadows the others. And of all the cartoons I’ve seen utilizing the Mice and Men personality, this is the only one that does it right – they’re used as the basis for the gags, not as a substitute.

Rating: 6/7

Uncle Tom's flashback pits him against Simon Legree who literally owns the whole town, except for Uncle Tom's cabin. It's not really a rewrite of Uncle Tom's Bungalow though it has my least favorite Red scene. While it's not much fun watching a crooked-nosed human in place of the wolf, at least he does some pretty bizarre things like eating his own arms up to the elbows (so it looks like he's about to turn inside out) and mixing up the celery and salt shaker. Red busts out waving her arms and spinning her dress around, giving the scene more life, but I could do without the nostalgic singing for the era of slavery (and anyway the slow music sucks, and even the faster music isn't any great shakes).

The real fun comes from Legree's excessive lifestyle of rolling in dough and Uncle Tom's exaggerations of superhuman feats. Tom's narration snappily conjures up many crazy gags like the blood hounds and spastastic animations like Legree's stiff run stomping on hollow wood floor. Towards the end Tom's narration becomes even more disjointed and some of the funniest footage ensues as he rapidly cuts from one setting and crazy trap to another. (This is a lot like the ending of Scarlet Pumpernickel by Chuck Jones which is also great and Prehistoric Stimpy by Bob Camp which sucks).

Tom's skeptical nephew is nice touch.

Rating: 5/7

This may hold the record for the most gags in a Tex Avery cartoon, perhaps, but for all the gags that are in here you get a nice variety – wild double takes, altered shapes, nonsensical motions, cleverly concealed visuals that are totally outlandish, lady screams, predictable irony, inane repetition, two unrelated things combined to look as natural as a lion cowering on one tip-toe and pulling his dress up, and enough sadism to fill eight Tom and Jerry cartoons.

If you can get over the fact that Tex didn’t have a high artistic vision for this one like he had with Bad Luck Blackie or King-Sized Canary, it’s quite enjoyable. Even when you don’t laugh, just let yourself be mesmerized by the endless stream of wild cuts and gags. I gotta dig the set-up: The lion is king of the jungle, yet he’s scared of a mouse, and who can say why. Even when he attempts to intimidate the mouse the little rodent is still cool and confident enough to give the jungle cat a fright (hey! That’s what he’s afraid of! Confidence! If that gorilla didn’t recoil after the lion roared at him for the second time, the lion might have been driven slap-happy by a primate). That’s what makes the gags funny.

And instead of the characters participating or initiating the gags, it’s like they’re running on screen in a relay race. Every time the lion turns around the mouse is there to antagonize him by lighting his tale on fire or biting it into a disfigured shape or playing his ribcage like a xylophone or running behind his eyes or just showing up in the most unlikely of situations when the lion tries to get away from him. Every resulting visual is complete bliss.

Just take a look at the classic “pathetic cartoon character waving at you before dying” scene. The lion’s skeleton still waves at you after being blown up, and the skin falls right back on him, making him whole again (his face falls back like a mask at the last split second). Did this inspire A Friend In Your Face? I get the feeling this is the kind of gag Bob Camp wanted to do when he blew-up Ren into an ugly spinal-cord thing. Other great things include the many shapes the lion takes as he roars at the jungle denizens, and the outrageous things they do to escape.

The only real thing wrong with this cartoon is that it seems Tex used every spare idea floating at the surface of his brain instead of reaching deep in the well of inspiration.

Rating: 6/7

This succeeds where Bad Luck Blackie failed – it isn’t so immaculately crafted that I could watch it forwards and backwards and every minute would be cartoon bliss, but the premise is genius and every second is worked out with careful attention to detail.

It isn’t so much the gags and story that make the cartoon a classic as it is the handling – It’s little nuances in the timing, like the pauses and small motions the characters make, that really make the cartoon work. Like when the dog gets fed sleeping pills. It’s just hilarious that the cat could hold his hand out, suspend him in mid-air long enough, put the pills in, and wait for the dog to doze off before floating gently to the ground. The sudden cut from the side-view to the front-view where the cat climbs in the window adds to the effect.

The absurdity of the main plot doesn’t hurt. The old cat and mouse, dog and mouse, cat and bird chase has been varied by making the characters larger than life, and the opportunity is fully exploited. At least, I can’t think of anything that could make it better, and none of the gags fall short like in BLB. To learn just how dumb the cat is, check out his “brainstorm”, one of Avery’s best visual puns ever. The canary even grows to look just like he envisions it. That’s funny.

The chase scenes rule as well. Large household pets’ running through big suburban and urban scenes is a captivating visual effect. The cat and mouse running through the mountains, deserts, and dams is one of my favorite moments here. Their running and hopping animation is so well-chosen and just looks great playing off the stiff scenery.

There’s nothing else I can really say. BLB left much to discuss, but it would be pointless to continue writing about KSC. If the thought of giant cats and dogs and mice running across the face of the earth doesn’t tickle your fancy, then what the heck does?

Rating: 6/7

The first Tex Avery cartoon, I think, that sacrifices gags in favor of the story. In other words, instead of laughing at the gags you should care about the characters. I have to admit the character development is really good. I even threw on an extra point for that. No one in here is wasted – the bulldog could easily have been used only as a home for the girl flea, but he gets a few scenes that display his personality (and gives us a few gags, of course). It’s also an interesting contrast that he tries to kill Homer the flea while the Goofy-esque dog lets him live on his back. Not that you can blame the bulldog – it’s amazing that the Goofy one never gets itchy.

This actually reminds me of Stimpy’s Big Day in that two friends are separated and one goes into a lifeless slump without his buddy. If John K. took inspiration from this cartoon it’s a case of him doing something worthwhile with Tex’s influence (SBD is the better cartoon of course, if only because Ren and Stimpy are better defined personalities).

There are gags in here though, and they’re pretty good. Like Homer’s lifestyle while living on his friend’s back – he can actually set up a campfire on there! I also like when the bulldog is embarrassed of losing his teeth and his nudity while taking a shower (uh, why is his only embarrassed of his nudity when showering?), and the flea victimizing him with flypaper also makes for a funny visual treat.

On the Goofy dog’s end, he’s treated to a strange display when searching for his friend in a guy’s beard – let’s just say that for once, Avery got that stupid “wrong cartoon” gag to work. Pay close to attention to his suicide gag as well, but not if you’re watching it on TV. That’s gotta be the most elaborate suicide gag I’ve seen. Well, it’s an attempted suicide gag. I do like it when he pants in happiness for his flea friend’s new found love – another nice bit of characterization.

I can see Avery fans being underwhelmed here but what the heck? Does every cartoon have to be a non-stop tightly-packed gag fest? The gags are really in support of the drama, but I think this change of direction was justified. My only is problems is that it’s too short – what’s with that cutting when the bulldog shoots the flea? They just leave out a bunch of details and jump straight to the end!

Rating: 5/7

Who knew Avery was such a sensitive soul? It’s so frustrating to watch the poor skunk lose out on all the action because of his B.O. I don’t’ really relish the thought of explaining the gags in here because everyone is funny enough without really capturing my imagination. The skunk makes a pass at somebody, or somebody makes a pass at the skunk, and every female is from a different species, each one performing some funny action when they smell the guy. My favorite is the really abrasive woman rabbit who dives in the hole and pilots it like a submarine.

There’s one really long gag in here – well really a lengthy build-up incorporating lots of little gags. The little gags themselves are great – all bunnies swooning over the skunk (singing like Sinatra). The contrasts are great and the puns are unpredictable (watch what the elderly rabbit does!). I’m not sure if the payoff really works as you can see it coming easily. The animation of the bunnies swarming over him is eye-candy, but… Still, the gags leading up to that point are very enjoyable. I love the scene transitions where the bunnies pop up to do little dances or “team-up” for masochistic displays of horniness. And then there’s the bunnies running across the frame going “Frank-eeee-eee-eee-eee-eee-eee…”

I don’t have anything else to say. What did you want, a 50-page thesis on a seven-minute cartoon?

Rating: 5/7

Some vintage Avery-isms are in here, but that opening gag where the bears miss out on something that should have rightfully been theirs is like something out of a Hanna-Barberra cartoon. Of course the spirit may be HB but the absurd scene of all the ducks lingering around the hunters (who aren’t allowed to hunt for another ten minutes) is pure Avery, as is the rapid animation of everyone flying away (and check out a similar cartoon directed by Dick Lundy during Avery’s vacation to see a duplicate idea without the proper handling). The scenario even reprises itself at the end, as if these guys spend 24/7 at the lake.

The cartoon eventually devotes itself to the bears chasing the duckling (and I actually like the duckling’s laugh, at least it distinguishes him from that Tom and Jerry duck who sounds like Donald Duck with a wrench piercing his waddayacallit). There’s more variety than in the Screwy cartoons. The bears, even though they never talk and look more Hanna-Barberra-like, go through some George-and-Junior-esque interaction in between attempts to catch the duck. This results in some funny gags where the small bear vindictively inflicts the same wound the big bear accidentally inflicts on him and so on.

The really, really good gags are the ones that poke fun at the actual film – stuff like that “Technicolor Ends Here” sign, beyond which lies a world of no color or music. Full advantage is taken of course, when the small dog gets run over and lies flat between the colorized and black-and-white areas. I can’t think of a good way to end this review, so I’ll just say I like how the chase cycles right back to the beginning. These bears live in a boat!

Rating: 4/7

Joe Adamson hated this cartoon (“It’s only purpose was to show us George and Junior are bears”, or something to that effect), and although I don’t share his antipathy, it is pretty lame, character-wise. The Of Mice and Men-esque interaction between George and Junior (who are re-designed by the way) is gone. Junior has been reduced to a generic dumb character guided by George’s sensibilities, but they hardly matter at all – they’re just gag foils.

What they do is go to the jungle to hunt pygmies, and what results is a lengthy chase with tons of strange visual gags along the way. The visuals are clever, of course, but there’s no story or character, and the picture comes off as flaccid and kind of pathetic. You should laugh at the visuals the first time you watch it; after that, it gets less funny.

The thing that strikes me most is how George and Junior spend most of their time blazing through the scenery in a stiff run cycle – like we’re looking at these visual gags in a gallery. The stiff, abrupt timing contributes to their hilarity (but also to their shallowness), such as the Porky in Wackyland rip-off octopus pointing at every direction (including at himself) when asked where the pygmy went (to the bears’ gratitude, naturally). More of the gags include outrageous physical twists on the anatomy of jungle animals – a giraffe and a hippo exchange neck lengths, those who leap inside a kangaroo pouch are teleported to another kangaroo pouch, a tiger cowers in fear when discovered in a cave (and cowers in the bear’s hat when he watches to see if they’re being chased), the pygmy radically expands his size to fool the hunters (and I like how they suddenly turn back and recognize him when he shrinks back to normal), and there’s even a suicide gag at the end, a rare thing for Avery.

I can’t help but think this was hacked-out, but it’s a high-quality hack-out. Since none of the gags are substantial at all so I have to give this a middle-of-the-road score, but prepare for a good laugh when this comes on The Tex Avery show.

Rating: 6/7

Just what I always wanted – A cartoon about misanthropy! Too bad it shares the same fate as Bad Luck Blackie - it’s a great cartoon that could have been a classic had the creativity been stretched further and some nuances patched up. For instance, I wish some of the gags illustrating why the cat hates people were a little better – When the lady chops the cat’s fur off with an axe, I’m sure it’s supposed to be funny that she stiffens for his reaction shot, but it just feels awkward to me. And considering the gag is unbelievable and very second-rate for Friz Freleng, let alone Tex Avery, it has no room for awkwardness. It’s just crass sadism – no physical antics, no suspension of disbelief, and no comedy. The shotgun-through-the-tail bit is a little better, but there are even better shotgun gags in other cartoons.

I couldn’t give this an 8 if I could moan like that about every gag – the rest of them range from space-filling to exceptional. I’m probably alone in this, but my favorite gag (at least of the early scenes) is what the toddler does to the cat – it’s a simple action, but that animation of him doing it, not to mention the camera backing away before he does it gets me rolling every time. So is the cat getting knocked off the fence – that expression on his face as he gallops left just puts the icing on a very simple but funny gag. Oh, and for a good mutilation, look to him getting clobbered while sharpening his claws – he gets a new surface sheen just before breaking!

The scene of him getting stepped on by people is well done – Not a laugh riot but very fun to watch. As is the sequence where he goes to the Moon – the TILT display may be weak as a gag, but again, it’s fun to watch. The best gags come on the moon, though. They’re not exactly a rip-off of Porky in Wackyland, though they borrow the same sort of surreal vibe (which to be fair, Bob Clampett also borrowed). Two animated objects which share a symbiotic relationship chase each other through the surface (usually with the intent to mutilate each other, like scissors chasing the paper or the lipstick chasing the lips or the pencil and pencil-sharpener), each one victimizing the cat. The bouncy, scattershot animation gives each object a life most animators wouldn’t have bothered to give it, and the timing is intensely abrupt in a way you’d have to see to believe. That helps the effectiveness when each gag is resolved by the cat pulling himself out of a jam only to become the victim of another jam.

You might say that pretty soon, his ordeal teaches him a valuable lesson about people and he sends himself back to earth using a De Ex Machina oh so typical for Avery. Overall, this had the skeleton of a classic, but only the muscle and skin of a typical “great” cartoon. The only thing more tragic than a pile of rubbish is something great that could have been better.