065 Mass Mouse Meeting

Title: Mass Mouse Meeting
Studio: Columbia
Date: 06/25/43
Credits:
Produced by Dave Fleischer
Direction
Alec Geiss
Story
Dun Roman
Animation
Chick Otterstrom
Music
Paul Worth
Series: Phantasy
Running time (of viewed version): 6:17
Commercial DVD Availability: -

Synopsis: Belling the cat is easy, but so is belling the mice.

















Comments: The credits read like someone made them up. Two Columbia's in a row (based on current numbering) with text openings. Plus shadows in this one. Lots of cigars in Columbia cartoons. Cat feels like it doesn't have a nose, tho it does. Odd look on the Hollywood style collar. Wow, those tears are just drip drip drip. The cat wants a key to a combo padlock. It just kinda ends, with no resolution, not much building, etc.

This cartoon marks the 50% point, at least for the theatrical cartoons on the existing list. I haven't actually run the numbers including the propaganda shorts; the WB government shorts seem weighted late in the year, but the Disney government shorts may be weighted earlier in the year.

BoxOffice June 19, 1943

BoxOffice June 19, 1943

Almost no hits on the text. This doesn't make sense. Well, the previous issue provides

(about a third)
"Thirteen musical two-reels featuring the nation's top-flight bands. Six color Classics, first of which will be "Diver "Vs. Devilfish," based on a story appearing in Life. Sixteen technicolor Cartunes produced by Walter Lantz and featuring Swing Symphonies. Woody Woodpecker, Andy"

064 Tree For Two

Title: Tree For Two
Studio: Columbia
Date: 06/21/43 (BoxOffice says 7/16, and this should probably be redated to that, but not right now)
Credits: -
Series: Fox and Crow / Color Rhapsody
Running time (of viewed version): 7:00
Commercial DVD Availability: -

Synopsis: Fox is a tree surgeon; Crow does not appreciate this.
















Comments: There's a loveliness to the backgrounds and the designs of these Fox and Crow cartoons, but there's something about it that glances off my deep appreciation. It may be the audio with its loud garish cheap carnival tenor, may be the structure. It may be the lack of likable characters. Awesome closeup of the Crow's foot. War reference in that the tree is classified 4F. The timing on the animation gags seems suboptimal. It's certainly not the kind of timing the dominant studios used. I'm not certain it's objectively worse; it may just be that I've become attenuated to other types of timing. On the other hand, it may actually be objectively worse timing (to the extent that is possible for human aesthetic reactions).

063 Aristo Cat

1943 Number: 063
Title: The Aristo-Cat
Studio: Warner Bros.
Date: 06/19/43
Credits: (None in the reissue, but this is a Chuck Jones cartoon, and there's an animaiton credit for Rudy Larriva for this, I see at the BCDB, and backgrounds by John McGrew, according to the Greg Ford commentary)
Series: Merrie Melodies (on a Blue Ribbon reissue)
Running time (of viewed version): 7:17
Commercial DVD Availability: LTGCv4d4 , Looney Tunes the Chuck Jones Collection Mouse [Blu-ray]

Synopsis: Cat alienates human caretaker, investigates the natural order.





















Comments: Human legs opening. Tasty looking grapefruit. We lose the "humans don't have heads or faces" thing tho (in a pair of related shots; it hardly seems worth the joke to break that wall). Someone was in live with patterns. Cool shot of the staircase where the steps are only defined by the color differentiations on the side. Hubie and Bert are the mice. Nice finger toes on the cat. And then it was all a dream, like Newhart... There are two commentaries on the LTGC version, one with Eddie Fitzgerald, and one with Greg Ford and clips of Chuck Jones.

You can see Chuck Jones: Conversations p107+ talking about this in 1972 (appearing in Film Comment Jan/Feb 1975). Note the text differs from the audio clip, but seems likely to ultimately be the same source. Presumably the full transcripts were sent to Jones for editing for the article:
http://books.google.com/books?id=EEK8uMAFsM0C&pg=PA107&dq=%22the+aristo+cat%22+background+chuck+jones&hl=en&ei=JTl0TZWBJofQsAOqq-zGDg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CDIQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q&f=false

Amid Amidi's Cartoon Modern (p15-16, no thanks to Google Book's formatting; I had to look at the actual book for the numbers) also discusses this cartoon:
http://books.google.com/books?id=Aih6tQDk5fYC&pg=PT20&dq=%22the+aristo+cat%22+background+chuck+jones&hl=en&ei=JTl0TZWBJofQsAOqq-zGDg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=2&ved=0CDgQ6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q=%22the%20aristo%20cat%22%20background%20chuck%20jones&f=false