250 great animated short films
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| Donald's Tire Trouble (1943), directed by Dick Lundy. |
This is the ninth of 21 essays inspired by a list of 250 great animated short films, composed in August 2012 by Scott Bussey, Jorge Didaco, Waldemar Hepstein, Bill Kamberger, Robert Reynolds, Sulo Vatanen, and Lee Price, with additional assistance from participants on the IMDb Classic Film message board.
My fellow panelist Waldemar Hepstein sent me two short
pieces: one on a classic Donald Duck short, Donald’s
Tire Trouble (1943), and one on a Porky Pig favorite, Kitty Kornered (1946). They seem to go together nicely and so I decided
to round them out with a short piece on one of my favorites, Gertie the Dinosaur (1914) to comprise an entry
on the art of animating character and personality.
Donald’s Tire Trouble
(1943): Disney was known for respecting
and emulating the old live-action comedy greats in his cartoons, and he
encouraged his animators to do likewise. This film is a kind of animated cousin
to Chaplin’s One A.M. (1916) in that
both are essentially one man shows — rather unusual in either animation or live
action. (The Goofy ”How to” series is another kettle of fish.) Of course, both
the Tramp and the Duck must have their adversaries for comical conflict, but
here their antagonists are inanimate objects.
Donald’s Tire Trouble
was one of a mere handful of shorts that Dick Lundy directed for Disney following a ten-year
period as animator. In fact, Lundy is sometimes credited as being the creator
of Donald Duck, which might seem something of an overstatement as there were
several pivotal talents at hand in developing the Duck’s personality (Jack
Hannah and Carl Barks are other names that come to mind, and we shouldn’t
forget the original voice, Clarence Nash).
There’s no doubt, however, that Lundy was one of the most
important Duck developers, being in on the screen legend’s image from the very
beginning. For this reason, as well as the quality of Lundy’s work both as
animator and director, his relative obscurity even among cartoon buffs is both
sad and mysterious. In a letter to an animation historian, Lundy described his
modus operandi:
When
I was animating at Disney’s I was considered a personality animator. I always
tried to give the personality a comedy twist, with a gesture, a body action or
a twist of the mouth or head. When I animated dances I tried to put in the same
thing. Now with a funny personality leading up to a physical gag which was
funny (usually the way a character reacted) you usually ended up with something
twice as funny.
Which is a perfect description of Donald’s Tire Trouble.
Waldemar Hepstein
Support
the artists and the art of the animated short film! Donald’s Tire Trouble is available for purchase on Walt Disney Treasures – The Chronological Donald, Vol 2.
Kitty Kornered
(1946): Made in the year that director Bob
Clampett ended his long tenure at Warner Bros., Kitty Kornered, while being as wild and Looney as any Tune, has an
easy-going feel to it. It’s almost as if Clampett felt he didn’t have anything
to prove anymore and could just have a ball with his inspired brand of Loonacy.
In the process, he introduced a new character, Sylvester the Cat, later to
become the special property of Friz Freleng and the team mate of Tweety.
The plot, such as it is, consists of a very familiar standby
of the classic Hollywood cartoons: The hero has his home invaded by pesky
animals and must do battle with them — in this case, it’s Porky Pig against some
nasty cats who just won’t take no for an answer. Throughout the film, speed and
silliness are the main watchwords.
At the finish, when the film has about a minute and a half
left of its running time, Clampett pulls a couple of nice tricks out of his
sleeve. The cats fake a Wellesian “Martian invasion” broadcast in a failed
attempt to scare Porky out of his house. As he turns in for the night, at first he takes no notice
that there are three Martians in bed with him, even after they fondly kiss him
good night. (Somebody somewhere must surely have written a doctoral
dissertation on all the kissing that goes on in the Looney Tunes!) It’s Porky’s
delayed reaction that provides the standout moment, a frenzied split-second
head-turning and eye-bulging — on a par with, though quite different from, the
famous reaction shots from Clampett’s colleague Tex Avery.
Apparently, in modern TV screenings of this cartoon, not
only have scenes of the cats smoking and drinking been censored out, but so
have the establishing shots of the cats being kicked out of various homes.
Waldemar Hepstein
Gertie the Dinosaur
(1914): While the medium of film was
still primitive in 1914, the artistry of Winsor McCay was anything but
primitive. A newspaper cartoonist of
peerless skill, McCay threw himself into the new medium of film animation with tireless
energy. A handful of animators had tackled the new craft before him, but McCay was
the first to create animated characters who appeared to take up real space, breathe
on screen, and display coherent and individualized personalities.
In addition to being a nationally famous cartoonist, McCay
established himself as a vaudeville star in the early 1900s. He drew rapid
sketches for adoring vaudeville audiences, amazing the crowds with his lightning-fast
skills. Gertie the Dinosaur is a vaudeville performer, too. She bashfully enters the frame as if onto a stage, coquettishly
playing to the audience. Her self-confident
walk as she strides to the foreground (the equivalent of the stage edge)
practically flirts with the audience. From
outside the frame, McCay issues commands and Gertie either chooses to obey or
follows her own whims. When McCay
reprimands her, she cries. She’s
part-toddler, part-puppy, and fully dinosaur.
McCay conceived of Gertie
the Dinosaur as a film to accompany his vaudeville act, with McCay
interacting with the dinosaur on the screen.
For these first vaudeville showings, there would have been no intertitles — McCay
would have issued his commands from the stage.
When the film went into wider release, a live-action prologue and
epilogue were added, along with the intertitles to the cartoon portion.
Maybe Gertie could have moved on to cartoon fame on
the order of crowd-pleasing personalities like Felix, Mickey, and Bugs. McCay planned a sequel called Gertie on Tour in 1921 and filmed some
of it, but there’s no record of any formal release. A tantalizing fragment remains. McCay gave up filmmaking that same year. He was a solo artist working in a medium that
was quickly moving in the direction of factory production. Over time, artists would learn how to work effectively
within this new production system, but it wasn’t for McCay. He was strictly a “one-man, one film”
auteur. Consequently, his films are
one-of-a-kind achievements — masterpieces in a primitive medium.
Support
the artists and the art of the animated short film! Gertie the Dinosaur is available for purchase on Winsor McCay – The Master Edition.
© 2012 Lee Price
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