Ringing Out January: Classic Cartoons

It's on the nippy side today - even female squirrels are freezing their nuts off - and we at Way Too Damn Lazy To Write A Blog are pleased to not be residing in the even colder Midwestern United States. How can one warm up? Hot coffee, hotter cocoa and classic cartoons! Leading off: early talkie goodness from the Walter Lantz Studio and ace animator Bill Nolan.









High on the list of all-time favorites: those delightfully weird 6 minute gems from the Van Beuren studio.



We look forward to the next Blu-ray release of the Van Beuren cartoons, which are nearly as indescribably bizarre as the Fleischer studio's Talkartoons. Some entries from Van Beuren's Aesop's Fables, Tom And Jerry, The Little King, Amos N' Andy and Cubby Bear series must be seen to be believed and somehow manage to be simultaneously inept, saucy, hilarious and in very bad taste (even by early 1930's standards). A certain vivid and unfettered imagination often finds its way into these cartoons.











And then, inevitably, it's time for Krazy Kat and Scrappy cartoons, the former by the production crew headed by Manny Gould (yes, the same guy who contributed stellar animation to Bob Clampett and Robert McKimson cartoons at Warner Bros.) and Ben Harrison, the latter by Sid Marcus, Dick Huemer and Art Davis.









Do we at least give a tip of a top hat worn by Milt Gross to the animation greats who inhabited Termite Terrace? Of course, we do! Daffy Duck is always surefire, whether Tex Avery, Chuck Jones, Bob Clampett, Friz Freleng, Frank Tashlin, Art Davis, Robert McKimson or Norm McCabe directed.



We're big fans of Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies at Way Too Damn Lazy To Write A Blog!

Here's a hilarious 1939 Merrie Melodie in which voice artist par excellence Arthur Q. Bryan doesn't play Elmer Fudd. Tex Avery directed. Brilliant gags abound.

We are quite fond of the WB cartoons directed by the aforementioned Art Davis.

The timing and presentation in the Davis unit's Merrie Melodies and Looney Tunes is quirky, funny and just a tad different from what the McKimson, Freleng and Jones crews were coming up with in the late 1940's. Love the wonderfully way-out animation of Emery Hawkins!

Turns out the quite formidable Winter Storm Kenan (wonder how the excellent comedian and comic actor with that first name feels about this) is on its way to our area. So, on this frigid January 28, we say "keep calm, watch cartoons and stay safe, everybody."