Michael Sporn Animation – Splog

– Last night’s Yankee game found the team that couldn’t hit mediocre pitching had returned to the Bronx, so the game was a bit dull. Since I had gone to a screening on Thursday to see the new Nancy Drew film – a perfectly non-existent entity that tries to be retro, tries to be au courant and ends up being nothing but an attraction for 12 year old girls who probably won’t flock to the theater to see it – I had to keep switching over to TCM to see the series of Nancy Drew films done in the 40′s. They were “B” films that didn’t try to be much and probably ended up being a bit better than the current “A” film that isn’t much.

However, the features hadn’t yet started on TCM, and they were filling the airtime with a Barney Bear short, The Flying Bear. I came into it just after it had started, hadn’t seen it in at least 20 years, so was thoroughly charmed by the remainder of the short.

I was always a fan of the Ising cartoons, and Barney Bear is probably the closest he came to a running character. The films he made were filled with high production values, excellent animation, artwork and layout. The music of Scott Bradley was probably at its zenith, and the color was just gorgeous.

I didn’t like the films once they slipped into the hands of George Gordon, and really didn’t like them when Michael Lah, Preston Blair and Dick Lundy were in control. That group tried to incorporate Tex Avery into Ising‘s personality, and it just didn’t work.

Anyway, watching this MGM short had me thinking about a couple of other sites I’d visited this week.
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Kevin Langley‘s Goober Sleave has been featuring the MGM shorts for quite some time. He posted a number of model sheets of Barney Bear and it seemed appropriate that I should run into one of the shorts after having just looked at these model sheets again.

Watching the fine character animation of the plane in The Flying Bear had me thinking about other MGM shorts and the house style in the late 30′s – early 40′s and how much I enjoyed those. I’d thought about it a bit earlier in the week when I came upon Thad Komorowski‘s excellent post about the rampant racism in Tom & Jerry cartoons.

I’d seen only one or two T&J shorts at the Museum of Modern Art prior to their appearance on syndicated television back in the late 60′s. When they’d first arrived on TV some of the racist images were eliminated but enough stayed to be annoying. More irritating to me however was the violence in these shorts. Somehow, when T&J cut each other with knives and forks and any other possible sharp object, they HURT each other. It wasn’t like the violence in the Avery shorts or the WB shorts; Tom & Jerry really hurt. I remember vividly watching one of the shorts where they’re running down a well dressed table full of turkey etc., and Tom is cut with a knife. The audience at MOMA didn’t laugh; they gasped.
The scene wasn’t funny; it was vicious.

I always had to love the exquisite artwork, animation, BG’s etc. from these films, but Hanna & Barbera’s direction was not for me. I hated their work at MGM. I don’t think I can say that about any others working back then. There were a lot of bad films, but none that I thought so completely insensitive to violence, racism, or anything funny. Perhaps it’s just me, but I don’t think so.

As Thad points out on his site, the racism in these films can’t be excused for the time or place thing that might excuse racist images in Bob Clampett‘s shorts or Tex Avery‘s or even Song of the South. Hanna and Barbera were mean; at least that’s what I perceived from their body of work at MGM.

When the old Nancy Drew came on, it was about as dull as the new one, but the period “B” movie feel brought something positive to the experience. The Yankees lost, as was expected, but the Barney Bear short lingered.

Another site worth reading is the ever excellent Mark Mayerson. His series, Six Authors In Search of a Character is enormously bright and thought provoking. He’s up to part 9, and I rush daily for more.

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