FORGOTTEN FILMS: TEX AVERY SCREWBALL CLASSICS Vol 1 (1992) and others

Forgotten Films: Tex Avery Screwball Classics Vol 1 (1992) and others

This is the 55th in my series of Forgotten Obscure or Neglected Films

This week was a tough one for the Forgotten Films on my part. Initially I thought to do the Dr. Who 25th anniversary special Silver Nemesis which I got through Netflix. Three 25 minute episodes starring Sylvester McCoy as the Doctor with Windsor Castle, Jacobean actor/villains, Cybermen, jazz, neo Nazis, and skinheads. I fell asleep in each of the episodes, so I don’t think I want to write about that.

Then I saw a DVD on my shelf “The Wacky World of Tex Avery: Pompeii Pete in the 21st Century”. I had never heard of nor seen any of these. The opening theme song was food and then the cartoons happened. Boring, unfunny, filled with bad stereotypes and obviously not the work of Tex Avery. These appear to have been inspired by him. Don’t waste your time.

So I saw “Tex Avery Screwball Classics Vol I” on the shelf and thought that it had been a long, long time since I had seen these. So I plopped in the old VHS tape and spent an hour in heaven. I like Tex Avery. He compares favorably to the Warner Brothers group (of which he was a member for a while) and these are all fun.

The collection opens with “Swing Shift Cinderella” which features Red from “Red Hot Riding Hood” as Cinderella being pursued by the wolf. All the normal gags – exploding eyeballs, carpeting tongue, the door in the face, the mallet to the head – they are all here. Written by Heck Allen aka Henry Wilson Allen who wrote a large number of excellent western novels as Will Henry and Clay Fisher. He contributed to several of the cartoons here. “Swing Shift Cinderella” is one of the iconic Tex Avery cartoons and it gets things off with – well, a bang! Another favorite is “Magical Maestro” which bears a strong resemblance to a Bugs Bunny cartoon. You recall the one where Bugs and the tenor go at it while the tenor is performing. In this case replace Bugs with a mad magician, two rabbits, and a flower pot and you have a wonderful exercise in surreal revenge.

“Symphony in Slang” is another fun piece where a hep cat gets to heaven and St. Peter cannot understand him. He brings in Noah Webster who envisions the guy’s life story just exactly as he tells it. When his girlfriend has a roomful of little ones, there is room, full of little #1’s. And when he was thumbs, each finger on his hand was a thumb. Sure, it is a cliché but it is an early version done well.

“Little Tinker” is an MGM version of a Pepe LePew cartoon with a skunk frustrated in love. Even when he does the Frank Sinatra impression things do not go his way. “The Cat Who Hated People” (another Heck Allen plotted piece) has a Jimmy Durante sound alike as a cat who tries to escape the Earth and its frustrating people only to find the Moon is worse. Visually very surreal.

Other cartoons include “Lucky Duck” about hapless duck hunters, “Who Killed Who?” a send up of murder mysteries, and “Bad Luck Blackie” about a bullying bulldog and his comeuppance. All have their moments of brilliance.

It appears that there is not a great retrospective of Tex Avery on DVD. There are some of the Warner Bros. cartoons on those treasuries and a complete Droopy Dog set on DVD. Back in 1992 there was “The Complete Tex Avery” on five laser discs but that is fairly expensive to come by these days and you still need a laser disc player. Someone should give us this lost master rather than Pompeii Pete.

Series organizer Todd Mason hosts more Tuesday Forgotten Film reviews at his own blog and posts a complete list of participating blogs.