Happy Father's Day From The Big Chicken

When I was about 10, My Dad decided it was time for me to become mature and start thinking about saving for the future and to forget childish things like cartoons.
He was dumbfounded and frustrated to find me still watching them as a teenager.
Every Saturday afternoon at 5 I would bring a Salisbury Steak TV dinner downstairs and sit on my Dad's chair in front of our "Space Command" color TV set to watch the Bugs Bunny Show.
I'd get through half of the first cartoon when I would hear my Dad stomping down the stairs. "What the Hell are you watching down here? What!? CARTOONS! Aren't you a little old to be watching this crap? When are you gonna grow the F*** up?"
Then he'd kick me out of his chair. "Let me see what you think is so Goddamn funny!"
He'd lean forward and tilt his glasses on his nose so he could see the cartoons better. I had a theory that Dads had trouble making out cartoons; that adults were too serious to see fantasy figures and that they would just see colored blobs floating across their TVs and think the set was broken. But Dad would chuckle at some of the Bugs Bunny or Roadrunner stuff; he could make out the images when someone got hit or blew up. The blobs would come into focus for pain scenes.
But then like clockwork, after the first cartoon was over, the middle cartoon would come on and it would start with a Foghorn Leghorn title card. All of a sudden I could see my Dad's eyes focus. Now he'd get excited. He'd sit up and twist around in his chair. "Hey, wait a minute, is that the big chicken??! I love that guy!" I think he thought Foghorn, unlike Bugs and Daffy, was not a cartoon - that he was a real guy because he could totally follow all the gags and action.
As soon as Foghorn started smacking and shoving the dog or other characters around, he would begin to laugh really loud. He also loved Foghorn's loudmouth fast talking sales pitches. He was always trying to convince Henery Hawk that he wasn't a chicken, that the dog or cat was a chicken and this killed my dad. He really thought Henery was a dumb kid, like me.
Dad would laugh so hard at this stuff that his glasses flew off his head.
I liked Foghorn a lot too, but watching my Dad lose it made me laugh even harder.
Foghorn Leghorn is one of the greatest cartoon characters in history because he's such an identifiable type. He's just like our Dads! Totally in command, thinks he's smarter than everyone else, and when he doesn't get his way through reason, he shoves and yells at you till you understand the logic of his inate beliefs.
I always loved when Dad would come down to yell at me about being too old for cartoons, because I knew I could count on Bob McKimson and Foghorn Leghorn to make him bust a gut and prove I was right.
After the cartoon was over, he'd realize that he'd just been laughing at something really immature, be embarrased and then get even madder than when he first came downstairs to yell at me. He'd pick his glasses up off the floor and stab them back onto his head, lunge out of the seat and start back up the stairs. He'd give me one final disgusted glance" This stuff is STUPID! Grow UP!"
But he'd be back next week to laugh his arse off again at the big chicken.
It was a highlight of every week for me. Foghorn was one of the few things we agreed on. We argued about The Beatles VS Elvis but totally were in synch about our beloved big chicken. He brought out the testosterone in us and taught us family values.

So Happy Father's Day, Dad and I'm sorry I'm not there to have a shoving and yelling contest with you!


http://www.cartoonthrills.org/blog/McKimson/47/47CrowingPains/FoghornSylvesterHeneryEgg.mov
Frustration, beatings and yelling are manna for Dads.







Hey, isn't this a cool way to render shadows on a character? I always loved this scene!


http://www.cartoonthrills.org/blog/McKimson/47/47CrowingPains/SylvesterHeadFoghornLightning.mov

McKimson's gift to Dads - humanity

Y'know, when you read a lot of animation histories or critiques, you find that the animators that get the most points among the critics are the ones who seem to have invented the most stuff, broke ground or bucked the establishment. Skill at entertainment is not high on the list of praise and I think that's an injustice. (just look at what wins animation academy awards)

To me, all art and entertainment should aim at communicating with humanity and speaking truth to human nature. Yes, great innovators are to be admired, but so are great pure entertainers. Entertaining at the top levels requires great talent and skill and love of the audience, and most of the audience is not made up of critics or art historians. It's made up of us people who have real lives and all experience universal emotions and situations.

Kids look for certain things in their entertainment that is different than what the adults need, and certainly different than what the critics need. The general perception of cartoons today is that it's a medium for kids, but it wasn't always that way.

Most grown up men aren't that into what cartoons are all about - fantasy, silliness and wild imagination. They certainly aren't looking for art and imaginative flights of fancy.

After all, they have to be mature and bring home the bacon, shave 4 times a day, raise smart ass kids, worry about rent, taxes, Liberals, stocks and pensions. They are slabs of meat riddled with real life stress.

So what do men find entertaining? The essentials: Fear, pain, stupidity and abuse.

These are all universally funny and that's why the 3 Stooges are the most popular comedians in history and Bob McKimson is the greatest cartoon director for the unwashed capitalist masses.

McKimson delivers the goods and I'll bet he made the most popular WB cartoons after Clampett left the place. Mckimson is the Jules White of the cartoon world.

This is top level fear.

This scene completely says it all:

http://www.cartoonthrills.org/blog/McKimson/UpstandingSitter/FearIntoAbuseclipsmall.mov

Nothing is funnier than a good ass beating with a board...except when it's a beating that's the result of causing a burly male to experience extreme fear.
What else do regular guys need from entertainment?

WHY DONT WE HAVE DISCLAIMERS LIKE THESE?

*** These frame grabs are from a remastered cartoon. The lines have been ridiculously thinned. Note how jagged that makes them. The colors have been "modernized" by taking out all the subtleties and pumping up the primaries and secondaries. It makes the cartoon strobe when you watch it on TV and flattens everything out, but this is all you get to see because we have removed the Film-maker's version from history."

Honeymooners - "The Babysitter" - Ralph hits Norton

These are my best friends.


How many different expressions does it take before you finally beat your best friend?




Look at the pain Ralph feels as Norton drives him to violence.



Jackie Gleason has a million very specific expressions and gestures! He never seems to run out of them, and that's where most of the fun comes from good sitcoms-from the rich acting.


Cartoon expressions-even in really good cartoons are rarely specific. They usually are just simple symbols of happy, sad, mad, pain etc...just enough to get the general point across, but not enough to be entertaining by themselves. There are some exceptions of course-in Chuck Jones' work, Clampett's and even some of Avery's.







Captain Hook here is really well drawn and the expression is almost specific, at least for Disney, but not compared to live actors or real people in real life.