Rooty Toot Toot

It's a long time since UPA's cartoons shocked regular movie goers - an unprecedented break with the Disney tradition, bringing the departures we'd seen in newspaper cartoons, advertising art and strip comics to film. Some of their work looks like thin effort, now that we've seen the limited animation technique they pioneered used and abused in TV.

The seventies London NFT audience already had a short memory and booed the Mr. McGoos an American programmer included.

However ROOTY ROOT TOOT is not just a nostalgia trip. With it's delicate Hubley figures and unreal use of colour and backgrounds this is one of the most stylish things done in cartooning. Throw in clever gags and a great track - who are the vocalists? The dancing lawyer, the "Sordid Bar" sign and the leafy line on white setting for Frankie's back story are still evidence of an imagination which would prove capable of bringing us on going delight.

John Hubley's Academy Award-nominated "Rooty Toot Toot" depicts the story of Frankie and Johnny (as heard in a traditional song) jazz-style, with Frankie - portrayed as a film noir femme fatale - getting put on trial for Johnny's murder. It's a clever story, even though the animation is nothing impressive. That whole sequence with the bullets must've been fun to animate.

Outside of this cartoon, I originally learned the song from Sam Cooke's version of it. I later heard a different version in the Jean Harlow movie "Red-Headed Woman". What a collection.

Anyway, it's a fun short.

This film is commonly misunderstood and disliked these days, but thats only because people don't know why it is the way it is. Rooty Toot Toot, and most of UPA's work, was created with the intent to break from traditional animation and create something more relatable as fine or modern art. Something I think was highly successful. A film only appreciated by those willing to disregard the standards of loony toons and Disney.

The animation is zany and bizarre, the designs are fantastically simplistic. Watch for how the backgrounds only depict the minimum of what is necessary to visually represent what's going on. There's no need for full blown cell coloring here. I think the style matches the jazz perfectly.

So we know that "Frankie" has done for "Johnny" and so she ends up in court dressed as if she were about to dance a Flamenco! Her lawyer calls the barkeep, a rather dour fella - who regales us with the tale of the deceased's infidelities with "Nelly Bligh". Next, the sultry "Nelly" takes the stand with her own version but claims that they only tickling going on was on the ivories! It looks a clear cut case. Can the debonaire lawyer save her bacon? He portrays a completely different summation of the events. Which version will the jury buy? The narration is delivered via a lively and witty lyric with a great jazzy soundtrack and the sharp, almost stark, nature of the animation works well delivering a story with more than an hint of menace, the odd Freudian slip and... It's good fun this and stay tuned for the twist at the end!

Just watched this UPA Jolly Frolics animated short on YouTube as linked from the Cartoon Brew site. It's the telling of the "Frankie and Johnny" tale as depicted in the courtroom with Frankie on trial for her murder of Johnny because of his adulterous ways especially with one Nelly Bly. Director John Hubley makes his unique line drawings quite fluid as the tale gets told entirety in song. This was nominated for an Oscar but lost to another Hanna-Barbera Tom and Jerry entry called The Two Mouseketers. Eventually, many UPA efforts would become Academy Award winners while those of other studios, exceptions being those of Warner Bros., would no longer dominate during the '50s. So on that note, Rooty Toot Toot is highly recommended.