Sometimes ya gotta feel sorry for "Disney's Little Guys".
As seen on the back cover gag of DELL FOUR COLOR # 791 JIMINY CRICKET (1957) and the front cover of CHIP 'N' DALE # 28 (Gold Key Comics, Cover Date: July, 1974), they can't even settle-in to read a book, or just chill, by CANDLELIGHT without mishap!
Either way, we are given a renewed appreciation for the electric light bulb, rather than... "wax" too nostalgic for those bygone candlelit nights!
Wax and wick, gives flame its birth...
...With Jiminy and Chip 'n' Dale - "Separated at Mirth"!
16 comments:
I just hate when I get melted wa in my fur...
Don’t ya, though?! (…Joe says desperately trying to suppress the urge to dive head-first into some double-entendres or other improprieties! …Looks like he made it! …WHEW!)
One fact both artists overlooked...melting candle wax is HOT! Unless Chip and Jiminy are made of asbestos, they should be extremely "hot-headed" by now!
It's interesting to note that the two who are "waxing wroth" in their respective gag scenes are both generally among the more serious-minded of the Disney characters, usually playing "straight man" to Dale (in Chip's case) or to Pinocchio, Goofy, Pluto, or whoever (in Jiminy's case). Of course, when pitted against everybody's favorite duck, Chip'n'Dale are both the funny ones, but when it's Chip vs. Dale, the jokester is usually Dale (hence the clownish red nose, perhaps?) with Chip serving as the aforementioned "straight man". In any case, the intensity of the expression regarding their candle mishap is about equally matched for Chip and for Jiminy. You might even say their expressions are "waxing eloquent." (OK, I'll stop!)
One more observation on this topic is to consider that Jiminy Cricket has teamed up with Chip'n'Dale on more than one occasion. My most memorable examples are when Jiminy led the Chipmunks on a safari into Africa, where they rescued a gorilla, and when Chip'n'Dale rescued Jiminy from the clutches of Br'er Bear, who was forcing Jiminy to teach him how to play Santa Claus. Both from Disneyland-themed Dell Giants. So I guess it's only fitting that having been story-mates, they should share a visual gag.
I love the pairing of the two parallel images at the end!
I dunno, Scarecrow…
Maybe, by the time the wax has oozed down the candlestick to cover our candle-bothered bros, it may have cooled to below burning temperature.
I’d say so, at least in Jiminy’s case, as no force outside of natural ones are responsible for covering him.
Chip, on the other hand may have received a bit more of a… a… um, what’s the opposite of a “hotfoot”, as Dale has actually caused the wax to come cascading down upon his pal! His expression, vs. Jiminy’s would seem to indicate that! …But, fear not! He’s a “toon” after all! He can take it!
And, I feel the gags are funnier when they happen to the “serious-minded straight man", as opposed to the clown. …Just ask Oliver Hardy!
David Gerstein, Dan Cunningham, and I were just discussing this yesterday… That whole “forest denizen / fairy tale character thing” is (sometimes rather strangely) mashed-up in the comics.
Chip ‘n’ Dale, The Three Little Pigs and their Li’l-Wolf-friend and Big-Wolf-foe, Jiminy Cricket, Gepetto’s workshop, Brer Rabbit/Fox/Bear/Wolverine, The Wicked Witch, The Seven Dwarfs, Tinker Bell, Dumbo and Timothy, and others all somehow exist in various parts of the same forest! And suffer occasional incursions by Donald Duck and Gyro Gearloose as well! All-in-all, it’s a pretty remarkable place!
Thank you, I like the pairing of images too! Now that I’ve figured out how to do it, I should have one for every “Separated At Mirth” post! It helps drive home the point all the more!
Gus and Jaq, the Big Bad Wolf and Dumbo have also ended up on Grandma Duck’s farm. If you want to see some really random cross-overs, look at the Disney Christmas newspaper strips, where The Beagle Boys meet the Cinderella mice, Ludwig Von Drake meets Sleeping Beauty and Peter Pan characters interact with the Seven Dwarfs!
Deb:
The Beagle Boys were in a Disney Christmas newspaper strip?!
Which variety of Beagle? Carl Barks, Tony Strobl/Gold Key Trio (most likely), DuckTales (either version)? And with Gus and Jaq? That's remarkable!
Now, if you said WALT DISNEY COMICS DIGEST, where all sorts of oddball crossovers were the rule, I wouldn't be a bit surprised! Says this Gold Key reader with Digest memories of Super Goof and Tinker Bell - and Moby Duck and Dumbo!
Yes, the Tony Strobl square-jawed Beagles. The Christmas strips would have been right at home in the Walt Disney Digests or Christmas Parade annuals.
Yeah! I can see that!
Those are actually my favorite Beagles – and it was them that I wrote in “Love is Never Having to Say You’re Sentenced”, way back in IDW’s UNCLE SCROOGE # 10!
...Right out of the Gold Key BEAGLE BOYS comic!
Chip ‘n’ Dale, The Three Little Pigs and their Li’l-Wolf-friend and Big-Wolf-foe, Jiminy Cricket, Gepetto’s workshop, Brer Rabbit/Fox/Bear/Wolverine, The Wicked Witch, The Seven Dwarfs, Tinker Bell, Dumbo and Timothy, and others all somehow exist in various parts of the same forest! And suffer occasional incursions by Donald Duck and Gyro Gearloose as well! All-in-all, it’s a pretty remarkable place!
So they do! Indeed, I argue, on the Wiki and elsewhere, that this Enchanted Forest (as it's usually called, though, of course, the Duckburgers know it as the Black Forest, per Barks) is actually the perfect way to explain how characters of various levels of anthropomorphization can live in the same world as Donald & Mickey, or how Snow White's medieval kingdom can exist in the middle of a forest in 1950's Calisota. Namely, the Forest is a magical place, bigger on the inside, with several magical kingdoms forgotten by time caught in it; and a place where the line between human and best is blurred, so that beasts think like people (Bambi & Co.) and some anthropomorphic animals act like beasts (Brer Rabbit & Co., Three Little Pigs).
Achille:
You write: “…the Forest is a magical place, bigger on the inside…”
So, the forest is… a TARDIS? And, when we see Brer Rabbit there, is it a case of (…wait for it…) “…The TARDIS and the Hare”?
Seriously, I rather like your theory! …I’ll buy it!
More Broceliande than a TARDIS, in my mind… not that I'm sure there isn't some Doctor Who short story out there retconning King Arthur as a Time Lord whole shapeshifting timeship had got stuck, not as a blue box, but as an entire goddamn forest, thus explaining why sources keep disagreeing on quite where, in Little or Great Britain, the Forest of Broceliande was.
Oh, and while I'm at it, I'll add this Forest may be "linked" to several non-supernatural woods all over the world, so that if you get lost deep enough you always end up in the Forest. Makes some geographical sense of the way that, in Song of the South, Brer Rabbit & Co's chunk of the forest is clearly somewhere in the vicinity of an extremely Southern cotton plantation. Heck, it even throws a bone to those weird literalists who insist that Snow White takes place in Germany — maybe it does, from a certain point of view.
…That is one quality pun, by the way. I'd quibble that, fercirssake, a hare and a rabbit are two different species, and you can't just switching out the words, and etcetera… but I do realize every Bugs Bunny cartoon ever is on your side. And it is a good pun. So hey.
Achille:
When BUGS BUNNY is on your side, who needs anyone else!
With the mere utterance “Of course you know, this means WAR!”, I know that my side (whatever that might happen to be, on any given day) will be completely and devastatingly victorious, in seven minutes or less!
Your “TARDIS Forest” idea brings to mind the “Planet-which-is-actually-a-Green-Lantern” story “Mogo Doesn’t Socialize”, from 1985’s GREEN LANTERN # 188, and one of the greatest short stories ever published by DC Comics! I’ve lost track of “whatever they’ve done with MOGO since", (just as I’ve lost track of 21st Century DC as a whole) but that’s a story everyone should read! …Anyone who’s familiar with it, knows what I mean!
Aw, heck… It’s spoiled now anyway so here’s the Wiki description, taken from the link above…
“Mogo is a sentient and living planet. It is technically genderless, but it is often casually referred to as male. When it is desired, its affiliation with the Corps is shown with foliage arranged into a green band, marked with the standard Green Lantern Corps lantern symbol, circling Mogo's equatorial area.
“In its early appearances, Mogo is not a social Green Lantern and its interactions with the rest of the DC universe are not well documented. It avoids announcing its presence, preferring to represent itself using pseudonymous holograms. In Mogo's first appearance, it is explained that the planet-sized Mogo's gravitational field would wreak havoc on any other planet it would try to "visit"; hence Mogo "doesn't socialize."[1]
“Bolphunga the Unrelenting, an alien hunter, was one of Mogo's first direct adversaries; having tracked the legendary Green Lantern Mogo to the planet where he apparently 'resided', Bolphunga subsequently spent years searching the planet for Mogo, examining various plants and animals for any sign of a power ring, until closer examination of patterns in the foliage led him to realize just what Mogo really was, prompting him to flee Mogo in a panic.”
Maybe “Snow White” takes place in Germany… Or maybe there’s just a “German neighborhood” within the forest – where they go as far as to have a ceremonial prince, and a lot of really good delicatessens!
BTW, is there ANY OTHER BLOG in the universe whose Comment Section could reference Jiminy Cricket and Chip 'n' Dale, Doctor Who, Bugs Bunny, Snow White, AND Mogo as deftly as this one? ...I doubt it!
In the Dell Giant "Lady and the Tramp", among several auxiliary stories, there is one about Lady in the Enchanted Forest--probably the best crystallization of this theory, in which Lady meets up with the White Rabbit, Dumbo, Bambi, and the Seven Dwarfs, among other classic Disney characters. It's drawn by Al Hubbard, who definitely had a flair for this type of thing, and who could render the Disney feature film characters very well. (I am not as satisfied with his versions of the characters from the Mouse and Duck universes, but that just may be my personal quibble.)
One Disney comic book editor, back in the days when letter columns existed, replied to an inquiring fan that no, there was no such thing as a "Disney Universe." I felt this was an incorrect response then, and even more so now. With evidence of stories such as "Lady and the Enchanted Forest," "The Secret of the Jolly Berries" (Donald Duck teams up with Pinocchio), "The Washed-Up Witch," (Uncle Scrooge teams up with Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs), and "Goofy, Minnie, and Pluto in Fantasyland," it appears that there is indeed a Disney Universe (even a multi-studios "Toon-iverse" if you consider "Who Framed Roger Rabbit" and "Cartoon All-Stars to the Rescue"). The recent publication of "Disney's Christmas Classics" underscores this point more firmly than ever. After all, if Sleeping Beauty and Ludwig Von Drake can share a story, pretty much any crossover combo is possible!
Scarecrow:
“…No such thing as a ‘Disney Universe’?”
Bish-bosh, tish-tosh, and other expressions of disdainful dismissal!
Who’re they kidding! There’s a “Disney Universe”, a “Warner Universe”, a “Hanna-Barbera Universe”, etc. – and perhaps with several subsets contained therein! That’s why I so fervently subscribed to DC’s “Infinite Earths” continuity. There was room for every conceivable Earth you could imagine, including one where DuckTales completely and accurately reflected Carl Barks!
I don’t have the Lady and the Tramp Dell Giant, but I have most of the Dell Giants for Mickey and Donald (…not to mention Bugs, Woody, and Tom and Jerry), and they are chock full of stories of this type.
But, my actual introduction to this type of team-up came in the back-up story from MICKEY MOUSE # 111 (Cover Date: February, 1967) and the story “Battle of Wits and Witches” by Vic Lockman and Tony Strobl! Mickey runs into the Snow White characters, Mad Madam Mim, and even Bambi! …A far cry from Minnie, Goofy, Pete, and The Phantom Blot – as I’d been used to!
Then, of course, there were all manner of odd team-ups in WALT DISNEY COMICS DIGEST, starting a year or so later!
I, too, feel that Al Hubbard’s unique stylings and talents were not best utilized on Donald and Mickey… Strobl, Murry, and Bradbury had that well covered. But, I’m glad we got what we got!
'far as I'm concerned, Hubbard was a great artist for everything (Ducks included).
Also, would you believe Battle of Wits and Witches was one of the first stories I covered on the Wiki?
Achille:
Oh, yes… But there were MANY good artists for Ducks! Not nearly as many who could handle the “softer” characters as perfectly as Hubbard did!
Fethry didn’t need him nearly as much as the forest creatures did!
…And DON’T get me started on “Hard Haid Moe”! :-)
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