Happy Valentine's Day 2020, from all of us at TIAH Blog, to all of you!
Oh, and from Bugs Bunny, too!
An angry young rabbit named BUGSY...
Was looking for someone to SLUG-SY!
He punched at a fop...
Who was really a cop...
And for thirty days, he's in the JUG-SY!
Eeeh, I never said it was a GOOD limerick!
Don't say it with flowers... Say it with carrots!
Happy Valentine's Day!
21 comments:
And Happy Valentine's Day to you, Joe! Thanks for another great post! And there's nothing wrong with the limerick--or the accompanying graphics! Quite clever, in my humble opinion! So you have Bugs Bunny representing Valentine's Day, just as you previously had Woody Woodpecker representing retirement activities. Loving it!
I like the Valentine heart cover. It's fun to see the signatures all around, including Leon Schlesinger's. You can tell it's the comic book universe being referenced because of the names. Mary Jane and Sniffles, plus Beaky Buzzard, were more frequently seen in comics than onscreen (and of course only Sniffles, with no Mary Jane, appeared in the Sniffles shorts). I'm wondering who the blonde girl in the bottom corner is--possibly Mary Jane, although nothing like the way Al Hubbard drew her.
You've also referenced one of my all-time favorite Bugs Bunny cartoons, "Rebel Rabbit," which I like chiefly because it's a bit of an anomaly in the Bugs canon. While Bugs is normally portrayed as a mischievous prankster, in this film he actually comes across as malicious in his intent. While he admits in the last line that he "went too far," it is not totally out of character for him to be outraged at an injustice--in this case, the fact that the bounty on rabbits is so small--and to take drastic action to remedy a situation. It underscores the fact that any of us could have a "bad day." Notice how the walls of Alcatraz are so realistically drawn, echoing the live-action stock footage of soldiers and police converging on Bugs to arrest him, which happens just before this final shot. It also gives the impression that Bugs is up against the walls of reality and has no choice but to serve his time. (Thematically, your limerick fits with the way Bugs is portrayed in the cartoon--proving that while it may be a little out of his usual character, it is not impossible for him to have a "bad day.")
Honey Bunny was an interesting attempt at a girlfriend for Bugs. Not sure how long she lasted in the comics (you probably know, Joe). Her personality seemed a bit undefined to me. But it was a nice character design and she did provide Bugs with the excuse to get romantic once in a while. Once more, Happy Valentine's!
Is that a 12-carrot ring he's giving her?
Well, it’s not a “24 Carat Moon!”
Scarecrow:
Full disclosure time: The limerick came to me earlier in the week, in something of a fever dream, while fighting off a very bad cold. It really stuck, beyond the point that I woke up and stopped tossing and turning – so, in a philosophy I’ve often attributed to the great Irwin Allen… “Never Throw Anything Away, If You Can Find Another Use For It”, I fashioned a Blog post around it! And, it’s not even the first time one of my more unusual dreams made its way to the Blog… like HERE!
“So you have Bugs Bunny representing Valentine's Day, just as you previously had Woody Woodpecker representing retirement activities. Loving it!”
Perhaps they are my “Spirit Animals”?
It’s Mary Jane on that cover. GCD has no credit listed for it, but I’d guess it was Carl Buettner. Al Hubbard was the PERFECT artist for softer, more fantasy-oriented stories like Mary Jane and Sniffles and Jiminy Cricket, etc. What a terrible shame that so much of his unique talents were squandered on all those “Donald and Fethry” short stories, that any competent artist could have done!
"Rebel Rabbit" harkened back to the Bob Clampett days, when Bugs was more of an untamed force of nature, than the sedate, always-in-control rabbit of Chuck Jones. I like him either way, but that’s what makes a character like Bugs Bunny so great… he can do both with equal dexterity.
Honey Bunny lasted fairly well into the ‘70s, obviously so, given the cover reproduction in this post. Maybe even into the ‘80s under Whitman, I’d have to check. I thought she was just fine, and should have just been “tweaked a little for the times”, and not be eclipsed by Lola Bunny. Of course, I seriously doubt that whoever created Lola Bunny ever even heard of Honey Bunny.
Happy Valentine's day to you, Joe! We want you to know, on this day of love and friendship, that we of the Crew of the Copper-Colored Cupids consider you to be a great friend to our organization! After all, without your blog, we may have never made our romantification services widely known to the people of your universe - and what a shame that would have been!
Yes, it's been an entire year since our first comment here on your blog - and we've had a lot of great adventures in that year! So, thank you, Joe, for making it all possible with this great blog of yours! We look forward to many more years of great adventures - and many more years of your wonderful blog! Happy Valentine's day to you, and to everyone else!
I would have been very disappointed if you hadn’t shown up on your most special day! The feelings are mutual – as are the Happy Valentine’s Day wishes!
The early design of Mary Jane on the Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies cover looks to have inspired by the little girl who features in the 1934 Merrie Melodies cartoon "Beauty and the Beast" (wow...Merrie Melodies beat Disney to that story!).
https://looneytunes.fandom.com/wiki/Beauty_and_the_Beast
Deb:
Speaking strictly toward animation – and the quality of humor and characterization therein - Merrie Melodies (and Looney Tunes) beat Disney to a lot! Sorry, but that’s the way I’ve always seen it, animation-wise, that is.
HERE is Deb’s link for your reading pleasure! Beware of the ads at the top!
Far be it from me to denigrate Warner Bros. cartoons, which I do love immensely in their own right, but I do insist that the Disney shorts are underestimated by modern Disney's tendency to mostly rerun the tamer, more kid-friendly ones.
I’ll buy that, Achille!
As a kid in the 1960s, and unlike Warner Bros., Disney cartoons were rarely on TV. Once they stopped showing reruns of The Mickey Mouse Club (1963-1965 – which you can tell by the presence, or lack of same, of “The Mickey Mouse Club Seal” on the covers of the Gold Key MICKEY MOUSE comics of those years) they were only seen sparingly on “Walt Disney’s Wonderful World of Color”, which was more dominated by “animal shows” than the cartoons that made the studio in the first place.
But, on those special(?) occasions that a Disney cartoon was run on TV I was invariably disappointed, as they didn’t (in my view then – and, to an extent, still) stand up to the comic book versions of those characters (which were great) and failed to stand up to the Warner Bros., and even early Hanna-Barbera, cartoons in terms of sheer fun and enjoyment.
One obvious reason for the latter, to my “dialogue-loving ears”, was the voice work by Mel Blanc for Warner Bros., and Daws Butler and Don Messick for early Hanna-Barbera, and that the writing of both was dominated by Michael Maltese and Warren Foster – in my view, the two greatest cartoon writers of all time!
But then, your point also comes into play in that, even as far back as The Mickey Mouse Club and Walt Disney’s Wonderful World of Color (when Mr. Disney himself acted as host), the selections tended to be, as you say, “tamer and more kid-friendly”.
That was borne out by the release of “complete series by character” for the (regrettably “limited edition”) “Disney Treasures” series of DVDs. The earliest Mickeys that inspired Floyd Gottfredson to comic strip greatness, the Donalds that were not about Chip ‘n’ Dale or Spike the Bee… and oh, those amazing Goofys – like his trying to quit smoking!!! (Imagine THAT today!)
There are so many factors that go into each individual’s preferences, regarding this stuff we love, and I find them all fascinating!
What, no Presidents' Day post? Oh, well. I just wanted to add a comment, anyhow.
Joe, you wrote, regarding Disney cartoon shorts: "they were only seen sparingly on “Walt Disney’s Wonderful World of Color”, which was more dominated by “animal shows” than the cartoons that made the studio in the first place."
This was one of my biggest frustrations, growing up as a Disney fan. I think it's one reason why I took to reading the Disney comics so avidly--it was the best way to get that "fix" on a regular basis. Once the Mickey Mouse Club with its frequent "MouseKartoon" segment had truly finished its final season of reruns, Disney short cartoons became a very rare commodity. The early years of "Walt Disney's Wonderful World of Color" featured several cartoon segments, most of which were hosted by Professor Ludwig Von Drake (who but Disney would dream up the concept of an animated host for a TV series?) but in its later years--the same title carried on for some time after Walt's passing--it became devoted, as you have stated, to "animal shows" such as "Greta, the Misfit Greyhound," "A Country Coyote Goes Hollywood," or "Sammy the Way-Out Seal." If we were lucky, once in the fall and once in the spring there would be an animated show, usually a rerun from the earlier seasons when the cartoons were more regular. I wondered and still wonder why the PTB at Disney didn't see something wrong with this picture--foisting live-action animal stories on a public that wanted animation. There was NO Disney presence on Saturday morning in those days. The only opportunities to see Disney cartoons were (1) if they appeared on the Disney Sunday night show, (2) if one got shown in advance of a Disney feature at the local movie theatre, or (3) and rarer still--if one got shown as a special event at school. I can't think of a 4 or beyond, but if anyone else with a recollection of that era has any to add, I'd love to know about them. The one GOOD thing about the scarcity of these cartoons is that, when they did air on television, or at the movies, or at school, it was a rare and delectable treat.
Thus a whole generations grew up familiar with Bugs Bunny, Woody Woodpecker, and the whole Hanna-Barbera stable, but with less familiarity--unless a devoted fan who was ever watchful for every opportunity--with the Disney characters.
In the early 70's this situation got remedied--in a very limited way--by "The Mouse Factory" a syndicated show that did not run in all markets. The drawback is that the shorts featured in this series tended to get cut up considerably, especially during the first season, when edits were made to allow for interaction with the live-action hosts. In the second season, the hosts simply introduced the cartoons, so more footage was left intact, but still "The Mouse Factory" left much to be desired. I did like the way each show was built around a specific theme. That was kind of fun. And the choices ranged all the way from the 30's into the late 50's/early 60's. I also liked the choice of host for the most part, as most of them were the same people you saw on the sitcoms or game shows. My favorite hostess was Annette Funicello, but Shari Lewis with Lamb Chop and/or Hush Puppy did some nice work as well. How do I know the shows were cut? One good example is that it wasn't until the late 1980's when I finally saw a complete print of "Trick or Treat" featuring the production number that occurs in the middle of the cartoon. Though virtually no new animation was produced for "The Mouse Factory," (SPOILER ALERT!) the ending of the first season shows included a scene where "classic Mickey" in an airplane gets plucked out of the sky, chewed up, and swallowed by King Kong atop the Empire State Building! Thank goodness this ending disappeared by the time of the second season!
With Disney so much more a presence, in those days, in print than on television, it's little wonder some of us gravitated to the comics, where we could find our favorites in expanded roles and often facing exciting adventures. The comics made the cartoon shorts seem tame by comparison.
Ah, one of the few Gold Key posts that actually reminds me of my own childhood. As I've probably mentioned here a million times (but, hey, there's always room for one more time, right?), I have a Portuguese edition of Gold Key Looney Tunes reprints. And this book features Honey Bunny, Mary Jane, and Sniffles... making it my first (and only, until some years later) exposure to those characters!
I agree that Honey Bunny should not have been replaced with Lola Bunny. An unfortunate turning away from the heritage of the Warner Bros. characters, though probably (as you note) an unintentional one, much like how Jerry Mouse's nephew is referred to by his original name Nibbles in modern "Tom and Jerry" shows despite being referred as "Tuffy" in the Gold Key comics and even towards the end of the original series. On the other hand, given the Gold Key comics' relative obscurity by the 1990s, one wonders how a Honey Bunny character in "Space Jam" would have been received. Possibly the name "Honey Bunny" would have been perceived as sexist by an audience largely unfamiliar with the comics.
As a side note, it's interesting that Porky Pig signed his name with a stutter. Doesn't make a lot of sense to me, but, I guess the publisher thought that to a kid it wouldn't make sense if the name appeared sans the stutter?
Sergio:
Since I first saw the TOM AND JERRY comic books (1959, as part of the fabled “Grandma Millie Books”, and then read the continuing run whenever I could find them from Dell into Gold Key – and the TOM AND JERRY theatrical shorts didn’t come to TV until CBS Saturdays in the mid-‘60s, I was a little dismayed NOT to see “Tuffy” in the cartoons! And, when he finally did turn up, to have him called “Nibbles”!
Since making a study of these comics for the last several decades, it becomes all the more so – as “Tuffy” was an original comic book creation (for the very first TOM AND JERRY comic book story and onward), designed to give Jerry someone to talk to (because you READ comic books – not watch them as a procession of wordless gags), and was adopted by the MGM studio sometime after.
Same case, different studio, for “Knothead and Splinter” and “Space Mouse”.
Honey Bunny *could* have been another of those characters but, by the time “Space Jam” was produced, the Dell and Gold Key comics versions of the Warner characters had, alas, long faded into obscurity. …And, unfortunately, you may very well be right about how today’s audience might view the name.
Scarecrow (two comments, one reply):
“What, no Presidents' Day post? Oh, well. I just wanted to add a comment, anyhow.”
I guess that means I prefer love to politics!
Regarding Disney cartoons vs. “animal shows”, it should come as no surprise to me to find we have yet another parallel-experience in our formative years! If we ever did meet face to face, we’d probably be up all night yakking away about such commonalities.
Paradoxically, I feel the scarcity of Disney cartoons on TV (during the prime years of what would be called “The TV Generation”) simultaneously made them “more desired”… and “less relevant”!
It shouldn’t have been true, but Mickey Mouse was less-known to my generation of kids, than Bugs Bunny or Fred Flintstone… and I’ll never understand why it was felt that such historically important specimens of animation should be so sparingly doled-out to the masses via television, while the characters of other studios rode the crest of that viewership wave to icon status!
And, how Mickey Mouse WAS known to me was… as a detective and an adventurer, strictly from the comic book stories of Paul Murry and others. Yeah, the “happy bandleader persona” was somewhere back there in my memory banks, but the COMICS are what really shaped my view of these characters in the absence of any regular access to the animated shorts.
Indeed, for the period in question – the mid-1960s into the very early 1970s – I daresay that Western Publishing, via the Gold Key comic books, Little Golden Books, and Whitman games, activity books, puzzles, etc. kept those characters “alive” in the United States more so than any efforts of the part of Disney, outside of the theme park. (Singular – for just Disneyland, at the time!)
Recall that travel was much more expensive (relatively) and difficult to manage that that time, and it was, not through the park, but more through the newsstands, candy stores, and toy departments of the “five-and-tens” that you crossed paths with Mickey, Donald, Goofy, et al. I certainly did!
Given how important Western Publishing was to the continued presence of these characters – in this country, and at this time – it seems cruel (yet foretelling of the future) that Disney would raid Western for its better artists (leaving it with Kay Wright and Bob Gregory) to staff their Overseas Distribution Studio Program! …And only to later kick those artists to the curb (as one of them told me) once it was learned that the Jaime Dias Studio could do that work cheaper! ...And do so AFTER Western was out of business a comic book publisher, so they had no place to "return to".
I hadn’t put it together quite fully until more recently, but I figure that (with a few but definite exceptions) the Disney titles from Gold Key and Whitman became largely reprints in the 1970s, while what remaining talents Western still had were creating new material for the Warner Bros., Walter Lantz, MGM, and DePatie/Freleng books. Probably a combination of Disney needing less material to peddle overseas, since they did it themselves, and Western redirecting their resources toward less-predatory licensees!
That pattern described above continued, with Disney taking the license from Gladstone and doing it themselves (but not for very long) in 1990, and to a lesser extent the present “translation and dialogue” and general editorial takeover by Disney Italy at IDW!
Shifting gears, I have very vague memories of “The Mouse Factory”, but do recall liking it. And feeling good about seeing these characters on TV.
But, to me, the COMICS (at least through the end of 2018) still rule the day!
"Since making a study of these comics for the last several decades, it becomes all the more so – as “Tuffy” was an original comic book creation (for the very first TOM AND JERRY comic book story and onward), designed to give Jerry someone to talk to (because you READ comic books – not watch them as a procession of wordless gags), and was adopted by the MGM studio sometime after."
Wow! I had no idea. The explains the discrepancy. For some reason, I had assumed that the comic book creators just weren't all that familiar with the animated cartoons. (A combination of my ignorance of Gold Key comics (especially at the time I first made the assumption) and the fact the Gold Key Looney Tunes comics are not that faithful to the Looney Tunes animated cartoons).
So Tuffy is actually the original name of the character! Who would have thought! That does make the loss of the name even more unfortunate. I wonder why the name was changed to Nibbles. Certainly, the name Nibbles makes more sense in the context of the running gag used in the cartoon that introduces him: he's always hungry. Still, it would have better to keep the name Tuffy, not only because this is the original name, but also because it's just an all-around better-sounding name, in my opinion.
"I’ll never understand why it was felt that such historically important specimens of animation should be so sparingly doled-out to the masses via television, while the characters of other studios rode the crest of that viewership wave to icon status!"
I, too, always found it strange (and unfortunate) that Disney didn't show its classic cartoons on TV nearly as much as Warner Bros. or MGM. I have no idea why. My only guess is they simply didn't want to be associated with television in any way. They had, at one point, a bit of a snobbish attitude toward TV. According to a Wikipedia entry I read years ago, a Disney executive once said of Hanna-Barbera: "We don't even consider them competition." So possibly Disney did not even want to wade into the television waters, since they considered the medium to be so beneath them.
Yep, Tuffy was created for the very first Tom and Jerry comic book story, in OUR GANG # 1 (1942). OUR GANG was the equivalent of WALT DISNEY’S COMICS AND STORIES, but for MGM characters. You can check out the link for that story at GCD HERE! Be sure to read the “Indexer Notes”, which detail WHO created Tuffy for that very early Dell comic!
I don’t have OUR GANG # 1 (and I didn’t write that index), but I DO have OUR GANG # 2 and I can confirm Tuffy’s presence in that! Though, in those earliest appearances there was less of a size difference between Jerry and Tuffy (who wore a diaper from the very beginning), and Tom and Jerry’s appearances looked more reflective of their first cartoon – “Puss Gets the Boot”!
“They [Disney] had, at one point, a bit of a snobbish attitude toward TV. According to a Wikipedia entry I read years ago, a Disney executive once said of Hanna-Barbera: "We don't even consider them competition." So possibly Disney did not even want to wade into the television waters, since they considered the medium to be so beneath them.”
That sounds right to me as well… But not TOO “snobbish” to have a “Disneyland” TV show, as well as The Mickey Mouse Club and the Guy Williams Zorro out there drumming-up publicity and good-viewer-will for them.
And, for what it’s worth, Hanna-Barbera sooo totally cleaned their clocks in the 1960s of my childhood, that (to bring this exchange full circle) classic Disney animated characters would have virtually no presence at all, were it not for Western Publishing!
Joe, I've got OUR GANG #1, and Tuffy indeed appears, though not from the story's start. Jerry is exploring the kitchen on his own when he finds his pal caught in the freezer, his tail frozen to a cube of ice where he'd unwisely let it rest. "It's Tuffy Mouse," says Jerry, so at this point there was no family connection.
As you note, he starts out about the same size as Jerry, though identified repeatedly by Tom as a baby mouse.
While as many have now noted, Tuffy was renamed Nibbles when introduced to the cartoons, later cartoons actually reverted to calling him Tuffy. See, for instance, FEEDIN' THE KIDDIE (link).
And the more recent Tom and Jerry direct-to-video films and TV cartoons, while initially calling him Nibbles, seem to have called him Tuffy more recently as well, with episode titles such as "Tuffy Love" and "Tuffy's Big Adventure." (I'm not a fan of these latest shorts, which just feel too minimal to me, though they do throw in a lot of classic supporting characters.)
David:
Thanks for filling in yet another gap in our collective knowledge of Western Publishing!
So, I guess then Oskar Lebek (editor) or Gaylord DuBois (writer) actually created Tuffy, whose popularity (or, at least, omnipresence) in the comics led to his eventual screen appearances!
Anyone taking that animation link to see Tuffy AS “Tuffy”, and not “Nibbles”, please be advised that there is a HUGE CUT in the cartoon that occurs around 2:16.
Tuffy probably ATE the missing footage!
Joe, this index of Our Gang #1 confirms Lebeck and DuBois's creation of Tuffy explicitly. But it's not my research—it's straight from DuBois's mouth, so to speak.
The index is otherwise a little incomplete; the presently noncredited Barney Bear story is clearly penciled and lettered by Kelly, though not inked by him. (Whereas the one that's credited to him now is clearly penciled and inked by him, but doesn't seem to be lettered by him...)
David:
Naturally, where else would you (or COULD YOU) go for such information other than GCD! That’s how I knew Tuffy was in OUR GANG # 1!
The information is not always perfect, but it’s far and away the best around – and I, with the guidance of an excellent editor with whom I work exclusively, am making it better every day!
So much so that, in just under six months, I presently have 392 indexing credits there… and counting! Mostly for Gold Key, Dell, St. John, and Charlton.
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