Tex Avery on DVD

The Big Snooze was Bob Clampett's last toon for Warner's after he quit/was fired. There's no director credit because it was WB's policy to leave any "uppitty" director's name off the credits out of spite. That's why Hollywood Daffy doesn't have Friz Freleng's name anywhere. It was released during the time when Friz had an arguement with Selzer about putting Tweety with Sylvester and walked out in disgust.

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Avery preferred one-offs and didn't particularly like continuing characters. I agree with him about this. Here are a few of his characters: Droopy, Screwy Squirrel, Chilly the Penguin, Wolfy, and Red (Red-Hot Riding Hood).

Tex was trying to develop a good continuing character just as much as any other director. It's just that character creation was not his strong suit. He was much more ingenius with gags and premises. He hit the nail on the head with Droopy but Screwy Squirrel wore himself out after 4 cartoons. Tex tried again with a fifth Screwy and then retired him forever.

Even at Warner Bros., sure he gets credit for creating Daffy Duck and Bugs Bunny but it wasn't him alone that accomplished this. In the cartoon Porky's Duck Hunt (c. 1937) Daffy didn't really come to life until Bob Clampett was given the freedom to animated a scene "any way he wanted". So, Bob came up with that crazy leaping stuff all accross the pond which they later dubbed "WOO HOO WOO HOO" over. And then Tex only made two other Daffy cartoons Daffy Duck and Egghead and Daffy Duck in Hollywood (both 1938) and then never touched him again. If the other directors (most notably Bob Clampett, Chuck Jones, Friz Freleng, or Bob McKimson) hadn't taken on the character of Daffy and added their own individual angle to him, Daffy would have gone the way of Screwy Squirrel.
And then there's Bugs. Bugs Bunny's creation story is probably the most complicated in all animation history (if there is one more complex I'd like to hear it. ;) ). Sure, Tex brought us the true Bugs Bunny that we know today in A Wild Hare (c. 1940) but it wouldn't have been possible with the previous attempts by Ben Hardaway, Chuck Jones, Charlie Thorston, etc. before him.

As for a Tex Avery box set. Yes, I have heard that Warner Bros. is working hard to get one produced, possibly this year. It would be great if his daughter Nancy could do commentary on it or something. Anyway, I certainly can't wait. :cool:

In the meantime, how much Tex is on the Looney Toons sets? They all seem pretty scatter-shot, chronologically. Is there one set with more Tex than the others? What else is out there??

There are only about eight Avery cartoons on all three Looney Tunes sets, including Tortoise Beats Hare and the butchered [i]Heckling Hare.
[/i]I'm one who wishes they would have released the sets by director and in chronological order.

I've never heard of Avery directing any Tom and Jerry shorts.
The IMDB attributes directing duties to him for the 1960s Tom and Jerry television series, but I believe these were just "wraparounds" for repackaged theatrical releases.

During this time, he also created the Frito Bandito, an animated junk food spokesman, and worked on Raid commercials, among others.

http://64.41.109.149/school/bandito.html
http://www.xs4all.nl/~hwalther/images/opc-raidbugs.jpg

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I love the Tom & Jerry shorts from the early and mid-forties. After that, they - and this seems to happen to every cartoon character over the age of 10 - lost their grittiness and were turned into more toddler-friendly characters. The characters Spike, Tyke, and Nibbles (the little mouse in diapers) are emblematic of this era.

I cannot watch the Jones T&J shorts. There's too much posing and camera mugging for my taste and too little content; plus the music and voices are terrible.

Jones himself said he didn't get T&J. He recycles storylines from previous WB cartoons smetimes like HUbie and bertie.

BTW T&J were never directed by Tex. Quimby was a producer. May've been regarded as a pain-in-the-neck in those days but a dream producer by today's standards; just nipped at heels making sure things were on time and budget and not interfering afaik in the creative end.

MGM have the classiest cartoons; the rowdiness of WB with the technical proficiency of Disney.
Oh yeah...Hanna and Barbera are the most winningest directors in the Academy animated short category...Largely for TOm and Jerry. I would guess T&J were more popular becasue the were a successful team while Avery did many one-offs black out gag cartoons.

I suppose we're just totally opposite. The cavalier-style episodes were too cutesy-wutesy for me and the gags were not very funny. The Jones episodes were crazy and strange and I think the voices were great. Both Tom & Jerry had these really low voices and would typically say just one word or two like, "Yeeesssss?!" Sometimes they ended up as friends, even. And they had that same Jonesy "Grinch" visual style that I'm very fond of.

The cavalier-style episodes were too cutesy-wutesy for me and the gags were not very funny.
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Sometimes they ended up as friends, even.

That's another thing that's wrong with the Jones T&Js.

Little is more "cutesy-wutesy" than mortal enemies becoming friends at the end of a cartoon.

The early T&Js are violent, ugly, and noisy.
The Jones T&Js are smug, hammy, and cute.

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I can agree with those adjectives. I'd add "trippy" and "whismical" to the Jones shorts. They have a kind of "dream-like" quality to them as well. I can also see how you'd apply "cute" to them, but I think a more appropriate word is "gay" (in it's original sense, that is).

The early T&J was indeed noisy! You know the music that plays when they're running around the house, stepping on rakes and whatnot, that vivace tempo string-section insanity?!
Bullulununlunlununllununuh...! :eek:

I enjoy the chaos of the early shorts. T&J might have been the most chaotic series of that era and I appreciate them for that extreme. Those shorts are just insane for the amount of pain the characters had to endure. It's difficult to recall anything that rivals them.

One of the main reasons he left is because Lantz wanted him to work on continuing characters and Avery didn't want to do it. Lantz is on record stating this.

Not every director wants to develop continuing characters. Studios want them because people supposedly "care about them". You can also put them on watches, lamps, bed linens, toys, etc. Tex Avery was a real artist. He wasn't in the merchandising business. That's one of the reasons I like him so much.

Really??!! Then why did Tex decide that Termite Terrace's first task was to make Porky Pig the star of their Looney Tunes series? Why did Tex try to duplicate the character of Bugs with The Crackpot Quail and to a certain extent Screwy Squirrel? How was he able to create the Frito Bandito character for commercials? And, why was he so adament in making sure everyone knew that he was the creator of Bugs Bunny at a time when Bob Clampett was trying to claim that credit? If Tex wasn't so concerned about character creation he might have let Bob take the glory.

I'm certainly not saying that Tex was this crass, capitolistic sellout or anything. His biggest interest was comedy. And every comedian or student of comedy knows that characterization is just as important if not more important than individual gags. Most often, gags flow much easier with a good character. That's why I said that he was always looking to create a character, not from a producer's stand point but rather from that of a writer/director.

Now, to answer the question of Tex Avery WB toons on dvd:

Vol 2.

The Heckling Hare (c. 1941)
Tortoise Beats Hare (c. 1941)
Hollywood Steps Out (c. 1941)
I Love to Singa (c. 1936)

Vol. 3

Daffy Duck in Hollywood (c. 1938)
Thugs With Dirty Mugs (c. 1939)
Daffy Duck and Egghead (c. 1938)