The Looney Year - 4/24/24 (The Pygmy Ant!?) by Strangerataru, literature
Literature
The Looney Year - 4/24/24 (The Pygmy Ant!?)
The Looney Year: A Review of all 1000+ Classic Looney Tunes (1929-1969) in one Year By StrangerAtaru With Appearances by...Friends. 4/24/24: 325: Porky's Ant Director: Chuck Jones Released: 5/10/41 I notice starting with "Toy Trouble" but in particular here that Chuck Jones is trying his best to get away from the sappier side of things and actually move into funnier shorts; it isn't as "active" as Chuck will get a bit later, but I do notice that he is getting a bit more manic in how his cartoons end up being depicted. The main story here is Porky and a "Native assistant" (who basically is just Inki with bigger lips...in fact with some elements near the end, you almost think it could be an Inki short...minus the Minah Bird, sadly) going after a rare Central African Pygmy Ant...an ant that is probably just about as racist in it's appearance as the other African stereotypes of the era constantly wearing a bone in it's hair. The whole thing does end up having more gags than usual for
The Looney Year - 4/23/24 by Strangerataru, literature
Literature
The Looney Year - 4/23/24
The Looney Year: A Review of all 1000+ Classic Looney Tunes (1929-1969) in one Year By StrangerAtaru With Appearances by...Friends. 4/23/24: 321: Goofy Groceries Director: Bob Clampett Released: 3/29/41 With the walls falling between what could be a "Looney Tunes" and what could be a "Merrie Melodies" short, there was still another that had been a persistent issue for a while regarding a certain director and long-standing problems. While for the most part most of the directors were going back and forth almost indiscriminately between the two series, Bob Clampett was stuck due to being "Porky's director". It wasn't necessarily something he prided but considering how he took over the Porky shorts while everyone else barely touched them and were all preferring to stick with the color Merrie Melodies, he felt it as a bit of an insult to his own talent. The other directors were filming in color and had bigger budgets for their cartoons; while Porky and thus he was getting neglected
The Looney Year - 4/22/24 (Cecil Turtle!?) by Strangerataru, literature
Literature
The Looney Year - 4/22/24 (Cecil Turtle!?)
The Looney Year: A Review of all 1000+ Classic Looney Tunes (1929-1969) in one Year By StrangerAtaru With Appearances by...Friends. 4/22/24: 317: The Cat's Tale Director: Friz Freleng Released: 3/1/41 We're obviously in an era where there is a lot of upending regarding relationships and where we get the common standards of "prey vs. predator" that have made up cartoons for a good chunk of the time since then. While obviously Friz hasn't had his first say on Bugs yet (that's coming), we do at least get his take on the cat-and-mouse...and maybe dog...relationship here and while it starts rather weak, it actually is an interesting short with a lot of fun elements and potential. I get where the mouse at the start comes from about being sick of being chased, but while that's more "tradition", it's also an issue of "the mouse is trying to steal food and the cat is there to keep the mouse away from said food" which is why it even exists in the first place. (I mean rewatch "Ain't We Got
Six-Pack - Another Generation by Strangerataru, literature
Literature
Six-Pack - Another Generation
Have you ever not known things about your family that you thought you did, but it turns out that there were some things you just never knew about? That there was some deep, dark, evil family secret that once you knew would end up changing everything and making you question all that you knew? OK, it isn't that bad, but...that's sort of what happened to me. And it all started...because of my stepsister, Ines. Ines came into our family when her mother was killed in the line of duty; she was a police woman who took on the most dangerous of duties, but one day she went too far and it cost her her very life. She had given birth to her daughter just before the incident; there were no traces of who the father was since it was considered a one-night stand and they were long gone so no paternity tests could be made about who he was. My parents at the time had just had my sister, Juliet. they were practically born on the same day in different hospitals and for some reason they wanted to
The Looney Year - 4/19/24 (Tree.) by Strangerataru, literature
Literature
The Looney Year - 4/19/24 (Tree.)
The Looney Year: A Review of all 1000+ Classic Looney Tunes (1929-1969) in one Year By StrangerAtaru With Appearances by...Friends. 4/19/24: 313: The Fighting 69 1/2th Director: Friz Freleng Released: 1/18/41 It was 1941: Europe had been devastated by the Blitz and the Nazis were grasping the continent tighter and tighter in their control; while Japan was fighting China and had greater aspirations for conquest throughout Asia and the Pacific. Yet back in the States...we have ants parodying the first World War over a picnic lunch. Yeah...as a reminder, outside Canada (who had great loyalties to the British and thus were already fighting on their side in what felt like a losing battle in Europe), the Western Hemisphere had no connection to all the fighting and, until December, had zero interest or desire to enter into this massive global conflict; so to have a short that parodies war yet keeps it to the first World War (the short is actually named after a World War I film made by WB