"And that is why ice hockey is called a spectator sport."

I've been slow for a variety of reasons (grad. school, writing other things for, etc) but here it is (next time will hopefully be back on the weekend).

Porky’s Café - 1942

1942 was that the Chuck Jones was really starting to move out of his faux-Disney phrase and into his slick pose phrase with funnier cartoons. This is one of those cartoons that show it. While not very funny (for a Looney Tune), there are certainly some humorous gags here.

Californy ‘er Bust – 1945 Warning See Below

At the time of the Golden Age of Hollywood, the western was one of the more popular genres. And this short is a parody of those numerous films from the time. As such there are dated elements as shown in the depiction of the Native Americans (from use of the word “Ugh” to the powwow warpath to the red skin coloring). As Leonard Maltin pointed out in the DVD intro, these stereotypes are “caricatures of caricatures” and that does take away part of the sting because everything is overall over the top already. Still, I wouldn’t fault anyway from shying away from the film because of such elements (this wasn’t ever removed from TV like Coal Black was but it did suffer the editor’s scissors).

Having said all that, I find this to a very funny film. The gags are hilarious (there’s a part where the narrator remembers that they traveled through a different state then the one he previously mentioned and when one of the Goofys gets his feather shot off). I should also mention that even though the film is labeled as a Goofy short, that Goofy the character really isn’t there. There are just extras that look like him that play the various roles. So one wouldn’t watch this film for character or plot like one would a typical Disney cartoon, but instead for humor. And like I said, it is pretty funny.

Also, it contains the first pony.

Education for Death – 1943 Warning See Below

All previous cartoons I’ve mentioned that are heavily war-themed usually spend more time laughing at the enemy and mocking them then portraying them as monsters. This is an exception. Beyond a brief scene of Hitler waking a sleeping Germany, everything about this cartoon is cold and bleak. So if you were looking for something not preachy, not dark, with actual characters and plot, or you just wanted something funny, then skip this one (my biggest compliant about this film is that it doesn’t do animation a lot of justice, I feel that live-action could have just as effective here). Otherwise dive in ahead and watch the making of a Nazi. See as it shows the stories he reads, the education he receives, and where it leads him. And as it serves as a harsh reminder that people can be made to do terrible things if their environment encourages them to and how vulnerable the mind is, lessons that are still applicable today.

Hockey Homicide - 1945

The Disney studio is not known for providing very funny gags and as I said before most of its post-early forties work isn’t very good. Some of the few bright spots of that time were provided by director Jack Kinney. Kinney was distinct amongst Disney directors, for one during the war period, Walt Disney wasn’t paying too much attention to the short department (particularly the Goofy cartoons), and that allowed Kinney to do things as he wanted to do and so his films reflect his taste more than Disney’s. Two, Kinney wasn’t concerned with character like his fellow Disney directors; he concentrated on getting as many laughs as possible (Kinney would have worked well as a fellow director alongside Avery and Hanna-Barbera at MGM-actually he almost did work there). Although I personally like Der Fuhrer’s Face more (which Kinney directed), I think Hockey Homicide (which is my # 5) is a far better representation of Kinney at his best. There isn’t a whole lot in the way of gags; instead the laughs come from heavy doses of very fast and very hard-hitting slapstick and variations on the same funny situation (the referee ‘clean game Kinney’ (as in the director; a lot of names here are those of people at the Disney studio) varies ways of placing the puck without getting pulverized). The speed is really the key to Hockey Homicide because it only slows down when such calmness is the joke itself. And this momentum builds to the point that in the last minute and a half, every single aspect of the cartoon is worked into a massive feeding frenzy that leaves the audience exhausted from laughter.