Friday 30 March 2018

Looney Tunes roundup.

Watching the Great Piggy Bank Robbery (1946) - Duck Tracy, "Batman" (an anthropomorphic baseball bat), "Pumpkinhead", "Picklepuss" "Odd noodle", "Jukebox Jaw". Planes flying out of Flattop's head.  Another ad for Joe's. Just when you think they get samey, some real creativity pops up.
Shishkabugs (1962)- one of the more modern Looney Tunes. Involves kebabbed Bugs to make Hassenpfeffer. Less samey because of the almost-UPA style (a style pioneered in WB's own Dover Boys in 1942).  Some of the early samey Bugs i.e. the Wacky Wabbit can be taxing. They're no Rabbit Seasoning or Ali Baba Bunny.
The Scarlet Pumpernickel (1949) - Carry On Dick made by the Looney Tunes. Nice jokes i.e. the cliffside horse-chase and Porky as the Lord High Chamberlain.
A Corny Concerto (1943)  - Warner slagging Fantasia.
Rabbit of Seville (1950) - the one with cream fruit salad-headed/bridal-clad  Elmer Fudd, fun, exquisitely done. Woody Woodpecker did the same thing a few years earlier, but slightly more annoying.
Feed The Kitty (1952) is a bit too cutesy, Tom and Jerry for me.
Daffy Duck's Book Revue with its books dancing about and characters falling out has some of the same ideas as some of Avery's stuff.
You Ought to be in Pictures (1940) - Early meta-how to do film with Porky and Daffy, still quite babyish and cutesy, a la such other early Warner takes as Joe Glows the Firefly.  Porky wants to star with Bette Davis. Early live-action mix. Inventive stuff.


+ 1 - 1 (1987) - Bozzetto associate Guido Manuli does this surrealistic sketch- romcom about a newsreader, a Superman, a sale, and a live action Marilyn Monroe.  Slightly Klasky-Csupo ish. About how life is a film.
Incubus (1987) - Manuli's strange short about a man haunted in a hotel room. A policeman, a teeth, a giant rat, legs, a widow, all scored to music that sounds like the 3-2-1 theme. A bit Amazon Women on the Moon - specifically the Lou Jacobi bit. But Italian. Therefore better.  Extraordinary.
S O S (1979) - Live action/animation hybrid with a funny-voiced scientist, a King Kong spoof, a bride cutting open her husband instead of the cake,  cavemen, naked ladies being flattened into porn and various rather ingenious sexy jokes.
Fantabiblical - a nice but not very amusing bible spoof, though the Jesus on the moon visual is memorable
Opera - Bozzetto, features Nazis with tanks in their mouths, Batmen inside Batman, growing TV aerials and a gasmasked Statue of Librty - stunning, then a gun with teeth..
Istruzioni Per L'Uso - just lots of arse-related jokes - arse jetpacks, arse islands, people turning to ash when they pinch arss. A bit wearing.
TRAILER - spoofs Battleship Potemkin in an appealing Belleville Rendezvous type world, a cinematic experiment with a EuroDisney pisstake.
Sexy Symphony - B/W cartoon animals fucking. That's the joke. Not one of Manuli's best. .
Need to watch more Manuli/Bozzetto. More of the Mr. Rossi shorts.

EDIT: The Mr. Rossi shorts feel more Walter Mitty-ish and a bit more adult - sexy hitchhikers, congestion jokes, creepy gasmasked miners in Venice, but they do feature a rocketship made out of washing machine explode a cruise liner into a load of suds. A lot of pleasing surrealism. Mr. Rossi on Safari has some unfortunate stereotypes (amongst more civilised black characters, there's tribal stereotypes ahoy who unlike the civilised characters have big lips and darker skin but charge for dancing). But they're also routine, and lack dog action. The first film is basically an Italian knockoff of UPA - transparent skin and all.

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