Dog Gone South

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          

Charlie's search for a master leads him to a plantation down South where Charlie tries to force himself on the owner, a Confederate Colonel. Unfortunately, the Colonel already has a pet bulldog named,  "Belvedere".

 As far as cartoons go, "Dog Gone South" is an all time favorite of many. Here is just a sampling of the many memorable quotes from this cartoon.

Charlie Dog: Plantation? Are you from the South?


Colonel Shuffle: Ah'm not only from it, sir. Ah'm in it.

Charlie Dog: Well shut mah mouth an' stuff me full o' chitlins! Ah'm from the South, too!

Colonel Shuffle: Oh, Belvedere. Come heah, boy.

Charlie Dog: Goodbye, Belvedere. If you're ever up dat way, say hello to my aunt in Boston.

Colonel Shuffle: Boston? Why you cotton-picking Yankee...

Charlie Dog: South Boston, Alabama.

Charlie Dog: You keep out'a this! You an' your 'Southern hospitality'!... and besides, my aunt lives in NORTH Boston - Massatuchetts!

Often an Orphan

The next two cartoons I'm going to post are going to focus on one of my favorite Looney Tune characters, Charlie dog. An early version of Charlie appeared in the 1941 short "Porkys Pooch". The dog in that cartoon was named Rover and Mel Blanc provided the Brooklyn like voice and accent which would later become Charlie's standard voice.

In 1947 Chuck Jones renamed the dog Charlie and transformed him into something new. Jones first used Charlie in Little Orphan Airedale.  The film was a success, and Jones would create two more Charlie Dog/Porky Pig cartoons in 1949: Awful Orphan and Often an Orphan. Jones also starred Charlie without Porky in a couple of shorts: Dog Gone South and A Hound for Trouble which sends Charlie to Italy where he searches for a master who speaks English.

In these cartoons, Charlie Dog is defined by one desire: to find himself a master. To this end, Charlie is willing to pull out all the stops, from pulling "the big soulful eyes routine" to boasting of his pedigree ("Fifty percent Collie! Fifty percent setter, Irish Setter! Fifty Percent Boxer! Fifty percent Doberman Pincher! Fifty percent pointer—there it is! There it is! There it is! But, mostly, I'm all Labrador Retriever!") when reminded by others that he is not a Labrador retriever, his response would be, "If you'll find me a Labrador, I'll retrieve it for you." —though in reality, he is just a slick-talking mutt who rarely realizes that his own aggressive obnoxiousness is sabotaging his appeal to any potential guardian.

Often an Orphan was the last cartoon Porky Pig starred in with Charlie. The cartoon deals with Charlie trying to get Porky to adopt him after his old owner dumps him at Porky's farm on a trip disguised as a picnic. Charlie instead irritates Porky and the short deals with him trying to get rid of the dog in various ways, but failing each time.

Droopys Good Deed

From May 5th 1951 it's MGM's "Droopys Good Deed". This cartoon was directed by Tex Avery and was one of the last cartoons Avery produced for MGM  before going on a self-imposed sabbatical from the MGM cartoon dept.

In this outing, Spike the vagrant comes across a boy scout camp when he is booted off a freight train. A competition is underway between Droopy and another scout for Best Scout. The prize? A trip to Washington to meet with the President! Spike sees this as his opportunity and takes the other scout's place. The remainder of the cartoon is a smattering of quick black-out gags as Spike does his best to eliminate his competitor, Droopy.

What I'm posting here is the uncensored version so to all you PC folks out there, you've been warned!
As an interesting side note there is an an error in geography in this cartoon. The cartoon ends with Droopy visiting the President. However, instead of visiting the White House, he visits Capitol Hill.

The Boys From Termite Terrace Part 3

Camera Three - The Boys From Termite Terrace Part 2

Camera Three - The Boys From Termite Terrace Part 1

Camera Three was a Sunday morning program devoted to the arts. It ran on CBS from January 22, 1956 to  January 21, 1979, and moved to PBS in its final year to make way for the then-new CBS News Sunday Morning. The PBS version ran from October 4, 1979 to July 10, 1980.

This entry is the first in a four part series which will examine the entire hour long episode. As far as finding this video on the internet goes, it's a pretty tall task. It took me about four months to download the entire thing. That's part of the reason I'm posting it.

The episode was actually a two part show which originally aired on April 21, 1975 and April 28, 1975.
The show, hosted by animator and filmmaker, John Canemaker examines the golden years (1930 to 1964) of the Warner Brothers cartoon film department.

Mel Blanc and Chuck Jones are among those featured along with many excerpts from classic cartoons showing the changing styles of these world-famous figures. 

Next month we will look at part two in the series. If you feel the need to download the video, you can do so by installing Orbit video grabber. It's a fairly simple tool to use and can grab just about anything video from a page.






 

The Night Before Christmas - Tom and Jerry

Well it's that time of year again so I figured I would tis the season with the classic 1941 Tom and Jerry Cartoon "The Night Before Christmas". 

The Night Before Christmas was released in theaters on 6 December 1941 and was nominated for the 1941 Academy Award for Best Short Subject : Cartoons. It was the third of the 114 Tom and Jerry Cartoons MGM released so Tom and Jerry are still in their early days of developement here.

The cartoon begins with the usual cat and mouse antics but the spirit of Christmas soon takes over and proves the even a cat and mouse can be touched by the season and for at least a day be nice to one another.

Enjoy and oh yeah...Merry Christmas!!!