IT CAME FROM THE BOTTOM SHELF!

The Warner Archive Collection has provided a gift to animation lovers with the Blu-ray release of Tex Avery Screwball Classics: Volume 1.  You may not recognize the name Tex Avery, but chances are you’ve seen some of his cartoons.  If not, you’ve certainly been exposed to his influence on pop culture.  When someone describes something as “cartoony,” what they often mean is that it is “Avery-esque.”  Tex was the zaniest of the classic animation directors, and he was more interested in getting a laugh than considerations like plot or character.  His cartoons regularly included fourth wall-breaking gags, and he popularized the elastic eye-popping exaggeration that has influenced cartoons, films, and television that followed, including Who Framed Roger Rabbit, The Mask, The Ren & Stimpy Show, Animaniacs, and SpongeBob Squarepants.

Tex Avery developed his “anything-for-a-laugh” style at Warner Brothers, but it came into full bloom in 1942, when he moved to Fred Quimby’s animation department at MGM.  The Warner Archive Collection’s new Blu-ray is the first in a (hopefully) multi-volume series collecting Avery’s classic MGM cartoons.  Unlike Warner’s ongoing series of Popeye releases, the cartoons are not presented in chronological order, because some of the earlier titles need additional restoration work.  Instead, the 19 cartoons in Volume 1 include some of the most popular titles, including Red Hot Riding Hood, Bad Luck Blackie, and Symphony in Slang, along with a selection of cartoons starring Avery’s recurring characters Screwy Squirrel, George & Junior, and of course, Droopy.

Below is a brief overview of the titles included in the set.  Animation lovers don’t need me to tell them that these cartoons are absolutely delightful.  They are fast, laugh-out-loud funny, beautifully illustrated, and vibrantly painted.  However, fans may be wondering if the cartoons are presented in their complete, unedited, original release form.  Happily, they are.  Of course, that means that ethnic jokes and other gags that are out of step with today’s culture are left intact.  As such, the disc begins with the following disclaimer:

“Some of the cartoons you are about to see are a product of their time. They may depict some of the ethnic and racial prejudices that were commonplace in American society. These depictions were wrong then and are wrong today. While the following does not represent the Warner Bros.’ view of today’s society, some of these cartoons are being presented as they were originally created, because to do otherwise would be the same as claiming these prejudices never existed.”

With that out of the way, let’s get to the program, which has been split into four categories…

TEX AVERY CLASSICS 

(This category consists of standalone cartoons without regular recurring characters.)

Red Hot Riding Hood (1943)

The disc begins with an all-time classic, in which the story of Little Red Riding Hood is transplanted to a Hollywood nightclub, where a sexed-up Red (Sara Berner talking, Connie Russell singing) is ogled by a lecherous Wolf (Frank Graham).  The wolf chases Red to Grandma’s penthouse, where he finds himself the prey of a man-hungry Grandma.  Cartoons rarely make me laugh out loud, but this one succeeds every time.  This short also laid the foundation for the Jessica Rabbit nightclub scene in Who Framed Roger Rabbit.

Who Killed Who? (1943)

This organ-scored send-up of dark house murder mysteries doesn’t make a lot of sense, but it has a few fun fourth wall-breaking gags.  It also has a very memorable ending, combining animation and live action.

What’s Buzzin’ Buzzard? (1943)

In one of the lesser shorts on the disc, two vultures resort to attempted cannibalism due to starvation.  The wartime rationing jokes and Jimmy Durante imitation will likely be lost on younger audiences, but the cartoon does feature gorgeous, pastel-shaded, painted backgrounds of the desert landscapes.

Batty Baseball (1944)

Many Tex Avery shorts (such as The House of Tomorrow) were a collection of gags centered around a specific subject, but were otherwise plotless.  This example uses a baseball game as the hook on which to hang its jokes (which are more hits than strikes).

The Hick Chick (1946)

A gangly rural rooster (Stan Freberg imitating Red Skelton’s character Clem Kadiddlehopper) and a slick big city rooster (Daws Butler) fight over the affections of a curvaceous country hen(Sara Berner).  There are several clever gags in this fast-paced short.

Bad Luck Blackie (1949)

One of the most famous shorts in the set is also one of the best.  A small white kitten is bullied by a bulldog, until the kitten enlists the services of Bad Luck Blackie (Dick Nelson), a professional bad luck provider.  The bulldog gets his comeuppance, as Blackie finds ways to cross the dog’s path in a series of increasing inventive ways.

Garden Gopher (1950)

When Spike the bulldog (a character Avery used a lot, especially in the Droopy shorts) attempts to bury his bone, he finds himself contending with a pesky gopher.  This is basically a Bugs Bunny short with less personality (and one unfortunate racist joke).

The Peachy Cobbler (1950)

Like Batty Baseball, this short is basically a collection of blackout gags hung on a thin premise.  The fairytale of The Elves and the Shoemaker is the launching pad for a series of loosely-connected jokes around shoes and shoe-making.

Symphony in Slang (1951)

One of the best-remembered cartoons in this collection is this story of a Danny Kaye-like hipster (John Brown) relaying the story of his life to St. Peter and Noah Webster upon entering Heaven.  The angelic gatekeepers are confused by the hipster’s use of slang and imagine all of his odd expressions literally.  Clever visual gags combine with a more stylized, limited illustration technique in this absolute classic.  “Has the cat got yer tongue?”

SCREWY SQUIRREL

(Four of the five cartoons starring Avery’s most aggressively wacky character are collected in this grouping)

Screwball Squirrel (1944)

Screwy Squirrel (voiced in all the shorts by Wally Maher) breaks the fourth wall with reckless abandon as he menaces Meathead, the Birddog (Dick Nelson) for no good reason.  The Screwy Squirrel cartoons take place in a crazy, anything-can-happen universe, so all sorts of nonsensical hilarity takes place.  This is the first and best of the series.

The Screwy Truant (1945)

Screwy skips out on school, so a Truant Officer (Dick Nelson) chases after him.  This is another “dog chases squirrel cartoon,” but it is neither as clever nor as well illustrated as the previous Screwy outing.

Big Heel-Watha (1944)

This is the most racially problematic of the  cartoons in the set, but it is funnier than The Screwy Truant, and the painted backgrounds that open the short are some of the most beautiful that the studio ever produced.  Big Chief Rain in the Face (Paul Frees) offers the hand of his daughter, Minnie Hot-Cha (Sara Berner) to any member of the tribe who can bring back some meat.  Consequently, Big Heel-Watha (Bill “Droopy” Thompson) chases after Screwy.  War rationing jokes abound.

Lonesome Lenny (1946)

In a satire of Of Mice and Men, a rich woman (Sara Berner) buys Screwy Squirrel as a playmate for her lonely dog, Lenny (Tex Avery).  There are several jokes in this short that Warner Brothers would steal for their 1950s shorts, including the Lenny/pet relationship and characters punching out with time cards.  It’s strange that animators thought that Of Mice and Men was fertile soil in which to plant jokes.

GEORGE & JUNIOR

(Two of the four shorts starring George and Junior, anthropomorphic bears also based on George and Lennie from Of Mice and Men, appear in this section)

Hound Hunters (1947)

George (Dick Nelson) and Junior (Tex Avery) get jobs as dog catchers, but they have trouble capturing a tiny stray.  This short is beautifully animated, but George & Junior were the least appealing of the original characters that Tex created at MGM.

Red Hot Rangers (1947)

George & Junior are rangers fighting a strangely anthropomorphic forest fire.  I’d rank this short a little higher than Hound Hunters, but George & Junior are not amongst my favorites.

DROOPY

(This glum-looking, deceptively meek, white Basset Hound became Avery’s most popular creation at MGM.  Four of the seventeen Droopy shorts that Avery directed are collected in this section of Volume 1.)

Dumb-Hounded (1943)

Droopy (Bill Thompson) made his debut in this short, where the hound is on the trail of an escaped criminal.  The character design of Droopy is still in the rough stages, but the gags and animation are top-notch.  Great fun.

Wags to Riches (1949)

A millionaire leaves his estate to Droopy (Don Messick this time), but in the event of his death, the fortune reverts to Spike.  Guess what Spike is going to do.

The Chump Champ (1950)

Droopy (Messick again) completes with Gorgeous Gorillawitz (Spike with a different name) in a host of sporting events.  This is one of the less memorable Droopy shorts.

Daredevil Droopy (1951)

Bill Thompson is back as Droopy in the final short in the set.  Spike and Droopy compete in several challenges to win the job as a circus daredevil.  This is fairly similar to The Chump Champ, but it has a few better gags (and unfortunately a blackface joke).

USA/C-138m./Dir: Tex Avery/Wr: Various, including Rich Hogan, Heck Allen, Jack Cosgriff, and Tex Avery/Cast: Bill Thompson, Wally Maher, Sara Berner, Dick Nelson, Tex Avery, Daws Butler, John Brown, Pinto Colvig, Don Messick, Frank Graham, Connie Russell, Billy Bletcher, Richard Haydn

For Fans of: If you love the zanier Looney Tunes cartoons, or if you are a fan of films that Tex Avery influenced, such as Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988) and The Mask (1994), you are sure to love the classic cartoons in this new Blu-ray collection.

Video: The Warner Archive Collection’s Blu-ray release of Tex Avery Screwball Classics: Volume 1 is a treasure trove for animation lovers.  Not only are the cartoons presented in their original, uncut form; they have been lovingly restored and scanned in 4K.  The original negatives of these cartoons were destroyed in the 1965 MGM vault fire, but you would never know it in viewing this collection.  Warner Brothers has collected the very best surviving elements and the shorts are vibrant, colorful (from eye-popping reds to pearly pastel backgrounds), and look as fresh as when they were originally released.  (By the way, the cartoons look much better than the low-res images included with this review.)  In addition, the DTS-HD 2.0 Mono Master Audio track is crisp, clear, and dynamic, with no age-related hiss or distortion.

There are no special features on the disc.  It might have been nice to include a retrospective featurette or a few audio commentaries.  However, that would have meant either including fewer cartoons or presenting them at a lower bit rate, so I’m happy with the decision to present the shorts without supplements.

One might have hoped for a complete Tex Avery MGM collection in chronological order, but considering the work that has gone into this collection, it makes sense that Warner released the shorts that required less digital clean-up and allowed more time to work on the more damaged prints.

Streaming: Some individual Tex Avery cartoons may be available to purchase or stream on various services, but this particular collection (and the newest restorations) are only available in this Blu-ray set.

More to Explore: While you are waiting for additional volumes of Tex Avery Screwball Classics, I suggest checking out some of The Warner Archive Collection’s other Blu-ray releases of classic animation, including the upcoming re-release of the Tom & Jerry Golden Collection: Volume 1 and Popeye the Sailor: The 1940s Volumes 1, 2, and 3.

Trivia: Before moving to MGM, Tex Avery helped develop many of the classic Looney Tunes characters at Warner Brothers, including Porky Pig, Daffy Duck, and Bugs Bunny.  In fact, it was Avery who came up with Bugs’ famous catchphrase, “What’s up, doc?”

For More Info: Tex Avery’s animation career was well covered in a couple of books — Tex Avery: King of Cartoons by Joe Adamson and Tex Avery: The MGM Years, 1942-1955 by John Canemaker.