TEX AVERY SCREWBALL CLASSICS: VOLUME 3 (MGM, 1942-55) Warner Archive

The life of an animator is a curious discipline, marked by awe-inspiring dedication to the craft of bringing inanimate creatures convincingly to life. In the case of Frederick Bean ‘Tex’ Avery, the accomplishment remains distinguished, yet marred by assessments of his genius, using today’s slide ruler of political correctness, to brand it as racist/sexist/homophobic drivel. A pause, dear readers, to suggest an alternative – and far more plausible theory; first, that Avery’s particular brand of irreverence was always skewed toward extreme absurdity. Hence, his cartoons tend to favor a hyperactive slant, railing against commonly shared human foibles. Arguably, then – Avery was not promoting racism, sexism or homophobia, but rather, exposing all three at their most extreme and ludicrous - theoretically, and through humor and farce, to hold a mirror up to society and critique, rather than criticize, or worse, obfuscate their existence from the public record. And while genius, arguably, manifests itself in many forms, in Avery’s case, he seems to have taken the old adage about ‘imitation’ being the cheapest form of flattery, directly to his heart.

Yet, despite some of the overlap – and there is much of it in Volume 3 - Avery’s influence has been felt globally in the field of animation ever since, from TV’s Ren and Stimpy (1991-96), and, the Animaniacs (1993-98) to the animated/live action cornucopia classic, Who Framed Roger Rabbit? (1988), not to mention the boundless references made to Avery’s prowess elsewhere in the cinema firmament.  So, please – can we just cease criticizing artists from another generation like Avery as harboring a congenital affliction against minority groups and women? His art functions from a perspective in which no such impositions existed. And maybe, just maybe, his cartoons – usually set in the animal kingdom – were substitutes, trying to tell us something more generous and revealing about our sincerely flawed human behavior. So, only in hindsight do the 20 shorts assembled by the Warner Archive for Tex Avery: Screwball Classics Volume 3 appear to be scraping the bottom of the barrel as we have been supremely spoiled by the golden goodies included in the first two hi-def volumes already available for our consumption.  And yet, even with this acknowledgement, that Avery has come around – and around – and around again in re-introducing us to his fine-tuned follies and froth, in shameless showcases for his sultry sex bomb, her ever-overwrought and wolfish admirer, and, of course, Droopy (for all you ‘happy people’), we have to draw breath to admit that if not for those two previous Blu-ray releases, Volume 3 would represent some of the most riotous, raw and richly satisfying socio-political farce ever made in the field of animation.

Apart from including the long-awaited debut of one of Avery’s most beloved shorts, 1945’s ‘Swing Shift Cinderella’ – “Oh, wolfy, you’re the one!” – this third installment marks Avery’s beloved insanity with some thoroughly marvelous examples of the animator’s craft, including The Shooting of Dan McGoo (1945) in which the wolf and Droopy go head to head in a western-styled shoot-‘em-up in Alaska, The King-Size Canary (1947) – where a super-tonic for plants is used to morph a cat, dog and bird to gargantuan proportions, Señor Droopy (1949), starring Droopy and the wolf as a pair of matadors in old Spain, taking on a particularly maniacal bull, Rock-a-bye Bear (1952) featuring two mutts who spar for the opportunity to babysit a very caustic, hibernating grizzly, and Cellbound (1955), to feature Avery’s beloved and silly bulldog, desperate to escape Sing-Song prison, but instead managing to tunnel his way right into the warden’s new television set.  In hindsight, however, it’s the copy-cats that seem to stick out in this collection. 1952’s One Cab’s Family (from Vol. 2) and 1953’s Little Johnny Jet (in this collection) are transparent companion pieces, with Avery recycling basically the same story and even same character design (he adds wings and propellers to the cab) to tell a tale of father/son ‘that’s my boy!’ reconciliation. 1945’s What Price Fleadom? (in this set) and The Flea Circus (1954, and on Vol. 1) are equally drawn from the same wellspring of inspiration, with minor tweaks applied.  

As with the previous two sets of Avery’s work, this one foregoes any and all references – save one – to his earlier tenures at Winkler, Walter Lantz and Warner Bros. – proving grounds in which Avery established, then refined his style before migrating over to MGM, where his brazen and hyperactive panache was given full reign to be expressed. MGM initially gave Avery 5-years under Fred Quimby’s supervision, and Blitz Wolf, an Oscar-nominated mocking spoof of Adolf Hitler. A year later, Avery created Droopy, segueing Metro’s lush elegance into a sort of fractured UPA bravura that had its run until 1950, when Avery, exhausted and drained of his creative juices took a much-needed holiday.  Alas, by the time of his return, MGM was no longer under Louis B. Mayer’s control – the old-time mogul replaced by Dore Schary, who could not see the virtue in keeping the ever-rising and costly endeavor of making animated shorts alive. Nevertheless, for a brief wrinkle, Avery committed to several Cinemascope cartoons in 1953, withheld – seemingly for no apparent reason – for nearly 2 years. What Avery’s Metro tenure lacked in creating iconic characters like a Bugs Bunny or Daffy Duck his outings more than made up for with a bizarre wit, capable of finding the absolute insanity in life, and exaggerating it to the nth degree. Characters in a Tex Avery short are drawn from life, writ on a larger palette for missed opportunities, fraud and folly, but otherwise, finding their home in our hearts as an extension of our frustrations with life itself; the hunter, chronically unable to catch anything, except maybe, a cold, the opera singer never to finish his aria as he comes under siege from a con artist with a magical baton, or the sex-starved wolf, unable to exert his passion on the unwilling sexpot, always just a little beyond his reach. Forget political correctness. Yes, let’s. Tex Avery’s craft spoke to a level of unhinged and thoroughly progressive joy to be had from exposing, even occasionally celebrating the politically incorrect.

Sex is very much a part of Avery’s milieu, though ironically, not violence. For although Avery allows for more than his fair share of exploding dynamite, gunshots through the head and hands of his protagonists, and, otherwise dismembering of various body parts in one scene, only to be miraculously reassembled in the next, the exercise is not in support of violence as a means for resolving conflict, but rather to illustrate a counterpoint: that violence, even in its crudest form, serves absolutely no purpose, except to plague its chronically resuscitated victims to carry on, hopefully to have learned from their prior mistakes.  Avery’s protagonists speak to humanity’s collective vexation with what was then laughingly coined as ‘the modern world’. I wonder what he might have made of today’s thoroughly manic world spiraling wildly out of control. Or is it that the world – once sane – has since caught up to the laughable silliness in a Tex Avery cartoon?

Tex Avery Screwball Classics Vol. 3 is a bit of a letdown, compared to the first two installments, not only in content but in hi-def mastering. While some of the shorts here have survived, remarkably intact and looking every bit as glorious in Technicolor, others tend to suffer from a slightly faded characteristic with a distinct loss of fine detail. Granted, there was the George Eastman House fire to consider, wiping out an entire catalog of original elements, otherwise to have been properly curated for decades. So, we cast no aspersions here on the work done by the Warner Archive (WAC) as it will likely appeal to a broad spectrum of casual viewers and collectors alike. The shorts included in Volume 3 are, Blitz Wolf, The Early Bird Dood It! (both from 1942), One Ham’s Family (1943), Happy-Go-Nutty (1944 – and, with its blackface routine restored), Jerky Turkey (1945, with all its riotous references to indigenous peoples restored), The Shooting of Dan McGoo, Swing Shift Cinderella, Wild and Woolfy (all from 1945), Northwest Hounded Police (1946), Slap Happy Lion, King-Size Canary (both in 1947), What Price Fleadom, Little Tinker (both from 1948), Senor Droopy (1949), Cock-a-doodle Dog (1951), Rock-a-Bye Bear (1952), Little Johnny Jet (1953), Billy Boy (1954), Deputy Droopy and Cellbound (both in 1955).  As an added attraction, WAC has included one of Avery’s Looney Tune shorts, the Crackpot Quail (1941) with original audio. With these 20 cartoon releases, WAC has now given us a total of 60 out of a possible 67 shorts Avery directed at MGM. The 7 remaining titles, still MIA, have remained so, due to what is considered their highly incendiary outlook on people not of the white race. It is highly unlikely these remaining shorts will ever see the light of day under our current, oppressive political correctness.

For those with tender ears, too ‘woke’ to appreciate art as art, WAC has provided 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.” We will give WAC top marks for including these shorts in their irreverent entirety. No edits, excisions, alterations, etc. So, those prone to hyper-sensitivity or a general lack of good humor, should spend their time and money elsewhere. For the rest of us, still able to appreciate comedy as cheeky as this, Tex Avery Screwball Classics: Vol. 3 is yet another feast for cartoon lovers. The 2.0 DTS audio sounds great.  Bottom line: all of Tex Avery’s work should be required viewing for aspiring animators today and a history lesson for some who wish to ascribe the barometer of where the American cultural mindset once was, and how far it has actually evolved since. Don’t deny history, folks…or you are doomed to repeat it! Volume 3 comes highly recommended!

FILM RATING (out of 5 – 5 being the best)

4.5

VIDEO/AUDIO

4.5

EXTRAS

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