Hello my friends and happy Saturday Morning once again it is time for some classic cartoons.
Today's selection begins with a cartoon appropriate for Thanksgiving being right around the corner. This cartoon is Tom Turk and Daffy (1944). Unlike Christmas or Halloween, there really aren't a wide variety of Thanksgiving cartoons, which is odd once you think about how hunting a turkey is a perfect subject for a cartoon. However the idea of hunting a turkey in a cartoon was done to perfection in this film. The cartoon was directed by Chuck Jones, who is often credited with playing a big role in turning Daffy from his early crazy self into a self centered character bent on self-preservation-ism. While Daffy had not fully turned into that character by this point this cartoon shows that sneaking into the character. In this film Daffy is willing to sell-out his friend he vowed to protect when temptation gets the better of him. The idea of Daffy simply being too weak to resist temptation is fully in line with the Daffy we would see in later Jones cartoons. Despite this cartoon being Thanksgiving themed, Jerry Beck and Will Friedwald's book, Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies: A Complete Illustrated Guide to Warner Brothers Cartoons, lists the film release date as February 12th, 1944. The story credit for this film goes to "The Staff" and as far as I know this is the only Warner cartoon with that credit. I do not know the reason for this if any of you do please let me know.
Broadcasting, 1961
I mentioned on my Halloween cartoon post that I love the half-hour Garfield TV specials and that goes for Garfield's Thanksgiving (1989) as well.
Another fun Thanksgiving cartoon is the Casper cartoon, Do or Diet (1953). Many of the Casper cartoons of this period simply repeated the same formula over and over, there were a few that either did something slightly different with the formula or did away with it entirely. While this film followed the formula having Casper befriend a turkey who was going to be killed for Thanksgiving instead of a kid makes this short just different enough from the others to stand out. While I wouldn't call this cartoon funny exactly, it is very charming in its own right.
Is there anything better to watch for Thanksgiving (or any time of the year) than a Tex Avery cartoon? I thought not. Jerky Turkey (1945) is a Holiday classic all the way for us cartoon lovers. There are jokes galore throughout the whole film and most of them are dang funny. The ending joke is especially perfect. This is one of the few must watch films (short or feature) I have for Thanksgiving and I hope you all enjoy it as much as I do.
Today's cartoon selection ends with the next episode of Ruff and Reddy. To see what happens to our heroes next come back next week.
-Michael J. Ruhland
Comments