Odds & Ends

Wednesday, May 07, 2008

Avery, Jones, Clampett

A really interesting bit of animation history appeared over at Thad Komorowski's blog: the infamous "Jones-Avery letter." It is an open letter written by Chuck Jones (and annotated by Tex Avery) angrily denouncing Clampett's attempts to "claim" the history of Warner Bros. cartoons. Michael Barrier adds his commentary from an old essay on the letter here; the letter also provides interesting backgorund to this essay by Milton Gray here.

In happier times: L to R, Tex Avery, Chuck Jones and Bob Clampett, circa 1935

It's one of the great stories of animation: the three best directors at Warner Bros., and I think arguably the three greatest figures - outside of Disney - of animation's Golden Age, start as collaborators and finish in their twilight years bickering over their legacy. Jones, in particular, would barely acknowledge Clampett's existence when he talked about the studio.

One quibble I have with Barrier's commentary, though, is that he is overly harsh on Jones. While he may well be right that Jones wasn't a nice person in his later years (certainly he is correct that he was a lousy interview subject), and is right to be annoyed that Jones failed to provide Barrier chapter-and-verse rebuttal of Clampett's comments before the letter was published, the basic point is that pretty all of Jones' comments in the letter are spot on. On this point, I agree with Nate Birch's commentary in the comments on Komorowski's blog:

Looking at this letter the situation as it went down back then really crystalizes much more clearly and nobody really ends up coming off like a bad guy. Clampett was long removed from Warner's or directing theatrical cartoons and some guy from a small-time publication comes to interview him, so he decides to show off a little. Maybe pass a few drawings that weren't his off as his, fudge a few facts. Clampett wasn't one to take things too seriously and and this was all stuff from a totally different period in his life... I'm sure he thought nobody would really pick up on the interview or care much. Of course he didn't count on Jones, who was still immersed in the world of animation and tended to take the artform more seriously seeing the interview, and he writes a letter trying to put the real history out there even though it probably wasn't really necessary (nobody was going to write history books entirely on the word of Bob Clampett). Still, you can understand where Jones was coming from. Tex was asked to comment and tossed off some notes he probably realized were a bit rash and later apologized. Really, much ado about nothing.

I find it pretty easy to understand Jones' anger at works others (including but not limited to himself) labored on being claimed by Clampett, and in that context the tone of his letter is pretty easy to understand.

Labels: "chuck jones", animation, clampett

Posted by Stephen Rowley @ 7.5.08

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Friday, March 14, 2008

Round-Up of the Frivolous Things

The site has had, until yesterday, another quiet few weeks, what with one thing another. Whenever I go through one of these periods where I don't have time to get something substantial up (or where, as was the was the case over the last week or so, I'm labouring over something that starts as a short post and ends as a great big one) the temptation is always to keep the page ticking over by posting the various silly things and rumours on this page. But then I get self-conscious about how lightweight some of this stuff is.

After I've just published a "proper" article or post, though, I've got no such qualms. So on the coat-tails of my piece on Film Theory, it's time to catch up on the frivolous stuff from the internet.

Bees! Bees! Millions of Bees!

This one came from Jaime J. Weinman's Something Old, Nothing New, where Weinman was taking about Irwin Allen's The Swarm.

A very dumb clip, but it gets me every time: as a commenter over at Weinman's blog put it, the way the guys says "Millions of bees!" makes it sound like he's selling them, not getting killed by them.

Bosko Says What?

Everyone loves it when a cartoon character swears. Via Cartoon Brew.

Clampett Update

There's been some good stuff on the internet about Bob Clampett over the last few eeeks: this post by Kristin Thompson looks at some freeze frames from his work and Michael Barrier talks about the cult of Clampett. The latter follows a debate that had played out following Barrier's earlier comments about the merits of Clampett's Buckaroo Bugs; you can follow that earlier debate through links from the more recent piece.

If you're not that familiar with Clampett, I would humbly point you towards my earlier essay on him, which was intended as introduction for the uninitiated.

Wall-E.T.

The main trailer for Pixar's Wall-E is out. YouTube below, but the much nicer HD version is here.

People are really flipping out over this movie. I don't know - I don't find the trailer as completely convincing as others do, and Pixar have lost that aura of invincibility. But here's hoping.

Speed Racer Trailer

Now here's one that redefines the term "garish." YouTube below but this one you really need to see in HD (here).

Who knows what to make of this. It kind of looks hideous and badly shot, but then I've commented just recently on what good action directors the Wachowskis are.

Harry Potter and the Multiple Films

And apparently Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows is to be two movies. Given the really good bits of the last book are in the second half (see here for my comments when the book came out) this strikes me as unwise. Perhaps they can give the first half of the book, where the kinds are wandering the country, an epic Lord of the Rings-ish scope. But I think they risk getting a real dud out of this.

Labels: animation, bordwell, clampett, harry potter, humour, pixar, rumours, trailers