Little Red Riding Hood

I got on this today by messing with the little E run that starts this song, and it kind of went from there. This is what burn out looks like. It's not pretty. Above is an image from a Bloomingdale window display. Below is one of those sophisticated sexy twenties proto-Mickey Mouse cartoons that I can't get enough of.

Porky Pig Gets Very Surreal

The surrealist 1938 Porky in Wackyland, with its Dali-esque landscapes and opium dream inspired humor and storyline, has become my new favorite cartoon of all time. Porky Pig flies to darkest Africa in pursuit of a four sextillion dollar bounty on the last dodo bird and encounters along the way a black duck doing an Al Jolson impersonation, a freakish Three Stooges monster, and a dodo — who sounds remarkably like Daffy Duck — that bounces in from the vanishing point from behind a Warner Brothers shield to bop Porky on the head. All of these scenes were removed in the Cartoon Network version of the 1949 Merrie Melodies re-release, a cinecolor version entitled Dough for the Do-Do. In 1994, animators voted Porky in Wackyland #8 of the 50 Greatest Cartoons of All-time. The film is richly representative of that early period of animation when the rules of the medium were still up for grabs, and cartoonists were drunk with possibility.

Countrified Tom and Jerry

Pecos Pest, the 96th Tom and Jerry, made in 1953 and released in theaters two years later, was the last of this cartoon to be produced by MGM's Fred Quimby before his retirement. The singer is Shug Fisher, an Okie who was born in 1907 and enjoyed a long career as a comedian and country musician before turning to the screen in the 60s, appearing in Ripcord, Gunsmoke, and as "Shorty Kellums," a regular on The Beverly Hillbillies.

28 Years Of Right-Wing Hegemony Explained

Underdog, which began, strangely, as part of a promo scheme to sell cereal for General Mills, is clearly one of the best things to come out of the 60s. The show always came in four parts, the third beginning with the epic Underdog theme song, which occasionally gets the alternate verse:

When criminals in this world appear,
And break the laws that they should fear,
And frighten all who see or hear,
The cry goes up both far and near
for Underdog! Underdog! Underdog! Underdog!
Speed of lightning! Roar of thunder!
Fighting all who rob or plunder!
Underdog! Underdog!

While in this world the headlines read,
Of those whose hearts are filled with greed,
Who rob and steal from those who need,
To right this wrong with blinding speed
goes Underdog! Underdog! Underdog! Underdog!
Speed of lightning! Roar of thunder!
Fighting all who rob or plunder!
Underdog! Underdog!

In this episode, evil mad scientist Simon Barsinister ventures into electoral politics by inventing a tickle machine that makes people too happy to care about voting, thus securing his election as dictator of the world. Sweet Polly Purebred's Bongo Congo song in Part 4 is a beautiful metaphor for the general state of the mainstream media. Maybe it's a reach, but I think I see a tribute here to the 1967 Chilly Willy Mukluk Bop.

The Invention of Boredom

Watching cartoons with the girls today I looked for the stuff that did it for my dad when I was a kid: Bullwinkle and Rocky, The Underdog Show, Dudley Dooright, Peabody and Sherman, and Fractured Fairy Tales. They were all from the early sixties and ran for longer in syndication. They're all great, but Fractured Fairy Tales stands a cut above in terms of the cool early 60s mod art and clearly adult humor. This was my favorite from today. A lovely princess steps on a witch's toe and gets turned into a bore. This episode features the best cartoon witch incantation ever:

From my magic medium come ennui and tedium
dreary dreary dull and bleary Beauty's voice will make them weary
ordinary people sleep while Beauty now is just a creep!