A Looney Tunes director no one ever talks or cares about is Robert McKimson. He's one of my favorite directors out of all the directors working at Warner Bros.
He needs more recognition and he's been a main influence on me.
He has made so many amazing characters like Tasmanian Devil, Barnyard Dawg, and obviously Foghorn Leghorn which I grown to love the more I watch him. Foghorn Leghorn is becoming one of my favorite fictional characters of all time. Probably Top 3. Up there with Porky Pig and Bugs Bunny.
He's just so funny, factual and well animated.
If you hate this character, I don't know what the heck is wrong with you honestly.
Robert McKimson also handled work on animating the shorts Bob Clampett and Tex Avery directed and he by far made the spotlight alongside Rod Scribner.
His cartoons were utterly underrated for alot of reasons. His 40s cartoons, were the best things I ever watched, the extremely manly looking designs are expressive and absolutely memorable to me, and every character had the best personalities Looney Tunes had to offer.
Daffy Duck Hunt (1949) for example shows this.
His first cartoon he directed in the classic Looney Tunes era was an absolute hit, at least in my own words. Daffy Doodles (1946) is what I call a true masterpiece.
If you haven't seen it, I highly recommend you watching it. It's as funny as Duck Amuck (1953)
His last cartoon was....
Not really that good. It was actually the final classic Looney Tunes cartoon ever made.
Injun Trouble (1969) while I like Cool Cat and the animation and color palette isn't too bad, I can really tell the gags and sound effects were not that amusing.
Let's clear all the worst shorts and talk about my favorite shorts by McKimson. I can list over 100, but that will take up the entire page on the website version of my blog.
I really loved the cartoon Wild Wife (1954). It had a pleasent cast of characters. In fact I really like the human like short films in cartoons.
There Auto Be A Law (1953) reminds me of this, and that's also a really funny cartoon.
The Windblown Hare (1949) is hilarious. I love the fairytale comedy cartoons. Classic Disney and MGM do these extremely well, and so does Warner Bros. You can look at these animated frames with Bugs and The Wolf and tell me that I have been influenced by these drawings.
Hot Cross Bunny (1948)
This is at my #11 for the Best Looney Tunes Shorts. I ADORE this cartoon. Bugs's laughing is too good, and the acting and animation is extremely rubbery and hilarious. I never get sick of some of the scenes.
Including this animated frame. One of the best frames I ever seen.
Bugs Bunny has had alot of potential in the 40s to 50s and his cartoons were always smart and reliable. I love Rebel Rabbit (1949) alot.
French Rarebit (1951) is also one of my favorite Looney Tunes cartoons. Everything in this was hilarious. I adore the two chefs, and Bugs Bunny's acting is at it's best here.
What's Up Doc? (1950) is my favorite Bugs and Elmer shorts for alot of reasons. I love the part where Bugs and Elmer are doing a short act and Elmer is squirting water and throwing pies at Bugs like he deserves it.
This cartoon also has the best celebrity cameos sequences in a Looney Tunes short. I like how Elmer doesn't care about all 4 of them. The designs are spot on and appropriate.
When it comes to the classic hollywood celebrities in cartoons, these designs don't really help.
Robert McKimson's cartoons back in the late 50s to 60s were kinda poor, he still made some good cartoons there and then, but the budgets really started to cut off and wasn't that expressive.
But no matter the low budget, it isn't absolutely terrible and at least the humor and characters are still immortal, well except for Daffy Duck.
He was really bad in the 60s.
I would say Robert McKimson's 60s cartoons were slightly better than Chuck Jones in my opinion. Chuck Jones started to lose his humor and he started to focus more on relying characters using their initution, extremely slow pacing, random stretchy scenes, and the shorts would kinda be useless.
Those shorts in my opinion include
Mad As A Mars Hare, Hare-Breadth Hurry, Zoom At The Top, and Now Hear This.
I would fully admit, I don't dislike Chuck Jones's Looney Tunes Shorts, I actually highly enjoy them, but in my opinion the 40s and 50s cartoons he made were more iconic and amusing.
Recently I drew these cats that are based off my party cats I made, but they're more hip and serious.
I called them Northern Alley Cats.
You can see the detailed expressions that I sense with the McKimson cartoons.
I decided to make these characters into a chapter book series. I don't really enjoy books with no pictures, at least it's better than a book without anything.
Or maybe I could make this a daily comic series.
Not really a series with comic strips more or so like this.
Now that you know my taste with Robert McKimson you might like this director even more than you think. You may not like his late 50s-60s cartoons, but before he truly made Looney Tunes great, adding characters like Foghorn Leghorn, and the rubbery, wrinkly animation were the best things about his cartoons.
BONUS 💥
I'm back on the animating block once again, promise me I will be animating on Digicel Flipbook when I feel confident enough.
Brush Ninja feels like the beginning process.
One of my created characters, Henry Jetsy has showed off some facial movements.
The first take he's absolutely stressed out and worried.
The 2nd take he says "Sheesh!"
and his 3rd take, well..
Watch it yourself.
Also the finale take is my two farm characters.
Valerie Cow and Jackley Donkey.
Valerie was hit by a home-made frying pan and her face is all squished, her eyes and lips are gigantic within her face and her nose is missing, she ends off saying "Kiss Me".
Enjoy!
No comments:
Post a Comment