Gary Morris at Bright Lights Film Journal has a spectacular article on Tex Avery and his wonderfully wild and raucous versions of well known fairy tales. While Disney was producing sweet versions of "The Three Little Pigs" and "Snow White and The Seven Dwarves," Tex Avery was at M-G-M and Warner making hilarious and very modern versions of fairy tales with titles like "Swing Shift Cinderella" and "Red Hot Riding Hood." Avery had a much more down-to-earth take on fairy tales than Disney. Morris states: "Avery's fairy tales jettison the whole idea of morality, along with other troublesome concepts like logic, sense, and sexual repression. He brings the 'big bad wolves' and 'red riding hoods' out of the sanctity of the linear narrative and into the service of the gag, creating in the process a unique world of self-conscious 'cartoon actors' who know they're in a cartoon and freely comment on their status as fictional creations, undercutting the story at every turn."
Stop by Bright Lights and have a glance at the whole article. Now, if I could just find a way to see these cartoons. Anybody know if they've been re-mastered on some DVD somewhere?
I just *love* Tex Avery cartoons. I can never forget any of the Droopy cartoons that he did, nor his fairy tale "interpretations". He was just brilliant.
The only living animator that I can think of that even comes close to Tex is John Kricfalusi (http://johnkstuff.blogspot.com/). Ren and Stimpy are perhaps his best known creations (and were used, I believe, to parody some of the well known fairy tales during their time on air), but he has been quite busy of late according to his blog. His stuff is also really rather racy (as can be seen on his blog).
But good old Tex, there wasn't any other cartoonist that could make me laugh as hard whenever his work came on the TV when I was young(er).
M.
Posted by: Martyn Drake | February 14, 2007 at 01:54 AM
Netflix just has Tom & Jerry, but Amazon lists volumes 1-4 of Tex Avery's Screwball Classics, as well as The MGM Years, and some others. Most seem to be VHS.
Posted by: fidelio | February 14, 2007 at 10:17 AM
You'll be happy to know that Tex Avery's Droopy: The Theatrical Collection consisting of all of Tex's Droppy toons will be out in the USA on May 115, 2007. Its not THE DEFINITIVE but hey, it's a start. If enough people buy this one I'm sure they'll release other Tex toons.
Salutations
Posted by: musicbeing | February 20, 2007 at 12:21 PM