Two great cartoons

February 2, 2008 12:14 PM

I'm not a big fan of youtube posts. But without youtube, these two favorites of mine would be lost to obscurity. One from Seymour Kneitel, "La Petite Parade". The other is a Tex Avery, "Symphony in Slang".

And, I didn't know it but, "La Petite Parade" was a sequel to "L'Amour the Merrier". (Sorry. No video.)

Thanks to my brother, Chris, for pointing me to La Petite Parade. Hi Chris!!

posted by ObscureReferenceMan (10 comments total)

I don't care what anybody says, Tex Avery was the greatest cartoon director of the 20th Century. And I don't say that just because we share birthdays. Another classic: Chilly Willy and the Legend of Rockabye Point.
posted by Kattullus at 12:43 PM on February 2, 2008

Did they actually restore that cartoon with its Harvey titles, instead of its original Paramount titles? Good grief.
posted by evilcolonel at 12:59 PM on February 2, 2008

My favourite is "Chow Hound", but more commonly remembered as Don't forget the gravy
posted by AD_ at 1:11 PM on February 2, 2008

My favorite silly Droopy Dog.

Hello, all you happy people.
posted by eye of newt at 2:03 PM on February 2, 2008

Done as a one-shot, with all original characters who never appeared in any other MGM cartoon, Symphony is pretty much an anomaly in Avery's canon. What makes it even more so is the fact that Avery hired designer Tom Oreb to design all the characters and layout for the entire film. Just for this one cartoon. That's it. Why?
posted by carsonb at 2:43 PM on February 2, 2008

I'm not a big fan of youtube posts.

I am, when they're good. And here at MetaFilter, they're often good.

But without youtube, these two favorites of mine would be lost to obscurity.

The same thing could be said for many, many other YouTube clips, which may not be personal favorites of yours, but may well be (and often are) favorites of other folks!

Thanks for the YouTube post!
posted by flapjax at midnite at 6:18 PM on February 2, 2008

Symphony in Slang is my favorite cartoon of all time. It's the one I would bring with me on a deserted island.
posted by cazoo at 7:15 PM on February 2, 2008 [1 favorite]

Symphony in Slang link's broken. Here's another one.
posted by miss lynnster at 8:56 PM on February 2, 2008

Symphony in Slang is my favorite cartoon of all time

I know it's just a cartoon and all... but Symphony in Slang has a fundamental flaw that makes it impossible to enjoy.

The humor is derived from the literal interpretation of the guy's slang, right? So, for example, when he's telling his story and says that he "hot-footed" it over to the girl's apartment, they show his shoe on fire. Ha ha. But at the end, he says that when he saw Mary and how she'd changed, he found it so amusing that he "died laughing". Except, if you're following the analogous humor, doesn't literally mean he died laughing, it just means he went into hysterics.

And yet, he's in heaven. Which means he did die. Presumably, since there's nothing else to the story, he actually died laughing, and that part of the joke wasn't actually a joke. Which brings into question the entire tale, which brings into question the whole point of the "joke." If he actually did die laughing, were his feet really on fire? Did the sun really split in half at the "break" of dawn?

The failure of the last joke brings the entire basis of the cartoon's humor into question. If that part in the end was supposed to be interpreted literally, then what other parts of the story are as well? Or is the entire thing supposed to be taken literally, which in that case means any humor is actually wrong.

That kind of laziness bugs me. I mean, think of the man-hours needed to ink and color all frames, then shoot them, get the lips relatively synced, etc. Yet at its base, the author tries to weasel a joke that doesn't make sense, when he could have just sat down for a few minutes to think of an appropriate substitute. Like:

"When Mary saw me in a fit [image of big-muscled dude] she got plenty sore at me [image of sores appearing all over his body] that she pulled out her .38 [pulls out giant 3 and 8 from desk] and filled me with lead [shoots dude]. And here I am!
posted by Civil_Disobedient at 12:08 AM on February 3, 2008

I know it's just a cartoon and all... but Symphony in Slang has a fundamental flaw that makes it impossible to enjoy.

The fact that it's just not funny?

Seriously, I loves me some Tex Avery. I think he's one of the best of the best, and his work stands head and shoulders above the rest of the Termite Terrace output, but this cartoon just straight out sucked. Firstly, it wasn't so much slang, as a bunch of figures of speech, euphemisms, etc. etc. And there was no Symphony either. But the most irritating thing was that the gags were so banal.

This isn't a criticism of the original post mind. I've never seen this before, and I'm grateful for the opportunity to have done so. But boy was it a stinker.

Here's some Red Hot Riding Hood as a corrective.
posted by PeterMcDermott at 2:09 AM on February 3, 2008