Just got in a copyright synopsis of the Tex Avery short Dumb-Hounded from David Gerstein. Fortunately the MGM copyright synopses are the most detailed of all the studios. No other’s synopses have scene by scene descriptions like this, so it’s easy to notice changes made in the reissues, like the wartime references that were originally in the newspaper headline, or how “Runnin’ Wild” played over the credits.
Thad’s Books
How about scans of receipts for the coffee animators bought during production
Silly boy, animators in the Golden Age drank booze on the job, not coffee.
Thad, do you have any more of these?
At the moment, no. Maybe more in the future.
Great stuff, thanks!
Now something like this for “Droopy’s Good Deed” will really make everybody QUIET!
As for me, I’d like to see it for “Red Hot”.
Droopy obviously wasn’t named yet, so he’s constantly reffered to as “Hero” throught that script. I wonder what would have happened if that name had actually stuck.
What a fantastic find. You know, something in the back of my mind always made me think that the jump cut to the headline without showing the newspaper title first was a little odd, but not having any reason to doubt it I just assumed it was the way it was made. Obviously not.
Oh, this find is incredible, although unreadable even by my screenreader since it will not read an “image”. Sorry; but it certainly would make a great special feature on a possible COMPLETE TEX AVERY box if a director’s cut of this cartoon could ever be found. I’ve been told that it is a dead-in-the-water (or, in this case, fire) issue, but I never say never, especially with all the good rare material we’ve discovered on Warner Brothers LOONEY TUNES and MERRIE MELODIES cartoons. While we’re at it, how about such a plot outline to “THE EARLY BIRD DOOD IT”? I’ve always been especially irritated by what is the existing 1950’s redo on that one. With Avery’s penchant for screwing around with the opening credits of his cartoons at this time, it is a real shame to lose any of this stuff!
Nice find on the descriptions. My guess is the WWII cartoons would be the ones Metro was most concerned about reworking for re-release, though I suppose like Warners redoing the backgrounds to Tashlin’s books-come-to-life cartoons to update the years on the magazines and other covers to reflect the re-release date, MGM may have gone back in and tweaked some of their backgrounds dialog or even the animation itself on the Avery and/or T&J shorts to eliminate anything relating to the original release year.
I just read what Jerry Beck said about the original negatives of these MGM shorts being lost in a fire. This is really sad.
Sorry, I should have said in the 1970’s.
Well crap! This is off topic, but it appears Thad’s youtube account has been taken down, so many of the videos in the previous posts are unavailable now. That sucks, now we may never get to see a Truckload of Trouble again… but I’m glad to have seen it while it was still up.
This is of great interest!
The Library of Congress did take RED HOT RIDING HOOD into their collection (FAA5702). Perhaps a detailed synopsis exists for that short, as well. I would love to have some of my scoffed-at suspicions about the original version of this cartoon confirmed–or, if nothing else, to have them proved wrong.
It is a pity that all the original versions of these wartime MGM cartoons are so much ashes now. It is an odd experience to watch these, now, knowing that certain scenes were animated for the reissue versions.
DUMB-HOUNDED seems to have only lost a couple of wartime references, going by the clinical scene-by-scene descriptions from the document.
I would assume that the documents for all the MGM Avery shorts accepted by the LoC would be on file there, and available to researchers for the asking. I’m going to look into this…
Thanks again for this fascinating post!
We already checked RED HOT RIDING HOOD… no changes. My guess is the ending was changed before release. I could see some of the Avery spotgag cartoons missing whole scenes though.
I’m curious; have any of you paused ‘Dumb Hounded’ when the newspaper article with Droopy’s photograph was shown on-screen and read the newspaper text surrounding the photo? You’ll be able to read a slightly bizarre article about a joke shop proprietor who laughed himself to death, as well as some poetry about worms.
Mark Evanier mentioned on his blog that House of Tomorrow was altered by Hanna-Barbera in the 50’s (a line of dialogue of Frank Graham’s was redubbed by Don Messick). Thad, do you have the draft to that one?
Thad already said just a few posts up that he doesn’t have any more of these.
Well, looks like quite possibly Droopy’s Good Deed was changed as well and that elusive black lady is somewhere out there…So many have seen it years ago…
You’re wrong. We found the Droopy’s Good Deed synopsis too. NO BLACK LADY.
The synosis can no longer been read on the website