It’s not easy to say so, but Chuck Jones was definitely the low man on the totem pole at the Warner studio in 1944. While Tashlin, Freleng, and Clampett were all making very fine and funny pictures that year, Jones only turned out two that work as whole films. (Tom Turk and Daffy and Lost and Foundling). From Hand to Mouse, The Weakly Reporter, and Angel Puss all either suffer from sluggish pacing or bad gags. (Though I suppose if you used a computer program to replace the Jones unit animation with Clampett unit animation on the third, it’d be hailed as a “celebration of differences”.)
But then there’s a little oddity called Bugs Bunny and the Three Bears. I neither like nor dislike this cartoon, though I really want to like a cartoon with a nymphomaniac Mama Bear causing Bugs to scream in horror at the iris out. One criticism you can never make about the Jones cartoons is bad posing or in-betweening, but in this one, both stink ever so rotten. The Bobe Cannon scene with the bear family at the table looks as though they’re going to float away. There’s also that absolutely revolting looking bit towards the end with Mama Bear trying to coddle Bugs (Rudy Larriva?) where it’s just a juxtaposition of random, unrelated poses. (John K. anyone?) Only Ken Harris does any well-grounded work in this film (Bugs singing “King for a Day” in the pajamas to kissing Mama Bear).
What caused these unfortunate circumstances for this one cartoon I wonder?
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2swYL10FhZo&hl=en&fs=1]
BTW, that’s Kent Rogers as Junyer Bear here, not Stan Freberg as often claimed.
John K. anyone?
No thanks, I’m driving.
In that recent TCM documentary, Jones implied that the family dynamic here between Dad and Junyer was a bit autobiographical. I hope he wasn’t referring to Mom.
Also, I’m sure I’ve never noticed the naked person on the calendar before.
Also, I’m sure I’ve never noticed the naked person on the calendar before.
Reply: I noticed it, but only after I watched the remastered version that’s on the Golden Collection DVD set.
Bugs always seemed like something of a ‘guest star’ in this cartoon, with Jones just using him to meet Leon’s requirements for X number of rabbit cartoons (and this cartoon came out just about the time Warners started charging theaters extra $$$ for the Bugs Bunny Specials), while his real interest is in the interaction between the Three Bears. So while Bugs is normally the one who sparks the action in the 1940s’ shorts, here it’s almost like one of those later Bugs cartoons (albeit with less smug dialogue) where things come to a standstill when he’s on screen, and you almost want him to go away so we can get back to the inter-family battles.
It’s also interesting that a Three Bears cartoon scripted by the studio’s ladies’ man, Tedd Pierce, focuses on a sex-crazed Mama Bear for its big end gag (Tedd probably just got back from an MGM show where “Red-Hot Riding Hood” was on the bill), while the later cartoons written by Michael Maltese focus less on Mama and more on the real comedy source, the ultra-violence between Junior and Pa.
So I guess I’m not the only one who noticed Bob Cannon’s sloppy animation during this film’s opening scene. Bobo’s stuff was always hit or miss for me, and when it missed, it missed big (I also don’t particularly care for his animation in the “Kind of outsmarted you, eh, little chum?” scene in “Hare Conditioned”, which is perhaps even more sloshy than this).
Interesting you should bring up the Ken Harris scene – I never noticed before now that everything from “King For a Day” to the kiss is one continuous shot. That feels like it should slow the cartoon down, but it doesn’t. The maybe-Larriva animation on Mama Bear cuddling Bugs may be weird, but Tedd’s writing and Mel’s acting definitely help to distract from it (“Now stop! C’mon, people are lookin’ at us!” always makes me laugh – it’s such a casual little throwaway bit of fourth wall breaking.)
I did not know Kent Rogers voiced Junyer in this one. Does Stan Freberg claim otherwise on the Golden Collection commentary? (I’d check for myself, but I can never make it through Freberg’s commentaries ’cause he always starts repeating the dialogue of the cartoons, which kinda defeats the purpose of a commentary.)
He does, even commenting, “I tend to do a lot of moronic voices in cartoons”, or something to that degree but then again, if Warners was paying you hundreds of dollars to do an audio commentary, would you actually claim in same commentary that you DIDN’T do a voice in the cartoon (Even if it was something as innocuous as, “BTW, I did Junyer’s voice in every Three Bears cartoon except this one!”)?
Even his statement of doing a lot of moronic voices is somewhat of a misnomer (that Freberg himself seems to perpetuate). He did do Pete Puma and Junyer Bear but there’s also Chester (From “Tree for Two” and “Dr. Jerkyl’s Hide”), the American mouse cousin who Hans visits in “By Word of Mouse” (and also the mouse Professor from that cartoon), the Gambling Bug in “Early to Bet”, Hubie’s partner Bertie in “House-Hunting Mice”, “The Hypo-Chondri-Cat”, and “Cheese Chasers” (tho, not in “Mouse Wreckers”), and, of course, one of the two Goofy Gophers (except in the Gophers’ swan song, “Tease for Two”). Not exactly overly moronic characters out of that list. Yet nobody seems to remember Freberg for those voices including Freberg himself. Yet EVERYBODY and his dog knows he’s, duuuuuuhhhh, Junyer Bear and especially that sneakin’ Pete Puma!
Bob Cannon’s animation was top notch at MGM and Disney (as well as his own animation for UPA). This leads me to wonder why some of his animation for Jones would appear “sloshy” some of the time.
Personally, I really love the animation Cannon did for Jones, despite some sloppiness on occasion. He was inventive, and gave his characters a doughy looseness that I find appealing.
I enjoy this cartoon myself, though the animation looks rushed at times. (The inbetweening looks a little sloppy to me, and the lip sync on a few occasions doesn’t match the dialog.) There are a couple of camera mistakes where a few cels seemed to have been shot out of order.
Some of these problems make me wonder if this was a cartoon Jones rushed through production or had some scheduling problems with? I don’t know the answer, but it isn’t a bad cartoon and it’s a good start for the 3 bears series.
Jones’ inkers were pretty bad, compared to the other units (there also seems to be less care taken with the cleanups, which probably made them even more difficult to accurately ink) and that also adds to the already sloppy animation. Around this time Jones is discovering that his ‘held pose’ style of animating was giving him more appealing results, which in a few years will blossom into the true Jones style we all associate him with.
Did each unit have their own inkers? I was always under the impression the inking was done by a pool.
I realise Tedd Pierce got the sole story credit, but weren’t he and Maltese working as a team by this points (ie. after he got back from Fleischer)?
I think Bugs Bunny and The Three Bears is a very solid cartoon though I am also a bit mystified by the sloppy drawings as well, mostly of the bears. I can also believe the dymanic between Papa and Junyer based on Jones’ relationship with his father, he focuses on them alot more then Mama bear.
Does the seemingly haphazard animation not match the seemingly haphazard (and somewhat bizzare) background style? If this is so, could the whole thing be chalked up to being a stylistic experiment, part of the equation being a quickly done cheepness?
Anyways, J Lee is right about Bugs in this one, and J Bear steals the picture. The nonchalance of the drawing is contrasted by the greatness of the soundtrack. The line readings here are priceless.
For me, this cartoon really works on a few different levels.
Just to clarify, Ken Harris also animated the soup eating sequence with the Three Bears after Cannon’s odd opening animation.
Mention was also made of just how long that “King for a Day” scene is. That must have taken a few weeks to animate. Lots of original drawings survived and were available for sale through the years from that scene. I have one of Junior Bear.
Thanks for the edification, Greg. Always great to hear from you.
IMO this is a hilarious cartoon, and I also like Tom Turk… and Lost and Foundling too. I don’t think this was an off-year for Jones, but I think it was more of an off-year for Clampett. After a solid 43, his cartoons slowed down this year, and got duller as well. The only one which I consider quite good is Old Grey Hare. The other Bugs shorts are so painful to watch, and I don’t care for Russian Rhapsody. The Tweety short is also slower than the other two he made.
Been a long time since I’ve seen this one. The first thing that I noticed was no Billy Bletcher doing the voice of Papa Bear, which was very unfortunate as the character became a kind of Yosemite Sam. Still one of my favorites, however. Thanks, as always, Thad.
Story is always king for me, and this one is hilarious. I love also the lascivious tone–from the nude Mexican calendar to Mama’s whorish costumes in the closet. And when Bugs pops out of the hole with his face covered in lipstick, he looks positively orgasmic before he registers panic.
Perhaps we could attribute some of the weaknesses of Jones’ 1944 entries to the heavy workload he had at this time directing most of the SNAFU shorts as well as UPA’s “Hell Bent For Election”. I think the SNAFUs had to be completed at a much faster rate than the theatrical shorts, being WW2 themed. Notice also how “Weakly Reporter” is a ‘cheater’ in the sense that a lot of it is limited animation and background pans, and how “From Hand To Mouse” repeats the same scene throughout the cartoon.
“just a juxtaposition of random, unrelated poses. (John K. anyone?)”
Well said. The problem I have with JK “teaching” animation to the kids who follow his blog is that he’s full of basically good advice about what to study in terms of learning fundamental principles (Preston Blair, etc.) , but when it comes to actually doing it he really doesn’t have the chops . (and it’s not just because he has to work under the constraint of low-budgets) His own animation , opposed to the best classic work by Clampett , Jones, Avery, etc. is very spastic, uncontrolled .. “random unrelated poses” as you said .
No idea what happened with Bugs Bunny & Three Bears. That one has always puzzled me too. The inking and/or the assistant work is atrocious . I wonder if they were trying some experiment on that short where they didn’t clean up the roughs too much to see if they could save time (maybe they were behind schedule ?) by having the inkers work directly from the animator’s roughs ? Who knows ? If so, it didn’t work.
John K talks Clampett, but his real muse is Ralph Bakshi. Check out any of Ralph’s 1960s Terrytoons or Paramount cartoons or his early 70s theatricals and you’ll see Ralph’s style is far more like John’s than what Clampett did with Rod Scribner (where the wild poses were effective because they contrasted with the control in other scenes, not just by McKimson but also be Scribner and the others in Clampett’s crew. The Bakshi/Kricfalusi style is to start the action at such a frantic/wacky level there’s no way to ratchet it up and surprise the audience, other than by grossing them out).