(Better watch this fast, before they take it down… They’re getting fiercer lately, as DailyMotion wouldn’t even let this one process!)
There’s a lot of love for Clampett’s flea classic, An Itch in Time, but there doesn’t seem to be much for To Itch His Own, which I always thought was one of Jones’ best. It’s one of the last of the Jones-Maltese offbeat, obscenely violent one-shots, and the very last cartoon Carl Stalling did the score for. The design of the Mighty Angelo is hilarious too; it’s exactly what you’d expect an Italian musclebound flea to look like.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LzOxZf-phtM&hl=en&fs=1&]
Haven’t seen this one in years. Thanks for posting!
Was able to download this one, so anyone who wants to see this after it’s taken down can email me! =)
Anyways, I’ve never seen this one before (not even as a little kid. I have no memories of it whatsoever). But now it’s already one of my favorites! Thanks for sharing again, Thad!
It’s been a long time since I’ve seen this short, probably since the syndicated MERRIE MELODIES show from 1990-1992. I forgot how good it really is – Jones and Maltese certainly worked well together and this is one of their best one-shots – thanks for posting Thad!
I haven’t seen this in years, but I do remember enjoying it. The bulldog’s expression at 4:25-ish is hilarious.
I think Jones and Maltese actually did some of their best (or at least most interesting) work together in one shots like this (One Froggy Evening, Chow Hound, etc.).
I think that this cartoon shows a deterioration in Jones’ drawing style. It’s become too flat and graphic and a lot of the appeal of his drawings is gone by this point.
A lot of people point to Mike Maltese leaving WB as a turning point in Jones’ cartoons, but films like this say to me that Jones was already deteriorating before Maltese left. The timing in this cartoon works, but overall it feels tired. It’s way slower than Jones’ best cartoons.
You can really feel a lack of energy in the direction here.
It’s funny, Mark, but I just ran my 16mm of Hare-Way to the Stars just now, and the drawings are much fuller compared to this one (not to say Haredevil Hare, though). The Road Runners from this year look great too, but Robin Hood Daffy is, as you say, flatter and graphic.
But around here is about as far as my love for Jones lasts… all is darkness afterwards save the Road Runners (especially Lickety-Splat).
I’ve NEVER liked “An Itch in Time” at all. This cartoon I can easily out-watch over that one anytime, though. Thanks for posting, Thad.
I agree with Mark. This was when Jones started to devolve and his timing did started to slow considerably.
His timing and graphical style may be past their prime, but I love this thing—it’s almost like Jones is trying an Avery MGM kind of plot. As much as I like seeing it drawn in this style, I can alternately picture the Mighty Angelo’s dog victims envisioned as the WHAT PRICE FLEADOM characters.
Perhap the only weak note is the “Glassie” reference at the end. It’s less the datedness of the in-joke than the obviousness of the pun.
This is kind of a companion piece to Jones’ 1957 “Go Fly A Kit”, in that (in a rarity for Chuck), the bulldog is the mean antagonist/victim in both shorts. The holds on the poses are a little bit longer here than in the former, as if Chuck’s trying to make sure the audience recognizes the cute little touches. He and Maltese would take a step back up in the one-shot department when “Cat Feud” was released at the end of the year, before the cuteness virus really took over the cartoons (and if you want a Jones-Maltese cartoon that just revels in the cuteness of its own poses, “The Mouse on 57th Street” far surpasses “Itch” in that department).
Since it seems to be along the lines of the first sentence of your post, I thought I’d post my thoughts on Youtube here. (copied & pasted from my facebook) Enjoy.
When Youtube started, it was a Free-For-All. Whoever made the video that the most people wanted to watch, is what was most popular.
People actually got to choose which video they thought was the best by how many people watched it.
Since then, YouTube has been bought out by Google and it has changed A LOT. Now, Youtube/Google HAND PICKS who THEY THINK should be popular and featured. Freedom of expression? FUCK THAT! Says Google. YT/Google wants PC friendly stuff to be popular on Youtube. That’s so they can run big fat ads across the videos. When you use words like “Cunt” and “Fuck” advertisers don’t want to put their ads on your video because it may not be safe for their company. God forbid a kid hears it! Because then all the soccer moms will be up in arms. Ever wonder why FRED (the #1 subscribed person on youtube now) says “freakin'” instead of “FUCKIN”? Because he’s a corporate whore.
When Youtube started it was a great invention. A place to showcase your videos, the first thing ever of it’s kind. Where you could make a video and anyone in the world could watch it. That opened the door for new people to express their ideas and have them heard. It was the ultimate venue for a filmmaker to show their work to the world and to have it seen. Before that, all you could do was blindly send your videos to film festivals and pray.
Youtube should no longer be called Youtube. It should be called GreedTube. Because it hasn’t been about YOU for a few years now. It’s about Google putting PC safe people on the front page, to become the next YouTube star so they can run ads over their videos.
Well, here’s the good news. from what I hear Youtube doesn’t pull as much money as they’d like. And site’s like Hulu, even though it gets much less traffic is beating Youtube out financially.
Too bad Youtube doesn’t go back to the way it was when it started. And allow real creative freedom to thrive. So enjoy your corporately run Jonas Brothers crap fest. Enjoy your “universalmusicgroups” and “machinima”. Yeah that’s YouTube alright. Big businesses with their own channels. Talk about horse shit. Companies should NOT be allowed to have Youtube channels. Because it goes against everything Youtube should have been.
But it’s not like the founders of Youtube didn’t want to make money off it. They just couldn’t figure out how. They took their billion from Google and said “see ya!”. So really, YOUtube was NEVER really about YOU. It was and will always be about $$$$$.
I love this cartoon.
Well I was never under the illusion that Youtube was purely for the people, no business ever is. However, I am also pissed that the content is under heavy moderation.
Dailymotion wouldn’t even let this one through? I thought Dailymotion was the more lenient of the two sites?
Anyhow this is an overlooked classic-The Mightly Angelo is awesome.
It’s an OK cartoon but I don’t think it would’ve been as notable had it not been Carl Stalling’s final score for anything, ever. (that said, good final score)
Am I the only one who would’ve liked to hear a voice for Angelo? Mel Blanc could’ve given him an over-the-top Eastern European accent of some sort.