This was the first time in a long while that I went out of my way to look at an early Chuck Jones cartoon, so bear with me. Jones’ cartoons in his fake-Disney period all blend together in my mind, and I’d be fine with never seeing them again. This particular cartoon, Dog Gone Modern isn’t bad, but it’s not good either. It’s probably better than most cartoons released in 1939, and is better-acted and animated than most of the Disney cartoons it’s imitating (though it has no excuse not to, seeing as Jones had both Bob McKimson and Ken Harris in his unit at the time).
Jones’ drawing and acting style is already evident here, so even in his second cartoon the characters are making coy, wry expressions. But in having this style, the director is setting us up for jokes that don’t happen. The smaller dog slyly pushes a button after being warned not to – and a table just drops out, frightening him. That’s the gag? That there’s no payoff? He just runs off like a dog? To be blunt, that ‘Imitation of Life’ shit’s just not funny, no matter how many books say it is.
Another problem is the movement and timing aren’t funny. 1939 was not a good year overall for the Schlesinger studio, but at least the Avery and Clampett pictures were brisk and snappy in their execution. The robot (how the hell do you think up a design like that?) in particular is rather floaty in its animation in some scenes. What little looseness present here started to disappear as he got deeper into the fake Disney mire. You can clearly see Jones had the tools to make much faster pictures, but he was very conscientiously ignoring the opportunity, probably trying to grab Walt Disney’s attention by making Norm Ferguson clones and get a job offer.
The offer never came, so fast forward eight years later, when Jones was eight times the director he once was, and well into a long period when he was incapable of not making a great cartoon (even objectively, it’s at least a period of ten years). Jones’ cartoons were as crazy and innovative as any of the Avery or Clampett cartoons, just in a different way. (i.e. Jones the psychopath to Clampett the sociopath).
Same director, same animators, and same story as Dog Gone Modern, but House Hunting Mice shows how much Jones (and Warner cartoons in general) had grown and learned from his contemporaries over the years. The actual drawing and animation is not only beautiful, but funny too, not an easy combination. The writing and gags are sharp, with the mice in a literal battle of wits with the modern home, using the home to fight itself as much as it’s fighting them.
Hubie and Bertie are great personalities, unlike the other mice that infest animation. Hubie is an apt caricature of the Dead End Kids, whereas Bertie borderlines between naive and mentally retarded, as exemplified in his hilarious entrance. A shame Jones decided to axe the characters; it may have been a powerplay, as the actual characters had more of Mike Maltese in them than Jones, just as the Three Bears did. (Though with the bears, those cartoons actually were getting terrible reviews, so there might have been some legitimacy to pull the plug in that case.)
The robot is a great example of how even a noncharacter can be given life if it’s just moved well enough; it’s actually a menace to the mice, and the humor of the situation is improved from the dilemma in Modern, where it’s not just the cheese that’s considered waste, but Bertie too. It’s easily the best robot ever animated, and it doesn’t even have a face. (The hell with Wall-E – again.)
Let me point out before others do – House Hunting Mice probably has the best usage of Raymond Scott’s Powerhouse ever. I’m not comfortable enough with making identifications on the whole cartoon, but I can say with certainty that Ken Harris animated the opening and closing scenes, and Ben Washam did the whole sequence involving Hubie getting ‘mangled’ in the laundry.
Incidentally, I hope you noticed the original titles (sourced from my 16mm film collection) are on this copy. I guess you’ll just have to look at my blog for restorations of real Warner cartoons, since it’s not happening on home video.
Funny that Stalling would use “Three Blind Mice” over the titles, yet the cartoon only stars TWO mice – oh, well…
Anyway, always good to see original titles when possible – thanks, Thad!!
Well, Stalling also used “Where has my little dog gone” for dogs who were right there. It’s largely about picking a song that the listener associates with that animal.
Thanks for posting this Thad!!! What a great cartoon, it has so much movement and the soundtrack rocks as well :)
Also interesting to see the original titles. I wish WHV would release a DVD of the Cinecolor cartoons restored and their original titles.
Larry—I wish pigs would fly in through my kitchen window, already roasted.
David, you will never be a true liberal if you keep killing animals. You know that, right.
When Jones is forced to animate to the actual music in the room — as opposed to Stalling’s musical score —
“Dog Gone Modern” actually is funny (animals or humans caught in musical instruments is always good for a laugh). As for the robot, the design – square body, pipe arms and legs, pinhead — was so good even Friz and Foster borrowed it for the ‘robot pilot’ gag in “Hare Lift” (which never fails to get a huge laugh when seen with a theater audience).
But I’m not doing it *personally*
(…WHAT Acme Catapult?)
Jones seemed to have an uneasy start in his career as a director but when it finally picked up the paced, he stayed on top for years. Clampett and Avery started off high, slid a little, but got back up and kept the ball rolling.
As for the Jones Vs. Clampett issue, I had given up sometime ago to say who is better. They were both just too good at what they did. Personally, I love Clampett more. I loved the way the characters looked in his cartoons and their personalities.
“Incidentally, I hope you noticed the original titles (sourced from my 16mm film collection) are on this copy. I guess you’ll just have to look at my blog for restorations of real Warner cartoons, since it’s not happening on home video.”
Small business wins out over big business. :)
Dog Gone Modern is only significant for its symbolic interest in the World’s Fair of the same year. The two curious dogs weren’t really that memorable characters.
I have always loved Hubie and Bertie. You’re right about “Powerhouse;” the brief snippet of the song as the first cheese wedge goes flying is positively inspired.
The backgrounds are sleek in this one, too, all angles and solids and crazy perspectives. It’s subtle and effective. Thanks for uploading this one, it’s fabulous.
There is something stupefying about Chuck Jones’ early cartoons. It seems that he was at war with the idea of being funny, as opposed to Art-With-A-Big-A. Scattered cartoons such as ELMER’S CANDID CAMERA show that he could have a flair for comedy, but this urge is suppressed and usually awkward when expressed in his pre-1945 cartoons.
I think ROUGHLY SQUEAKING is the first Jones cartoon that I find really engaging, funny and (dare I say it?) human. I’m glad Jones was able to free himself from the ivory tower for his best years (1945-shutdown).
I find many of his post-shutdown cartoons to be too emotionally abstracted. The design elements really overpower the humanity and humor.
I agree to an extent with what Frank said, but the ‘human’ (re: acting) quotient was there much earlier than ’45, with phenomenal cartoons like The Dover Boys, Tom Turk and Daffy, Inki and the Mynah Bird, and Wackiki Wabbit.
As for the ‘who was greater’, I never intended that sort of discussion to start, I only wanted to state that just because anarchy takes on different forms doesn’t mean those forms can’t be equal. FTR, I’ve always preferred Jones over Clampett, but I prefer Tashlin over everybody.
I’m with Frank regarding Chuck’s earlier shorts; not only does cartoons like “Dog Gone Modern” feel like Jones was more interested in the challenges Disney was setting up rather than finding gags that were actually funny, but it also feels like he was uncomfortable with the fact he was suppose to make time fillers for audiences, so as a result, watching Jones copying Disney at this time is like watching a famous director using the techniques from “Citizen Kane” when he was directing student films in college (you know why he’s doing it, but you still end up just saying to yourself “why” throughout the whole thing). Thank goodness Maltese (and to an extent, Pierce too) came in later and gave the challenge Jones really needed to make his cartoons stand out.
Also, it’s funny you decided to post up a early Jones cartoon right now, because Barrier is planning to put up his interview with McKimson sometime next week. Here’s hoping we get a little more insight of the unit, since we barely know anything during that period.
Thank you for sharing the Original credits to “House Hunting Mice” Thad. The original opening credits to “Dog Gone Moderne” have always interested me, as have all the Jones’ Curios Dog films, but mainly this one in particular due to the art-deco/streamlined futuristic design of the film.
I’ve noticed that change in Jones’ style too. From what I’ve seen on interviews, he said that the film that drove him to do more comedies was “The Draft Horse”. I remember him saying something like that was the first film he saw with an audience that he noticed that everyone really laughed at it. It’s a crazy-paced one to begin with.
I think he had some good pre-1942 cartoons like “Daffy Duck and the Dinosaur” and “Elmer’s Pet Rabbit”. My favorite of his in that era was “Prest-O Change-O”, another curious pups film. That one had the prototype Bugs in that one, so I think he’s what made the film enjoyable.
I just love Jones cartoons. They may have not been as wacky as Clampett’s or Avery’s work, but they do have a touch of sophistication, intelligence, and a sense of style like Tashlin’s work did. It’s like what you said, Jones’ humor was unique to him, just as Avery’s or Tashlin’s was.
Overall, this was a very good post, Thad. Thanks for showing the real opening titles. Always enjoy those.
Both of these are good cartoons for different reasons, but for pure entertainment value, I’d also have to say “House Hunting Mice” wins by a long shot.
“Dog Gone Modern” and the rest of the “2 Curious Dogs” series are clever and wonderfully animated, and sometimes they have some great gags. But their humor comes from the environment the dogs are placed in, not from the dogs themselves. Neither the boxer or the little spaniel have distinctive personalities. They’re just dogs.
Hubie and Bertie, on the other hand, are two very distinctive personalities. They’re sort of archetypes…the smart wiseguy and the carefree idiot. The concept isn’t too different from George and Lennie, Moe and Curly, Donald and Goofy, Rocky and Mugsy, Louie and Heathcliff, Jose and Manuel or even Ren and Stimpy or Pinky and the Brain.
But they react to the “modern house” problem in their own unique ways, and are in conflict with both the situation and each other. That’s what makes the difference between these two films.
By “human,” I meant that there is a sense of relaxed, un-arty humanity in Jones’ cartoons from ’45-shutdown. He let himself think and create like a person, rather than a severe, ruled-by-rules Artiste.
The difference meant that his cartoons could now be genuinely alive, loose and funny–not stiff, mannered, affected works of quasi-Art.
Pardon my vagueness…
One thing that “Dog Gone Modern” does have in its favor is the backgrounds – some nice art deco design going on there. Were John McGrew and Paul Julian doing the layouts and backgrounds for Jones at this point, or was he still at the mercy of whatever backgrounds Art “Muddy” Loomer saw fit to give him?
Also, interesting is that the lobby card for this cartoon states “A Merrie Melodie Cartoon” but it’s actually a Looney Tune.
On an interesting note, Greg Ford talked to Chuck Jones about these two cartoons for a film magazine called “Film Comment”. For the sake of posterity, I’m going to go ahead and transcribe on what they said…
“Q [Ford]: Certain themes statred emerging the very first year you began to direct. In DOGGONE MODEERN [1938], those two early dogs of yours, the boxer and his puppy pal, were pitted againest the absurdities of technology, much as all those “Acme” devices would later backfire on the Coyote in his quest for the Roadrunner. The two dogs got trapped in a modernistic house-of-the-future.
A [Jones]: That’s right. They wandered in, and the place had a robot broom that would sweep up anything, regardless of what it was.
Q: And the dogs had to dodge the robot broom, to keep from getting swept up themselves. You did a remake of the same film about a decade later, this time starring your mice characters Hubie and Bertie [HOUSE HUNTING MICE, 1947], which seems to be such an incredible improvement on the orginal DOGGONE MODERN.
A: Well, the style of bckground ws completely different in the two cartoons. In the first few pictures I worked on, we used a man by the name of Griff Jay, who was an old newspaper cartoonist–and he did what we’d call “moldy prune” backgrounds. Everybody used the same type of things back then–Charlie Johnston drew backgrounds for Tex Avery, and he was an old newspaper cartoonist too.
Q: But the biggest difference between the two films is in the starring characters. The situation is the same, a pair of characters being victimized by the crazy electronic house devices, but Hubie and Bertie in HOUSE HUNTING MICE are active and fully developed characters, while the dogs are far too passive–they just don’t have a chance.
A: No, they don’t. The dogs don’t really amount to anything. They just walk around and get mixed up in all the gadgetry. But they don’t demonstrate any real human reactions, none that we can recogize anyway, beyond a sort of generalized anxiety. The characters aren’t really established, so you don’t care about them. You DO care about Hubie and Bertie, though.
Q: They’re real personalities. It’s so much more exhilarating to see them respond to the machinery, occasionally react against it, and at odd times even triumph over it. There’s a marvelous sequence where Hubie and Nertie ducceed in temporarily outfoxing the robot, remember? Unlike the two dogs, they finally realize that this fucking broom is going to whiz out and sweep up the debris, regardless of purpose, and so, this time, the characters make use of the fact and consciously try to waer the robot out. They turn on an automatic record ejector that shoots out discs and shatters them against the wall, the records fly and break into pieces, and the robot, incariably, has to come out nd sweep up, again and again. Also, there are shots, with the simulated editing, of a missile sailing past intercut with a quick insert of a character, just watching it go by.
A: That may have been generated from a fascination with tennis matches, and such intercutting effects would often make the scene work. It also demonstrates that you could get an object to look like it’s moving a hell of a lot faster with editing. And eventually, I began to add shadows of the missile flying past; this happened very often in the “Rodrunner” films.
Does anyone still have the copy of this print? I’d LOVE to see the original titles, and I’m sure the rest of the LT community would as well. Thad, if you see this, lemme know if you’ve got a copy still (as well as a copy of I Taw a Puddy Tat with original titles, which you also used to have up)!