Tex Avery Day

Frederick Bean “Tex” Avery is, in my opinion, one of the greatest animated cartoon directors of all time. His impact on Golden Age Animation was huge, particularly his work at Warner Bros. and MGM. Tex’s work is well known for breaking the fourth wall, stretching a joke to its comedic limit, wild takes, screwing with medium conventions, (since cartoons were originally aired in theaters, they had stuff like silhouetted audience members standing up on occasion in the actual cartoon only to be attacked by the animated character onscreen,) and over-the-top slapstick. He felt that cartoons could and SHOULD be able to do anything, his philosophy being that animation must go far beyond live-action and anything a human actor can do in order to get a laugh.

With this mindset, he had a groundbreaking career. Born in 1908, he started his career at Walter Lantz Studios in the early 30s before heading over to the Leon Schlesinger studios and getting an animation job at a building on the Warner Bros. backlot that the animators working there at the time dubbed “Termite Terrace”. During his stay at Warner Bros., he originally created two of my favorite cartoon characters, Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck, in 1940’s “A Wild Hare” and 1937’s “Porky’s Duck Hunt” respectively. He worked with animators Bob Clampett and Chuck Jones, and his sense of humor rubbed off on them as well. After splitting from Warner Bros. in 1941 after a disagreement with Leon Schlesinger regarding the short “The Heckling Hare”, Tex joined MGM in 1942, and gave the world such creations as Droopy, Screwy Squirrel, Red Hot Riding Hood, and many, MANY incredibly hilarious shorts. After he ended his tenure there in 1954, (with his last few cartoons there released in 1955, including two that were co-directed by animator Michael Lah,) he returned to the Lantz studio for a short while. He spent the rest of his career working on animated television commercials and writing gags for Hanna-Barbera cartoons like Kwicky Koala, before dying of liver cancer in 1980.

He had an impact on many in the animation community. Aside from Clampett and Jones, his cartoons inspired Bill Hanna, Joe Barbera, Eric Goldberg, John Kricfalusi, and Bill Plympton, among many others, and while he never had as many accolades as, say, Chuck Jones, he did manage to snag some Oscar nominations and he was honored by the Library of Congress. Sadly, his work at MGM has been barely released on DVD, which, to me, is a crime against decency.

I managed to see a ton of his work thanks to various sources. Many of them I saw as a kid thanks to his shorts being featured on VHS (which I have rented and watched many times,) and on Cartoon Network and Boomerang, and later on, I got to see some of these shorts on Youtube. Needless to say, as someone who loves both cartoons and surreal, outlandish comedy, I absolutely ADORE his work. Even to this day, his cartoons are still as relentlessly creative and funny as they were back when they were originally made. Sure, some of the gags might be a little dated, particularly the WWII gags and the more racial stuff, but they still hold up well, in my opinion.

Why do I bring this all up, you ask?

This Saturday, February 22, Tex’s childhood home of Taylor, Texas, will declare Tex Avery Day. It will take place at the Howard Theatre, feature a dedication of a Texax State Historical Marker in Avery’s honor, guest speakers, screenings of his cartoons, and a portrait unveiling. I found out about this, thanks to Cartoon Brew, and since I’m currently living in Austin, I’m planning to attend as both an aspiring animator/cartoonist and a huge Tex Avery fan. It’s only a little more than a half-hour’s drive from where I’m living, and hopefully, it’ll be worth the visit.

Michael Sporn 1946-2014

Left to Right: John Canemaker and Michael Sporn

It has come to my attention that New York independent animator Michael Sporn has passed away January 19th.

I have not met him, nor am I the most familiar with his work as an animator (although I might have possibly seen some of the stuff he did for Weston Woods and Sesame Street when I was younger) but as a casual viewer of his blog, which is a treasure trove of animation art, history and commentary, and easily one of the greatest animation blogs on the web, I figure I had to talk about him a little.

For those unaware, (and I'm sure a ton of you are,) Michael Sporn was a New York based animator who, after working under the likes of John and Faith Hubley, Richard Williams and R.O. Blechman, struck out on his own, started his own studio in 1980, and produced, directed and animated on numerous TV animated specials and short spots with small budgets and a desire for artistic freedom and the ability to work on projects that interested him the most. He did both commissioned works and personal creations, sometimes based on children's literature, while others were based around more social issues. Some of these productions include "The Hunting Of The Snark", "Abel's Island", "The Marzipan Pig", "The Man Who Walked Between The Towers", and "Champagne", just to name a few.

One of his most notable accomplishments was his 1984 short film, Doctor DeSoto, based off the William Steig book of the same name, getting nominated for the Best Animated Short Film Academy Award.

As for his passing, I have noticed that on some of his more recent blog posts, something about Sporn's writing seemed, well, off. It had become a little more sloppy and disjointed and I was wondering if he was experiencing some sort of deterioration or health issue or something.

Little did I realize that I wasn't all that far off.

He wasn't suffering from any form of dementia or mental deterioration, like Alzehimer's, but he was suffering from pancreatic cancer, which was what ultimately did him in. Sadly, at that time, he was directing and producing an animated feature based on the life of Edgar Allan Poe. Whether that will see the light of day or not is unknown.

I'm not the most familiar with the guy, so my tribute might not be the most heartfelt. The tributes by animation historians Michael Barrier and John Canemaker, on the other hand, are. You can read them here. And you can also read animation teacher and blogger Mark Mayerson's tribute here. Heck, how about two Cartoon Brew tributes as well, one from site co-founder Amid Amidi, and one from Courage The Cowardly Dog creator John R. Dilworth. I wanted to show these particular tributes to give you an idea as to what his impact on the animation community was. He wasn't as famous as many of those big-name animators out there, but those who knew him remember him fondly.

Like I said, I'm not the most familiar with his work. However, I do plan on checking out some of his animations and re-reading through more of his blog at some point. Lou Reed's death motivated me to check out more of his music, so I'm sure that the same could apply here. (Incidentally, Lou Reed was also a native New Yorker.)  I do plan to look through the archives on his blog more, but as for films, I managed to find a few of them on Netflix some time ago and just recently, as of this writing, I have managed to check out a couple of his films on DVD, Whitewash and Champagne, both dealing with heavy social issues, and from what I can see, despite the minuscule budgets he works with, he still manages to create decent looking cartoons with a modern artistic bend to them. As far as the content goes, my favorite of the two was Champagne, which was a two-hour interview with a convent-raised girl named Champagne Saltes condensed down to a 13 minute cartoon. Half of it was improvised animation, while half of it used a storyboard, which is pretty impressive.

One quote in particular, however, stood out to me about how much Michael Sporn loved animation. On his "Making Of" Featurette of the DVD, the ever passionate Sporn said this: "I think animation has the potential to be the greatest of all the arts." Well, Michael, wherever you are, with great music, acting, storytelling, visual arts, and the right amount of effort and passion in the right hands, it's always possible.