Friday, February 18, 2011

021 Tortoise Wins By A Hare



Title: Tortoise Wins By A Hare
Studio: Warner Bros.
Date: 02/20/43 (01/23 in OMAM; 2/20 in BoxOffice)
Credits:
Supervision
Robert Clampett
Animation
Bob McKimson
Story
Warren Foster
Musical Direction
Carl W. Stalling
Series: Merrie Melodies
Running time (of viewed version): 7:46
Commercial DVD Availability: LTGCv1d3

Synopsis: Tortoise plans ahead for vicious rabbit mob intervention in race.























Comments: Silhouettes animated on credits. Bugs has bad teeth. Footage is of sperm headed Bugs, but the main Bugs is the ugly uncontrolled look Bugs. Level head and shaky body old Bugs is cool tho. NIce fingers in the blueprint painting. Bugs has a Hephaistion workshop. Lots of political headlines in the Chicago Sunday Tribunk of November 1, 1942. One headline is "Adolph Hitler Commits Suicide". There's a black and white Bugs animated within the paper. Win some bar bets with that one. The short has far more story than any of Clampett's '39 entries. I wonder if the rabbits are specific caricatures of people. Mustache rabbit looks familiar, like an animator. The cartoon ends with a mass suicide. Bugs's dilated pupils in the tree look good.

Update:
There was a pice on this in Boxoffice, July 10, 1943, p52; was there an additional joke we're missing, or did they just remove the tribune's appearance in Chicago?:
"Tribune Remark Out
Chicago - The Tribune has proved that it can "dish it out" but some people aren't so sure it can "take it." In the Warner Bros. color short, Leon Schlesinger's "The Tortoise Wins By a Hare," there is a re-mark made about the Tribune. The paper threatened to file suit against Warner Bros. if the objectionable short was not removed from distribution. The matter was finally ironed out when Warner's agreed to remove the film containing the remark."
http://forums.goldenagecartoons.com/showthread.php?p=193782#post193782

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