Springtime Refueling

It's officially spring here in the northern hemisphere...and it couldn't come a moment to soon.

This past couple of weeks, real life has really bitten me on the ass.

Nothing serious, mind you, I should really say it hasn't bitten me, it encroached on my territory and TRIED to bite me.

And even at that it was all nothing really important. Just the money-changers, paper-pushers and spoon-benders out there wanting to waste my time. Wanting me to believe what they do in this world actually matters.

A quick note to all of you bureaucrats, politicians, insurance brokers, municipal "employees", lawyers...in fact, any profession which is just a fancy name for clerical worker. You don't matter. You don't matter because what you DO doesn't matter.

Please remember that. What you do to get to earn money and survive only exists because we are a compassionate society and we have invented those jobs for you.

The world would get along fine without you or the menial tasks you perform. You only exist because the rest of us...you know, the humans?...we've decided that killing all of you just because you have nothing to offer society, would make us feel guilty.

Please attend to your paper filing and policy tending and data entry and other busy work. Keep attending to it until your meaningless lives come to an end.

But STOP BOTHERING ME WITH IT!!!!

Anyhoo. I spent too much time over the last couple of weeks tending to these sheep. I thought I'd be fine, but it has really tapped my energy. Now that I am temporally done entertaining and occupying the minds and desks of countless employees of the State of California (those are my tax dollars paying for their weekend binge on Natural Lite and Nascar, right?) I am feeling a little fatigued.

Bastards!

But, then I remembered that spring has sprung. I feel better. I still need some down-time, but I feel better.

So come share my downtime with me, appreciate some art and watch some springtime cartoons.

Don't worry about that mumbling coming from those grey dismal halls down the road. They're shifting paperwork and mistakenly feeling worthwhile.









Mmmmmmmmm. I feel better already. I hope you do too.

Happy Spring!€

See y'all tomorrow!

Harmonizing Harman-Ising! Silly-Looney-Merrie-Happy...

Today would have been Hugh Harman's 106th birthday.

Hugh, along with his partner Rudolph (his birthday was pre-empted about a month ago here) Ising are responsible for a great deal of the golden age of animation from the 1920's-1940's and beyond.

Though they didn't really create any lasting characters that you would remember today, through their pursuit of furthering the are of animation, they are responsible for creating the venues which would give stage to characters by others.

They began in Kansas City, Missouri working for Walt Disney's Laugh-O-Gram studios and came west with him to California for the formation of "The Disney Brothers Studio". There they worked on the "Alice in Cartoonland", "Oswald the Lucky Rabbit" and "Mickey Mouse" series. Creative/personal/monetary differences with Walt forced them to leave the studio.

It was a ripe time creatively and technologically in the country. The Depression had hit us, so peoples entrepreneurial spirit came to the forefront. Hugh and Rudy produced a pilot film to shop around to the major movie studios, to try and begin an animation department there all their own. The character was Bosko.

And here's that very film...that's Rudolph Ising you see interacting with Bosko.

They sold the cartoon to Warner Brothers and "Looney Tunes" was born. Taking a tip from Walt and his "Silly Symphonies" series it originally was a series of musical cartoons. Here's the very first official "Looney Tunes" based on the popular song of the day "Singin' in the Bathtub" here's "Sinkin' in the Bathtub" with Bosko.

They spent the next couple of years at Warner's also creating the "Merrie Melodies" series. Wanting to expand the technique and appeal of animation, they were constantly squabbling for larger budgets and were let go from Warner's.

They went to MGM and created the "Happy Harmonies" series.

You can see that in the mid to late 1930's, Bosko became a much more realistic character and much more racially offensive by today's standards.

But finally today, historians can acknowledge the influence the boys had...pictured below on Warner's last official Looney Tunes DVD release from 2008...Bosko made the cover along with Bugs Bunny and the rest of the better known characters.

At MGM they also had financial disagreements with the head office and were eventually let go. By this time the studios were all set up with cartoon studios of their own as well as their own producers and directors. Hugh and Rudy faded into the sunset.

But between the boys work at Disney, Warner's and MGM, the stage was set for countless other cartoon characters to come along. Where would Bugs Bunny, Tom & Jerry, Daffy Duck, Porky Pig have played out their comic adventures without the stage that Hugh and Rudy built for them? They didn't create the characters that came after, but they established the forum for them to flourish.

Thanks Hugh!