A quick note: It’s student show week here, one of the busiest weeks of the year, so I’ll forgo anything about Thunderbean for this week other than to say I’m looking forward to some quality time catching up with my own little business in a few days. Lots happening there and more on that soon…
So, here’s a cartoon- and a print I especially love the color on. “Flea for Two”
I’m a huge fan of the 50s Don Patterson pictures at Lantz. They are funny, corny, and surprising in their design at times, yeah are completely unpretentious in design. Sometimes the lack of a stronger sense of design sensibilities could be noted and criticized in Lantz’s work generally in this period- but what a revelation it was to me to see some of these films in IB Tech compared to the TV prints I grew up on.
The first one I saw in IB was Red Riding Hoodlum (57). I was especially impressed with both the color choices and how elegant the overall appearance was in a Technicolor print compared to any other version.
Flea for Two is similar. While this vintage 16mm print isn’t the sharpest and has seen some milage over the years, it’s beautiful to see what these films looked like theatrically. Patterson’s timing seems to be influenced a lot by Avery in pose timing and action, and while this isn’t as strong as a good Avery, it’s still all sorts of fun. Micheal Maltese, over at Lantz in this period, wrote this one, and that combination of talents is especially good here and brings some really fun dialogue.
When I was a kid I especially loved the gags involving the flea jumping from dog to dog and discovering a different group of fleas on each based on the dog breed. As a kid I didn’t understand it but laughed at the silliness of the gags. All these years later I really still enjoy this one a lot.
So, watch for a little escapism and enjoy this small cartoon for what it is: a nice break from the world. Thanks to Tommy Stathes for the lend. Wish this was my print!
Have a good week everyone!
Steve Stanchfield is an animator, educator and film archivist. He runs Thunderbean Animation, an animation studio in Ann Arbor, Michigan and has compiled over a dozen archival animation DVD collections devoted to such subjects at Private Snafu, The Little King and the infamous Cubby Bear. Steve is also a professor at the College for Creative Studies in Detroit.
It’s true that the Lantz studio got a real shot in the arm in the mid-’50s thanks to talents like Patterson, Abrams, Avery and Maltese. Even stalwarts like Lovy and Smith seemed to raise their game during this period. While the gags in “Flea for Two” may be silly, they’re certainly inspired, as when Flea Wee hitches a ride into the city aboard the greyhound logo on the side of a bus, or when the Fleastone Kops arrive on — what else? — a police dog, or the flea wedding in a full-sized church with the happy couple dodging giant grains of rice. Great stuff.
Michael Maltese would go on to write additional cartoons featuring fleas for both Warner Bros. and Hanna-Barbera. He seemed to have a real affinity for the little bounding bloodsuckers. I wonder why. I hope it was because he had a dog….
“Patterson’s timing seems to be influenced a lot by Avery in pose timing and action, and while this isn’t as strong as a good Avery, it’s still all sorts of fun.”
According to Thad Komorowski, this STARTED as a Tex Avery cartoon but was finished by Patterson.
Don Patterson did a fine job in all too brief a period as a Walter Lantz director.
Pretty okay cartoon. I really like the way the fleas were animated in terms of timing and action. Some of the gags involving around different kinds of fleas/groups were pretty cute. I did get a big laugh where the main flea character hops on the “Greenhound” bus. That feels like an Avery type of gag.
Are there enough flea-themed cartoons for an Animation Trail? This is a nifty one, but my favorite is Tex Avery’s “Flea Circus”. It’s mostly one gag, tiny dots jumping around human-sized props, but the variations are clever and keep coming.
Or for that matter, riffs on the country boy rescuing his girl from the city slicker? They range from the almost straight melodrama “Hawaiian Birds” to Olive Oyl being seduced by various upscale types, including Bluto cleaned up.
Charles Gardner posted a four-part Animation Trail on flea cartoons back in June 2020.
That gag about etchings sailed clearly over the heads of the youngsters, and apparently the censors too.