Before I give everyone here the “Raspberry”, here’s some quick Thunderbean updating:
Summer is my time to really catch things up, and I go between being incredibly motivated and hiding until certain things are finished and being completely burned out from doing so! This summer, I’m working on one thing at a time as much as I can, then having the other Thunderbean folks also work on one thing at a time to see if we can get through as many of the close to finished projects as possible. Cartoons for Victory is heavily on the plate for me right now along with helping with Tommy Stathes’ beautiful Dinky Doodle project, along with colleague David Gerstein.
And now — onto getting “Razzberried”!!!
I really love the idea of bringing back the entire Terrytoons staff from 95 years ago and have them watch some of their cartoons with a contemporary audience.
Razzberries (1931), like many of the Terrytoons of this period, is working hard to have you laugh at every shot of the film, either with action or, sometimes, just the bizarre or funny drawing. And it *is* funny, and must have been entertaining to the audience at least. The primitiveness of the animation is one of its greatest assets in this case, and pretty enjoyable if you’re not expecting more.
In this nearly plotless cartoon, we’re treated to a series of animals doing funny things for no reason at all, starting with some lions that are dancing in some sort of tribal fashion. It’s animation synced to music for only that reason. The flying monkeys that show up for one shot may be my own favorites. An astute monkey on a high-wheeler uses a small horn to give the lion-tribe the ‘“raspberry”, scaling them off- hence the title of the film. A little more than halfway through the picture, Farmer Alfalfa, game hunter and now the star, shows up in a mechanical elephant rather than riding on a real one. After chasing around a bunch of bear cubs (and eventually being confronted by their angry mom) he gives up that chase, offers our hero a few furs, then. Or monkey on the bike shows up and sells some furs to our hero, but then gives him the “raspberry” to scare him and get them back.
I have to note that the designs of the various animals look barely different than then did in 1925 silent Aesop’s Fables from Terry/Van Beuren. All the said, I sort of don’t mind in this case. It’s animation for enjoyment, not brilliance.
So, that said, enjoy! This cartoon lives again when we watch it, and that’s the best thing we could possibly do for the legacy of these artists.
Have a good week all!
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.
One of the funniest of the early Terrytoons with their tasty, food-related titles. It kills me that all the animals are literally frightened out of their skins by the sound of a monkey blowing raspberries at them.
I’ve heard the opening “Jungle” song in at least one other old cartoon — I think it might have been one of the Lantz Oswalds — but I don’t know its correct title or who wrote it. Any information about it will be greatly appreciated. The music we hear when Farmer Al Falfa starts pursuing the bear cub is Otto Nicolai’s Overture to “The Merry Wives of Windsor”, which occurs now and then in old cartoons. Unlike the excerpts from the overture in Max Fleischer’s “Fire Cheese” (1941), Famous Studios’ “The Big Flame-Up” (1949), or Terry’s “Mighty Mouse Meets Jekyll and Hyde Cat” (1944), the music here does not accompany a scene of a burning building.
Thirty-five years after Farmer Al hunted big game while riding through the jungle on a mechanical elephant, Cool Cat’s nemesis Colonel Rimfire would do the very same thing in some of the late Looney Tunes. Astounding!
Philip Scheib’s score for this cartoon is particularly impressive.
Do you know the titles of the songs heard in the scene where the monkeys leap onto the rocks and take flight, as well as the one where the four bear cubs are dancing?
The latter piece can also be heard at the beginning of the 1929 Fable cartoon “Bug House School Days.”
Sorry, B.C., I can’t identify either of those tunes. The 1929 cartoon is “Bughouse College Days” (mislabeled “Bug House School Days” on a YouTube video), a sound reissue of the 1925 silent Fable “Bugville Field Day”.
The monkeys leaping onto the rocks seems to be accompanied by a minor-key version of “My Pony Boy” (either intended as such, or an original song with a very similar meter).
I love this one! Of course it’s not state of the art animation for 1931, but I would say there is technical skill involved in pulling off effective *timing* for gags, and timing is a big part of why any gag works. I find this one pretty hilarious in a couple spots, and that’s a success to me.
It’s important to remember that Paul Terry had lost nearly all of his best animators when Van Beuren stole his studio in 1929, so he no longer had the resources to compete with his rivals as he had in the 1920s.
However, the final Aesop’s Fables cartoons produced by Paul Terry managed to rival Disney’s early Silly Symphonies; for example, the cartoon “A Midsummer Day’s Dream” (posted on YouTube under the erroneous title “A Day Off” and with a new soundtrack) features surprisingly elaborate sets and sophisticated sound synchronization that places it on par with “The Skeleton Dance.”
Had that incompetent Van Beuren not fired him, Terry would undoubtedly have become a major player in the transition from silent to sound cartoons. To make matters worse, when he took over the studio, Van Beuren also dismantled the ingenious system of chief directors that Terry had created, which diminished the production quality of the cartoons.
Two veteran animators from the Fables studio, Frank Moser and Jerry Shield, handled most of the animation for this cartoon, so it’s no surprise that the character designs are virtually identical to those from the mid-1920s. It appears, however, that Paul Terry and his brother John Terry did not contribute any animation to this cartoon.
Frank Moser was an extremely prolific animator; he was one of the fastest artists of his time, and his animation was particularly effective at conveying emotions. Moser was also Paul Terry’s partner, and his role within the Terrytoons studio appears to have been particularly significant, since in addition to handling half of the animation for each cartoon, he also created all the storyboards, as well as the promotional posters for each cartoon! It is therefore not surprising to see that his name appeared before Paul Terry’s in the credits and advertisements.
Frank Moser was dismissed from Paul Terry’s studio in 1936 for reasons that remain somewhat unclear; one of the main consequences of his dismissal, aside from a decline in the quality of the cartoons, was a significant reduction in the appearances of Farmer Alfalfa, a character who disappeared entirely from the series after 1937.
Hey, if you don’t mind me asking: whatever happened to the MeTV Toons deal? I haven’t seen any Thunderbean cartoons on there in a long time.
The deal continues! We’re delivering the last of this batch within a month. They have plans for them for sure…
I really like the designs of the lion “natives” at the beginning of the short. They look really cool!
Does anyone know if Milt Gross worked on this cartoon?
I know he collaborated with Paul Terry on several silent cartoons (his animation can be seen in the 1923 cartoon *Happy-Go-Luckies*), but it seems he was tempted to start his own animation studio in the early 1930s, notably by attempting to produce a series of color cartoons.
I don’t believe so.
Dumbo sighting at 1:18.
So, adding the flying monkeys, it’s apparent that “Razzberries” inspired both “Dumbo” AND “The Wizard of Oz.” /s