just watched "three little pups," a droopy cartoon by tex avery, for the fiftieth time and had a ton of thoughts.
watch it here
i watched this the first time and found it funny, but the more i watch it, the funnier it gets. a few thoughts about it that i think are particularly striking:
[1] i really enjoy
the opening. i've noted in the past that i think
storybook style openings and turning pages are very strong and endearing; i almost feel that they create a very smooth transition into the art of storytelling, slowly introducing you to the situation and characters. in addition--and this may just be me projecting--
the idea that something is recorded in a book (despite so many crappy books being produced) still
bears some weight and lends the story a degree of importance. you feel like you're going into something that someone took the time and care to record on paper, and that in itself is useful.
in addition, note the almost imperceptibly muted colors that look as if you're viewing them on paper,
the halo of white unreality that surrounds the settings and create a blobulous oval, a portal through which you view the static scenes of the droopy brothers building their houses. it's all
very authentic and book-like. the authenticity is punctuated when the incredibly smooth transition into motion is completed, when the third little pup is laying those bricks. you almost don't even think about it or notice, but
suddenly we've moved from a static image story with narration to one that moves.
the book comes to life! to a kid, that's super powerful.
the transition out of the book setting is complete when we switch to the wolf, then back to droopy's house; note that the
aforementioned halo is now completely gone. it's almost as if
the cartoon creates the feeling you get when you start reading a book, the way you slowly dip your toes into the water, ease your way in, but then suddenly you're underwater, touching the bottom of that pool.
[2] pay attention to the flow of the characterization of the wolf. again, this is a cartoon about movement, and nothing stays the way we perceive it.
the wolf in your initial meeting with him is intimidating and horrifying. he sneers and he approaches with such caution, intent, and malice. even his car--which i should note is a wonderful character in itself, tip-toeing behind him quickly to catch up, and stretching its nose forward to break so many physical laws and draw closer to that goal--just seems sneaky and MEAN.
but then, at the moment we realize that the wolf's gambit will not be so simple, that he won't just waltz in and snatch the little dogs away,
at the moment he tries in vain to penetrate that brick house, he breaks his silence and expresses his shock, and the tone of both his character and the entire cartoon changes. the song he whistles crosses many different tex avery droopy cartoons, and it's so pleasant and catchy, as if whatever he's up to is so standard and fit for a sunny day that to accuse him of wrongdoing or treachery would be an absurdity.
absurdity is sort of the operative word here, and the order of the day. can you seriously watch the sequence in which the wolf tries to use the cat puppet to lure out the dogs and has it turned on him and not laugh your ass off? the logic of it is classic cartoon.
a cartoonist's job is to blur the lines between the animate and inanimate, between reality and surreality and unreality.
the truth is that
every kid is just waiting for their puppets and toys to snap out of their stillness and chase the nearest mouse, and the whistling wolf with his meowing cat puppet only confirm these suspicions.
[3] lastly, the
brilliant integration of real video on the television which the three droopy brothers watch. you can read it as mere irreverence, but i see a lot of significance in it:
again, it perpetuates the illusion that the world in which the events we're watching are taking place is OUR WORLD. those are the shows WE can watch. this is further emphasized by the wolf's transition into that reality at the end of the cartoon.
what are the ramifications of this?
it maintains in your head, in a kid's head, that somewhere these cartoon characters make such a transition, and that one day you could be walking down the street and see droopy buying ice cream from a cart or leading a troupe of fleas playing dixieland music on his behind.
it's a perfect cartoon in pretty much every way, and employs so many wonderful techniques and is rife with such creativity that i could write for days and never exhaust my thoughts on it.
