Bob Clampett (1913-1984) was an American animator and director, producer, and puppeteer renowned for his influential work during the golden age of American animation. Joining Warner Bros.’ animation division in 1931, he played a pivotal role in designing and developing some of the studio’s most iconic characters. Notably, he created Porky Pig, Warner Bros’ first major animated star, and was instrumental in shaping the personas like Daffy Duck and Tweety Bird. Daffy Duck, was known for his unpredictable personality, contrasting sharply with more traditional cartoon characters of his time . Clampett’s direction emphasized Daffy’s hyperactive and eccentric traits, making him one of the most famous characters from Warner Bros’. Also my favorite character too. His direction of 84 cartoons, including acclaimed works like “Porky in Wackyland” (1938) and “The Great Piggy Bank Robbery” (1946), showcased his amazing surreal humor and dynamic storytelling. Clampett also ventured into television, creating the puppet show Time for Beany in 1949. This series later evolved into the animated program Beany and Cecil, which debuted in 1962. Beanie and Cecil is recognized as one of the first creator-driven television series, reflecting Clampett’s commitment to artistic control and innovation in his projects.
Bob Clampett’s works at Warner Bros. Cartoons stood out for its energetic, surreal, and boundary pushing style, setting him apart from his colleagues. His animations were characterized by exaggerated character movements, elastic linework, and a willingness to explore the absurd. This makes his works be easy to separate with like Chuck Jones, who mostly favored more structured narratives and subtle humor.
Fredrick “Tex” Avery was born in Texas in 1908. He started making comic strips in highschool and wanted to be an animator/cartoonist from a young age. He studied at the Art Institute of Chicago for a summer. After which he moved to California and got a job at Warner Brothers as a storyboarder in the early 1930s, creating/working on Porky Pig, Daffy Duck and Bugs Bunny. A disagreement with Leon Schlesinger led Tex to quit Warner in early 1941. He passed away in 1980, at the age of 72.
Tex was less focused on creating lasting characters and rather was more interested in creating gags and slapstick jokes and creating humorous animations. Of all of his original characters, Droopy is the most popular of them. (The character recently got a small resurgence in popularity with the term ‘Sigma’, and he was referred to as ‘The Most Sigma Dog’, but quickly got taken over by the ‘My New Character’ nonchalant dog. )
After leaving Warner Brothers, he went to MGM, but left there right as they stopped making theatrical releases. He then went to Walter Lantz and made the Chilly Willy penguin character before eventually switching to TV commercial animations rather than episodic cartoons.
His style is distinctly slapstick and over the top. He likes visual gags and doing a slight subversion of what the audience expects, and then plays into it some more. He doesn’t focus as much on character as he does on situation, as opposed to some of the other directors at Warner Bros, who were itching to have more distinct characters and iconic characters to rival the likes of Disney. Another thing I noticed is that he tends to like to play on the humor of the everyday exaggerated rather than crazy sci-fi situations, like space adventures, big over the top science projects and what-not.
However, while watching his work, I came across an almost unproportional amount of Racist themes. Nearly every other cartoon of his that I saw with a person in it had some kind of stereotype, and even the ones without people still had them. I understand this was more common in that era, but this seemed like a lot even for the time. There were literal dogs in blackface, racist depictions of Hindu people and Romani people, incredibly offensive depictions of Native Americans, and more. Again, this was more common in the past, but it was absolutely abhorrent to watch.
Beyond the racist themes and such, I will admit overall I do not much care for the vast majority of the cartoons of his that I saw. They all seemed to be gag after gag after gag with no payoff, no emotional resonance, no reason to keep watching. It felt like early form of Brainrot, really. As a general rule I do not much care for Loony Tunes cartoons because of this, as a lot of the characters seem lifeless and just pawns for visual gags, and I admit that this was even more so with Tex Avery’s work.
His cartoon “The House of Tomorrow from Yesterday” was somewhat fun to watch, and really shows the statement of ‘Flying Cars they said’ to be forever relevant. However, if anything else, there are some themes that he loves to play on, Racism, Sexism, Hating your Mother in Law and Gags.
I won’t lie, this is America as Cartoon Media. I think that this perfectly represents what we are as a country, in many ways. And I don’t mean this in some philosophical or beautiful way, I just mean it plain and straight up. Messy, chaotic, loud, over the top, however still mundane, historically and still presently racist, casually racist, casually sexist, dreaming big of the future and heavily nostalgic about the past.
On the 23rd of September, Ewa Borysewicz was born. Ewa grew up in Podlachia, Poland. She attended the Academy of Fine Arts in Kraków, where she studied animation and nurtured her unique style of communication.
Even in school, she produced films that brought her great renown, one of which is No dobra (Alright, 3 mins 44, 2007). No dobra presents her reality to the audience. In this film, the droll of a Polish suburb continues to unfold in front of our eyes. People wait at a bus stop, the children play in the park. The behavior is emphasized by the one word that is made out in the entire film: alright.
Film allows me to express my feelings and show reality. – said Borysewicz in an interview with Julita Januszkiewicz.
Her debut film is called “To Thy Heart”, animated with pencil and paper, resulting in hundreds of drawings in a continued loop to weave her tale. the tale of a girl whose past experiences of love have hurt her deeply. Frustrated and pent-up emotions surface as fantasies; even though she criticizes the opposite sex, she secretly dreams of love.
