Dear WhiteWolf:
I agree with you. Even as a kid, I wanted the coyote to eat that damn bird. I guess I’ve always sympathized with predators.
FWIW, Pepe always gave me the creeps too…grabbing that kitty and forcing kisses all over her while she tried to run away crying “le pant! le pant!” F—ing creepy in my book…
Anyway, for those Wile E Coyote fans out there, please read this: http://www.itr.qc.ca/~mario/acme-law.html
Read the whole thing…it’s quite funny 
Some mornings it just doesn’t seem worth it to gnaw through the leather straps.
Zettecity
Wow! Way too many things to address…
Okay, first of all, I’ve seen Coal Black and De Sebben Dwarves. I can certainly see why it’s insensitive and racist, but my personal problem with it was that it just wasn’t that funny. The music was pretty good however. I got a copy along with a bunch of other censored cartoons at DragonCon, a gigantic Sci-Fi/Fantasy convention which also happens to be a mecca for video tape bootleggers.
Secondly, Wile E. Coyote (I’m sick of people calling him Wiley Coyote, aren’t you?) DID catch the road runner once. Unfortunately, due to the folks at Acme Growth Hormone Labs and one of Wile’s plans, the road runner was about 500 feet tall. The cartoon ends with Wile hanging on to RR’s huge leg and holding up a sign that reads “Now that I have him, what do you want me to do with him?”
Finally, if you want to talk about disturbing cartoon chases, let’s talk about Screwball Squirrel. The three Screwball Squirrel cartoons were the three cartoons that Tex Avery had total creative control over and they are all completely insane. The basic plot is your regular chase plot… screwball being chased by a large dog. The difference is (and if you think about it, this is very unusual in cartoons) Screwball DESERVES to be chased! One of the cartoons I can remember starts with Screwball walking down the road and unprovokedly kicking the dog. Of course, Screwball also wins at the end because the chased character almost always wins. Still, Screwball provoking the dog into chasing him and then winning disturbed me a lot more as a kid than a French skunk chasing a French cat painted like a skunk.
Wow. Now I’ve started thinking about Thundercats, my favorite show as a kid. It kind of scares me.
In regards to Warner Bros. cartoons today, Steven Speilberg’s The Anamaniacs also includes a lot of humor geared to adults along with the usual anvil dropping.
Other cartoons today are just blatant with this kind of humor. South Park, anyone?
It’s funny but the Pepe the Skunk cartoons were the only Warner Bros cartoons I didn’t like. Now I know why. As for Olive Oyl I always figured whoever wound up with her in the end was the loser! Probably the ugliest woman ever drawn.
I think the point that everyone is forgetting is that Pepe LePew cartoons were never funny.
How about the unhealthy psychodrama going on between Krazy Kat and Ignatz Mouse? Krazy (female) is obssessed with Ignatz (male), who keeps heaving bricks at her skull. “L’il darlin’!” she squeals happily. Ick!
And to paraphrase Jean Harlow in Red Dust: “Hmm, a cat and a mouse, huh? Wonder how THIS is gonna turn out . . .”
Krazy Kat was FEMALE?
Uke
You thought Krazy was gay?
Whatsamatter, ya never picked up her tail and peeked?
Well, obviously, Krazy Kat was a pussy…
I always thought Krazy was genderless.
Except when that Tiger Tea put testosterone in her tank…
This worries me. We always seem to get into analyzing the sexual ambiguities of cartoons. So…
Have you ever considered the parallels between the careers of Milton Berle and Bugs Bunny?
Only to the extent that Bugs looked better in a dress and seldom stole other people’s jokes.
Always thought Jerry & Tuffy were a bit swish though. Maybe Tom was just a gay basher ahead of his time.
JB
Lex Non Favet Delictorum Votis
Finally, if you want to talk about disturbing cartoon chases, let’s talk about Screwball Squirrel. The three Screwball Squirrel cartoons were the three cartoons that Tex Avery had total creative control over and they are all completely insane. The basic plot is your regular chase plot… screwball being chased by a large dog. The difference is (and if you think about it, this is very unusual in cartoons) Screwball DESERVES to be chased! One of the cartoons I can remember starts with Screwball walking down the road and unprovokedly kicking the dog. Of course, Screwball also wins at the end because the chased character almost always wins. Still, Screwball provoking the dog into chasing him and then winning disturbed me a lot more as a kid than a French skunk chasing a French cat painted like a skunk.
Sounds like a miniature Foghorn Leghorn.
Anyway, you want to talk about inane cartoon characters? Here’s something I found on http://www.laughpage.com/archive/
Top 10 Worst Cartoon Characters
#10- Tweety Bird- You know there’s a problem when every single kid roots for the “hero” to be devoured in each episode. No sense of humor. No personality. Annoying voice. Plus he was always tattling. I knew kids like this growing up. Most of them ate paste, sat in the front of the bus, and got me in trouble.
#9- Grape Ape- A real moron. All he knows how to say is his name. And he does so non-stop for a half an hour. I’d rather watch “Davey and Goliath covet their neighbors model airplane.”
#8- Olive Oyl- Am I the only one out there who thought this was one lady NOT worth fighting over? And that’s what they did every episode! She talks like Edith Bunker and looks like a pipe cleaner with a cheap hat. Hey, Popeye, you’re a sailor… you can do better! Plus Olive can never decide if she wants to date that jerk Bluto or not. The girl is just bad news.
#7- Petunia Pig- Remember her? Porky’s girlfriend? She was a real zero. What was the point of her anyway? To make Porky look good? Come on, who did they think they’re fooling. We all know Porky is gay.
#6- Pebbles & Bam-Bam, as teenagers- What were they thinking? Were they trying to cash in on the “Joanie loves Chachi” thing? And how come every cartoon teenager plays in crumby rock band? An awful -and thankfully shortlived- idea.
#5- Pepe LePew- Hello, Warner Brothers, ever heard of sexual harassment? Let’s take a good look at this character; a horny, rapist skunk who’s attracted to other species! NOT good for the kids. Plus, worse still, he’s French.
#4- Alan, from Josie and the Pussy Cats- How weak was this “Fred” clone? They even gave him an ascot, for crying out loud. Well, I knew Fred. I grew up with Fred. Fred was like a friend of mine. Let me tell you something…you’re no Fred.
#3- Zan and Zana, the Wondertwins- How many times do we have to say it? Leave the crimefighting to the professionals! “Form of… an idiot!” They should have been voted out of the Hall of Justice a long time ago. There’s no room for dead weight in this game.
#2- Kazoo, from the Flintstones- It’s like “Hmmm, a miniature, green spaceman who appears only to Fred Flintstone isn’t enough of a stretch. I know! Let’s give him a snotty London accent!” Um, could I get a drug test from Hanna Barbara, please?
#1- Scrappy Doo- And, really, who else COULD it be? This guy ruined Scooby Doo! Just came in and ruined it! Scrappy is the Yoko Ono of
Saturday morning cartoons. I can’t even talk about it anymore. It’s too upsetting.
RoboDude quoted:
Tsk tsk tsk. Everyone knows the girl’s name was JANA (pronounced JAY-nuh), not Zana.
And how much “crimefighting” did they actually do? Here’s a typical Super Friends episode: Green Lantern and Wonder Woman stop a mad scientist from erasing the entire past, Superman and Apache Chief battle a giant so large he can pick the Earth up with two fingers, … and Zan and Jana keep a hitch-hiker from getting assaulted.
And another thing. Jana can turn into any animal she can imagine. Why not just turn into a planet-sized firebreathing dragon every time? Why change into a wimpy old eagle or camel? And why doesn’t Zan just turn into a fully-functioning ice replica of the Starship Enterprise?! Enquiring minds want to know!!
Quick-N-Dirty Aviation: Trading altitude for airspeed since 1992.
Someone must have liked them otherwise they would’ve only made one.
Someone must have liked them
otherwise they would’ve only made
one.
This seems to be a long gone thread, but I’ve just read it and didn’t see:
My reading of the Pepe Le Pew cartoons is that, while Pepe is in pursuit of L’Amour, that he is deluded (by chance accident) in his ideals. And that the over-arching statement on his method is; Whew, this guy STINKS. It’s a take on the French, yeah, but as an example of “slick-talking”, which is delusional and suffocating.
Cartoonists & animators are an astute bunch of folks, to my mind, and provide great commentary that flies under the radar of whatever the dominant mores are at the time. With as much grunt work that has always gone into animation, I’d think that the storyline would have much thought as well. I really admire all in the Warner Bros. crew for making intelligent parables for all us boomers & beyond, and in a time when freedom of expression wasn’t as loose as it is now. If you compare the intellectual content of WB/Chuck Jones cartoons vs. Disney, well, there’s just no… Let’s see what happens when we’re all 80ish, and our mythology comes babbling out. My bet’s on Pismo Beach.
And if you want to talk about making a bad impression, ckeck out http://www.rit.edu/~mwp6741/comedy/druguser.html
For whatever reason, when I tried to get the 2nd page of this thread it didn’t come up. So, it’s not long gone, and JBENZ did touch on the delusional aspect of Mr. Le Pew.
As to Olive Oyl(kinda slippery), I think her total unattractiveness(as opposed to her contemporary Ms. Boop) was the means to a commentary on the foibles of romantic pursuit. I suspect that the animators of that age would be analogous to the " computer geeks" of this age— individuals who were plenty smart and using new technology to fly past the idiots. Amen.