Notes from Underdog.

Reposting: A Beginner's Guide to 'Tintin': Everything You Need to Know About Steven Spielberg's Latest Big-Screen Hero

Reposting a piece I wrote for Movies.com giving some background on the boy reporter/hero and inspiration for the new Spielberg film. [I give the film a B+, for "Blistering barnacles," I really enjoyed it, to be precise. There are some really excellent Herge homages at the film's start, and then the spirit of the comics lives throughout. The writers may have tried to cram too much in (3 comics into one story) but changes otherwise seemed good, kept humor but added more.--cgp]

 

With the big-budget, CGI The Adventures of Tintin film hitting the world in a big way -- directed by one of the most famous of directors and produced by another no stranger to blockbusters -- it's hard to imagine a time back in my childhood when I innocently clutched faded reprints of Hergé's comic books and dreamed of a movie.

The year Raiders of the Lost Ark came out was when I first discovered this series, which shared many elements with Spielberg's crowd-pleasing adventure: A brave, young, globetrotting hero battles nefarious crime syndicates and villains over artifacts and heirlooms—though Tintin, a boy reporter instead of an archeologist, was younger and more innocent (and asexual, though this thought didn't occur to me as much as a lad) than Indiana Jones; and at times Tintin got into trouble more by sticking his nose into other people's business when things struck him suspicious, rather than venturing forth for his own gain. But these beautifully illustrated comic books captivated in much the same way as Raiders, and the stories took Tintin from England, the character’s home base, all over the globe: from South American jungles to Tibet, from fictional countries to, yes, the moon (before anyone really set foot on it).

 

Hergé

Belgian artist Hergé began Tintin as a serialized newspaper strip, before segueing to comic book form. Quite a few of the best stories were written before, during and right after WWII, so Hergé, an anti-fascist who tried to remain apolitical due to worries about Gestapo censorship—and worse—in his occupied country, certainly knew the territory. In that period Tintin was more an explorer like Indy, rather than a reporter (lest he sniff out something the real-life ruling fascists didn't care for). The earliest Tintins, in the 1930s, also had elements of discomfortingly dated racial portrayals, though now it seems clearer that Hergé's work tended to be a sign of the times without much maliciousness to the caricatures; as a judge recently ruled, Hergé's intent was not racist in Tintin in the Congo even if some of the drawings sure seemed that way. But you can trace his progression as an artist and observer reading through to his later work (the last, Tintin and the Picaros, was published in 1976).

In the 1970s and 80s, Tintin had more of a cult following in America than a widespread audience, even though he'd been popular around much of the rest of the planet for decades.

Read the rest here >>

 

Kung Fu Panda: No masterpiece but exceeds expectations

Kung Fu Panda
***

I expected a certain level of cuteness in Kung Fu Panda, perhaps some good voice work given the nicely eclectic cast and a few good jokes, and little more. What I saw instead was a beautifully animated, often very funny cartoon that rivals anything Pixar's done the past few years.  Sure there are cliches here and the main plot has some "don't think too hard about it" elements to it; in which Tai Lung, the evil former pupil of a Kung Fu master, escapes from prison and seeks the title of "Dragon Warrior" that he believes rightly his, a title instead, seemingly mistakenly, given to the bumbling, blubbery panda Po (voice by Jack Black). If that plot builds to a predictable face-off, the film takes off in unexpected ways and uses smart characterizations and a sly wit to gain plenty of good will. It doesn't hurt that the supporting characters -- the five pupils, Crane (comedian/actor David Cross), the confident Tigress (Angelina Jolie), the plucky Mantis (the now ubiquitous Seth Rogen), Snake (Lucy Liu), and Monkey (Jackie Chan! who has very few lines), and particularly the story's two Yoda characters, the ancient turtle Oogway (wonderfully voiced by Randall Duk Kim) and master Shifu (Dustin Hoffman), as well as Po's father (who is, for reasons that are never explained but poked fun of, a goose) and the villain Tai Lung (a perfect Ian McShane) -- are so beautifully realized in design and performance - each tweaked a bit to fit the respective actor.

Kudos, too, to the filmmakers and writers (Jonathan Aibel and Glenn Berger wrote the script, from a story by Ethan Reiff and Cyrus Voris) who refrained from inserting the anachronistic pop cultural references and easy modernist jokes that many of its peers (including Dreamworks' Shrek) have been unable to resist (there is some modern lingo used but even that is playfully handled).   

There is a great deal of slapstick in the film, and your tolerance for slapstick may ultimately decide whether or not you enjoy Kung Fu Panda, but much of these comic action set pieces are expertly handled, with inspired timing that Chuck Jones would be proud of.   And the animation, all CGI except for a dream sequence and the closing credits, is rich, colorful, well-detailed. If it offers up expected, even stereotypical Chinese landscapes-- mystical, misty, mountainous -- and style reminiscent of Chinese classical paintings, it's still pretty beautiful to look at, and even better the makers are smart enough to use the "sets" for many of the films visual jokes (including the running joke with the ridiculously high stairs that Panda has to climb) and for the film's fight sequences. And even if Po's training sequence is an entirely expected event, it's surprisingly amusing {TINY SPOILER} -- an inspired, food-based training that will, if nothing else, make you rather hungry for dumplings.

Again, it's no masterpiece, but Kung Fu Panda exceeds expectations in many ways, is always a treat to look at, and is likable throughout. And, much as with the classic Warner Bros. cartoons, offers plenty for both adults and children to appreciate together.

Bad hentai synopses, #249.

"Manami will prove that she is the best ESP fighter by using her sexual psychic abilities to satisfy and punish evil while she herself has the best time of her life."

(--from Sexy Fighter Manami)

Random childhood memory box o'crap: Captain Caveman

Even when I was a wee lad, I knew this cartoon was utter crap. And yet I watched it with fascination. Even then - I was 6 or 7 - I wondered what on earth its creators were thinking. Now I just wonder what they were smoking. So there's this trio of young babes, they stumble on a cave with a frozen Cro-Magnon man. They defrost him. Even though they're drawn fairly realistically, he looks like - well, a cartoon of a caveman, all covered with fur, tongue hanging out, a club, some sort of superpowers (huh?) which I guess he developed after being frozen for all those millions of years. He hooks up with the women - no, not in that way, you perv - why, to solve crimes, of course! They travel around in a groovy van, as a sort of bizarro crossbreeding of Charlie's Angels, Scooby Doo and Josie and the Pussycats (by way of Quest for Fire).

There's not a single moment of it that makes any sort of sense.

He's Captain Caveman*. They're the Teen Angels. Yes, from the Ruby-Spears Crapfactory...

This was their show.

Enjoy!

*voiced by Mel Blanc, a very long way from Warner Brothers, alas.

There's no need to fear, the co-creator of Underdog is here!

Underdog. The original rhymin' canine.

For the longest time, my friends and family have assumed I've been more obsessed with the Underdog cartoon than I actually am, but there are several logical explanations for this: 1) I did get an underdog tattoo put on my arm (partially because I was always a fan of underdogs in general, and the character, for me, represented the spirit of that); 2) as a tot I loved the cartoon when I they reran them on TV in the mid to late 70s; 3) in a self-fulfilling prophecy, as more and more friends and family bought me various Underdog-related paraphernalia (cups, toys, figurines, lunch boxes, and so on), I did gain an increased affection for the little pup.

Plus, he's tattooed on my arm. How could I not?

Now: timed in tandem, of course, with the release of the new Underdog movie (and I suppose I'll have to see it so I can judge it fairly, but more on that another time), The Ultimate Underdog Cartoon Collection came out on DVD last week, featuring episodes never previously released, and digitally remastered to boot. This was the first time they've selected programmed the episodes in same order they originally aired on TV in the 1960s, including the non-Underdog shorts (Tenessee Tuxedo, Klondike Kat, etc). And in tandem with that release, I got to sit on a conference call roundtable interview, with a few other bloggers, to chat with Joe Harris, the co-creator and lead animator for the original cartoon series. He's worked with some of the most renowned advertising agencies in New York -- he is credited with creating the Trix rabbit -- and teamed up with colleagues to develop the Underdog show, which debuted on October 3, 1964. The show ran for nine years (in syndication), with 120 episodes in all.

I asked him how and why he decided to have the character Underdog speak entirely in rhyme? (All the time.) I always liked that touch.

Harris: We needed something to differentiate this character from other superhero type characters. One thing was he was a stumbler and a bumbler, then we softened it a little bit by having him speak in rhyme, which was one of the key characteristics of Underdog.

On what other cartoons influenced the look of the show.

We did King Leonardo and his Short Subjects and Tennessee Tuxedo, and then we did Underdog soon after that, in 1964. We did them all in the same animation studio - Gamma Studios in Mexico City. That was because it was a lot cheaper than in LA where we started. I did the General Mills cereals and Gold Medal Flour ads and so on. But I was influenced by a lot of people - before that I worked for some of the best Disney animators that ever lived. I worked for Bill Tytla who did "Night on Bald Mountain" [in Fantasia] and who worked on the Seven Dwarfs, and for Ernie Pintoff [The Carl Reiner short "The Critic"] and Gene Deitch. A lot of people who fled the problems at Walt Disney, went to New York and other places to open up their own little shops. So I was influenced by a lot of great people.

On how the political and social culture in the 1960s influenced Underdog:

Of course, there was a big shift between the 50s and the 60s. I always called that transition period the Sunshine Years. It was a time when everyone was happier, the Beatles were around, there were a lot of things going on at the time. It was frankly like a liberation. So we created this anti-hero in Underdog, who was different than heroes had been traditionally. I think the culture and social atmosphere at the time was ripe for it. I think that was one of the reasons for his success.

[This analogy seems a tad tenuous to me. Underdog was humble and lovable - and, literally, an underdog - but he was also clearly based on the Superman archetype and was still traditionally heroic when all was said and done.]

On where the underdog name and concept came from:

Harris said the name came from one of his colleagues - "we split up all of our work on the series. Two of my colleagues did the writing, and one of them is a conceptualist, Chet Stover, he was a copy supervisor on the same advertising account that I was the animator on. He came up with the idea of Underdog from watching an episode of I Love Lucy, where Lucy is expecting George Reeves [to come to Little Ricky's party]. She put on a superman costume and waits in it on the fire escape to surprise Reeves when he came in. But of course Lucy gets locked out there. Chet never even watched television much, but he saw that episode, and the next day he was inspired to create a superhero, and came up with the idea of an underdog. So that was entirely his concept." 

And the memorable theme song?

"The second colleague, Buck Biggers, did all the music for the shows. He created that catchy song.

"It's hard to disassociate what I did on the show from my counterparts, but my role was to design all the characters and the storyboarding. And then take it to the point where we combine the soundtrack with the music and so on to preproduction. So by the time it left my hands it was ready to go down to Mexico to be animated."

On "Nug of Nod"

I used to play volleyball on the beach with some friends in the Hamptons. And one of my friends had two daughters, around 11 or 12, and we used to sit down there, have lunch together all of us. And I promised them that the next time I would bring my sketch pad down and do some drawings for them, together. Unfortunately, I had to fly out to California that weekend, and didn't have a chance to do it with them. But on the plane I had a sketchbook with me and I penned in a story involving the "Nug of Nod". He was a odd looking character (from the Middle East) who kidnapped Polly Purebred and then challenged Underdog to a volleyball game with a whole bunch of robot players. I gave it to the kids, they loved it, but I didn't think much more about it. But years later, when I was working with GoldenBooks, I showed that story to them and they wanted to do it. So I sat down with a friend, worked out some narration, and I did the animation for it. And now it's on volume 3 of this new DVD set.

On casting Wally Cox to do the voice of Underdog:

I wanted to use Mort Marshall, who had done the voice of the Trix rabbit. [And would do the voice of Klondike Kat for Harris and co.]  And the characters are not that different. But when I heard Wally Cox, I thought, "this is the hand in the glove - it fits perfectly.

On why the character of Underdog has endured for so many years, and is being embraced now all over again:

I've thought about that a lot. It caught the ways of the Sixties. Introduced a character who was different, and appealed to children because he was a bumbler, more like kids than a lot of other animated characters. And the whole general theme was leveled at kids more than other stuff. We didn't want to do topical humor or too much nuance, or idiosyncratic remarks, and I think that's part of his enduring appeal. We invented a hell of a character.

On what kind of breed of dog Underdog is:

He's an animation dog. I didn't have anything in mind. People ask me that all the time, wondering if I'd seen Charles Schulz' comic strip because of some resemblance to his Snoopy, but it wasn't really in my mind at all. 

[As for Sweet Polly Purebred, he didn't have much in mind for her, either. While she's vaguely poodle-ish, the movie has her as a Cavalier King Charles Spaniel... which is probably not as specific as Harris had in mind.]

Who came up with Sweet Polly Purebred?

One of the writers came up with the name but I modeled her on Marilyn Monroe.

[Polly was voiced by Norma MacMillan, not Norma Jean. Even though the character was a female TV reporter, which sounds progressive, she somehow always ended up in bad trouble, the epitome of the damsel in distress.]

On today's computer animation vs. the old school animation:

I think CGI is incredible. You couldn't do a lot of the things you do today back then. You couldn't have Harry Potter. It's an advance that takes you into more reality. But what you lose is that spontaneity, that freshness, the kind of things that just come right out of your mind onto the page. CGI has to be more carefully planned and plotted. In the old days, when you were working on cells, working on paper, it went straight from your head to the paper. That's one of the things that's been missing. You look at the great animators, it was in their minds and it came right out so there was more individual expression.

On why he stopped doing cartoons after Go Go Gophers in 1969.

Animation is a difficult proposition, you have to have backing, you have to have a project. I submitted ideas for a number of animated shows. It's like saying you want to be a movie star, you have to go through a process, of approvals. And it's a different world today. Back then you could just say, hey, let's do a show! Now there are layers and layers and layers of people who have to approve something. So I went on to other things. Started a production company, did some documentaries and a lot of videos. Just went on to other things.

Harris concludes, "There's always been a groundswell for him, and people who want to root for the underdog, and it's delightful that he's back on DVD. I stopped doing the animation in 1969, thinking, that's it, I'll go on to do other things. But that dog has followed me for years, it's impossible to get rid of him."

BC Cartoonist and the old school era

Frankie Thomas has a spot-on essay about both the passing of a legendary cartoonist and the mostly stodgy state of newspaper comics over the years.

Mourning Johnny Hart and the Art of the Newspaper Comic

"I'm not singling out Johnny Hart here: the entire comics page was like the most inane time capsule in the world. There was Beetle Bailey and his relevant, topical antics (such as the constant sexual harrassment of Miss Buxley) at the World War II army base. There was lily-white Dennis the Menace and his Fordist family, living next door to Hi and Lois in a white-picket parallel universe. There were The Lockhorns, who taught me that the American man is a horny golf-playing alcoholic, that the American woman is a materialistic housewife who sucks at driving, and that their marriage is both miserable and inescapable. There was Cathy, who was fat, single, and bitter, though we never knew which caused which. We also had Garfield and Gasoline Alley and Hägar the Horrible and the fucking Family Circus...

"Perhaps I'm being unfair. We still have some edgy and innovative comic strips in print today, one or two of which aren't even direct rip-offs of Calvin and Hobbes. But the newspapers don't make it easy for cartoonists: if they're not cancelling the more creative strips in favor of time-tested blandness, they're shrinking and cramming two dozen comics onto one page until they're all completely illegible."

 

Meanwhile, at Wonder-Con...

My favorite moment while attending Wonder-Con, Comic-Con's San Francisco spin-off, this past weekend, was found while browsing past some of the promotional booths set up in the main room. I spotted a sharp-looking poster with the Star Trek badge on it, with the tag "2008". My curiosity piqued, I asked the poor young  'uns who were manning that table  what this was for. "New Star Trek film?" I asked. "Yep."

"Well, which Star Trek is it? Next Generation? Enterprise? A new cast?"
They shrugged. "I'm not sure."
"Who's in it?"
"Dunno. It's got a director, but no script."
"No script?"

Well, of course I already knew that JJ Abrams was producing Star Trek XI, and apparently co-writing the script, which means it could be cool. I just wanted more information.

But welcome to film production in the oughts - no script? No problem! As long as it's a known franchise and someone's attached to something, a lack of a script at the onset doesn't matter.

My other favorite moment at Wonder-Con was getting a Simpsons pencil animatic for only $10. Of course, there's probably millions of those out there, but still, an original drawing of Bart! Hard to pass up.

I also saw Patton Oswalt and Brad Bird chat about Ratatouille - which at least looks a lot more charming than Cars, the last Pixar effort -  and show some clips. They were both as entertaining to listen to as I'd expected and the movie looks like it'll be a winner, no surprise given Bird's previous films The Iron Giant and The Incredibles.

I also spent too much on other junk, including an old issue of Fat Freddy's Cat, a spin-off comic by Gilbert Shelton, from his Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers - a favorite of mine from childhood. My dad exposed me to hippie culture before I understood what a hippie was. I just dug Shelton's drawing style and the humor, a mix of crude and goofy. Was tempted, too, by an issue of Captain America from the sixties which had him quelling some campus unrest (I swear it looked like Captain America subbing for the National Guard at Kent State on the cover; very scary), but decided against it. Got a Scarlet Pumpernickel "action figure" from that classic WB cartoon - Sylvester in full swashbuckling gear - and a Gonzo action figure, replete with cannon, for my g/f.  Silliness reigns at Wonder-Con. It felt good to be a kid again.

On the Friz (Freleng).

What better way to ease back from vacation than to jump in (rather belatedly) to the running salute to one of my favorite animators - Friz Freleng - in honor of Freleng's 100th birthday. Instigated by Brian Darr on his blog, and already well-covered by a ton of other bloggers in lovely fashion, I won't write a ton here. But I wanted to zoom in on three of my favorite Freleng cartoons (there are many others):

Little Red Riding Rabbit (which Atlantic County Cartoons has kindly queued up for you to watch online). With excellent voice work not only by Mel Blanc but by Bea Benederet as the guileless, aggressively dorky Red Riding Hood (who comments, "That's an awfully big nose for you... TA HAVE!"), and Billy Bletcher hilarious as the gangsterish, desperate wolf (who at one point briefly channels Maurice Chevalier). This 'toon features some of Freleng's finer comic set pieces, including a prolonged gag which would make the Marx Brothers proud - in the basement involving doors, stairs and an  MC Escher-ish architecture. Another sequence I still reference long after having last seen the cartoon (although I just watched it again): Bugs, after a prolonged bit of angry mirror mimicry, getting the wolf to sing "Put on Your Old Grey Bonnet", complete with the wolf dancing (lifting his pants as if a skirt, to reveal his patchy jeans underneath), and, in the best part, after Riding Hood interrupts them, he shuts the door and then... continues the jig momentarily before realizing Bugs was gone!  Why, all the poor wolf really needed was to have some fun. Who needs a girl?  [Freleng's later Little Red Rodent Hood is also an enjoyable variation on the Red fable.]

Bugs Bunny Rides Again: I'm a big fan of most of Freleng's Yosemite Sam shorts (Freleng supposedly based the ornery little red head in part on himself), but I am most fond of this 1948 short in which Sam, in the Old West setting for which he was most perfectly suited (that and at sea on a galleon, in a few other very fine shorts), comes "a-lookin' for any livin' varmint whose aim is to try and tame me." He enters angry - shooting at a smart-mouthed skunk exiting a saloon - and stays that way throughout. Bugs "aims ta." The whole thing is incredibly inspired, but besides the series of hilarious gags and one-liners, pay particular attention to the sharply rendered characters and crisp, colorful backgrounds (by Paul Julian) - notice, too how animator Ken Champin finds his name painted in the background as a veterinarian.

But the short is just brimming with examples of Freleng's comic timing, including (he just loved this gag) the bit where Sam makes Bugs dance, and he does, in fine vaudeville fashion, before Bugs says, "Take it Sam!" and Sam does, with abandon - right down a mine shaft; and in the "I dare you to step over this line" gag that would probably be repeated many times after; and the size of Sam's horse; and the brick-walled tunnel gag that would also be used again but never with the timing shown here; and the conclusive card game - "Don't rush me!" says Sam, "I'm thinking...  And my head hurts!" he adds.  Not the most hilarious cartoon ever by any means, but nearly perfect. [Hare Trigger, in a  similar Bugs vs. Sam in the old West vein, and in which Bugs may or may not be  "rendered non-corpus mentus," is also pretty near-perfect.]

Slick Hare: In which Leopold and his Chifafa Five entertain Hollywood nightclubbers (who do a five second dance) and several stars make cameos, a few of them dated if still amusing (that Ray Milland joke sure doesn't mean much to my generation), but Humphrey Bogart in particular figures prominently in the story; he demands fried rabbit from beleaguered waiter Elmer Fudd, "twenty minutes to bring it... or else" (said menacingly, putting a machine gun on the table). Fudd vs. Bugs in the kitchen while Bogey waits - pure cartoon heaven. Bugs impersonates Groucho, runs into Sydney Greenstreet, stows away in Carmen Miranda's hat, dances the Samba (using a carrot in musical fashion). The pie gag is also one of the best pie gags ever, with Bogey bearing the brunt of it. And at the end, the sight of "Baby" - Lauren Bacall - makes Bugs change his mind, and ends the 'toon in style.

Other bloggers have already commented on Freleng's love of music in his shorts (which would even carry over to his later Pink Panther cartoons and the famous Henry Mancini score - those shorts were essentially dialogue free so the music often carried them), but two of my favorite of Freleng's many musical-themed toons deserve mention: Rhapsody Rabbit, in which Bugs tackles both an obnoxious mouse and Liszt's Second Hungarian Rhapsody; and the underrated Mouse Mazurka (no relation to Mike Mazurki), which finds Sylvester and a Slobovian mouse moving to the tune of Eastern European folk music.

Other Friz Faves:

Birds Anonymous: The Oscar-winning short starring Sylvester and a host of cats who have sworn off eating birds, go through a 12 step program ("Being on a bird kick cost me five homes. B.A. helped me solve my problem"), and so on, until Sylvester finally falls off the wagon. "I can't stand it! I gotta have a bird! I'm weak! I'm weak, but I don't care! I can't help it! After all, I am a pussycat!" Amen brother.
Southern Fried Rabbit: In which Bugs confronts Confederate officer Yosemite (or Alabama?) Sam.
Baseball Bugs: has already been written about extensively but suffice it to say it features some of the better gags about the national pastime, and is still referenced today by baseball players (several of whom have been heard to credit an opposing pitcher's filthy stuff as "throwing a Bugs Bunny curveball.")
Racketeer Rabbit: In which Bugs fends off both Peter Lorre and Edward G Robinson. The Lorre-like Hugo, on Bugs: "I like him. He makes me laugh." {laughs weakly.}

Mention, too, should certainly go to writers Mike Maltese and Tedd Pierce, who scripted many of Freleng's best. They were, frankly, two of the greatest writers for animation in film history.