Cool Cat (1967)

It is no secret how Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies cartoons are all time classics. They are some of the funniest, smartest, energetic and all around best cartoons (or even films of any kind) ever made. The characters, the humor, the quotes and the stories have all affected our lives and definitely our culture. That  is why it is so surprising how many Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies cartoons and characters  have been forgotten or overlooked by the majority of people.

Probably one of the most overlooked Looney Tunes characters is Cool Cat. I am not going to say Cool Cat is as amazing of a character as Daffy Duck, Bugs Bunny or Porky Pig, because he isn't, and his weaker cartoons really pale in compression to the ones made during the golden age of Looney Tunes. However his best cartoons are quite good and really deserve another look by Looney Tunes fans.

The original Warner Brothers animation studio closed in 1963. After 33 years of making Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies cartoons for movie theaters, it look as if these characters would never see a theater screen again (though like many short films made for theaters, they were enjoying success on TV at this time). However the very next year Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies were revived by the DePaite-Freling studio (who were making Pink Panther cartoons at this time). The Freling of Depatie-Freling was Friz Freling, who had worked for the Warner Brother animation studio since the beginning first as an animator and then as a director. Most of DePatie-Frelings Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies centered around the characters Daffy Duck, Speedy Gonzales, The Roadrunner, and Wile E. Coyote. Shockingly Bugs Bunny never appeared in any of these new shorts. The budgets for these cartoons were severely cut and limited animation is used rather than the full animation that was used earlier during the golden age of Looney Tunes. These cartoons were very successful and in 1967 Jack Warner decided to have his own animation department take over Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies again. Bill Hendricks (who had directed some live action documentary shorts for Warners Brothers) would become the new producer of the two series. Since the cartoons would still be made for the same low budget DePatie-Freling cartoons had been, it also seemed natural to hire some one from Hanna-Barbera to take over the job of directing cartoons. This job went to Alex Lovy, who was the current story director for Hanna-Barbera's TV shows.

Alex Lovy would direct more Daffy Duck and Speedy Gonzales cartoons, but he was also hired to create some new characters. His characters would include Merlin the Magic Mouse (a mouse who had real magic powers and sounded a lot like W.C. Fields), his sidekick Second Banana, Cool Cat (a hip beatnik Tiger perfectly in tune with the 1960's) and Colonel Rimfire (who would always hunt Cool Cat). Merlin the Magic Mouse and Second Banana would be voiced by Daws Butler while Cool Cat and Colonel Rimfire were voiced by Larry Storch.

My favorite Cool Cat cartoon was his first simply titled Cool Cat. In this film Colonel Rimfire, traveling in his a mechanical elephant named Ellie, "Tawt he taw a puttytat" (a tiger type puttytat) and goes hunting for Cool Cat. Colonel Rimfire loses Ellie and Cool Cat thinks she is a poor elephant in need of help, so Cool Cat tries to tech Ellie how to live in the wild. Everything Cool Cat does to help Ellie however ends up saving himself from Colonel Rimfire.

The animators on this film are Ted Bonnicken, Laverne Harding, Volus Jones and Ed Solomon. Of these animators Ted Bonnicken was the only one to work for Warner Brothers before the studio originally closed in 1963, as he was animator for Robert McKimsons unit in the 1950's and 90's.

Cool Cat remains a very entertaing cartoon, the humor is quite good, for how limited the animation is the cartoon is still quite pleasant to look at, the voice acting is excellent, the story is a lot of fun, and the new characters are quite good. This is definitely a cartoon Looney Tunes fans should check out.

So bye for now and remember, stay cool you hear.

-Michael J. Ruhland

Resources Used
Of Mice and Magic: A History of American Animated Cartoons by Leonard Maltin

It's Love I'm After (1937)

It is incredible that It's Love I'm After is not better known. Not only is it a great movie but it has a big name cast including Bette Davis (My favorite actress), Leslie Howard and Olivia de Havilland. The film is directed Archie Mayo who the year earlier had directed Bette Davis and Leslie Howard in The Petrified Forest (which is very well rembered by film buffs for being the film that made Humphery Bogart a star). That movie however was a serious drama, while It's Love I'm After is a screwball comedy. This was brought about because Leslie Howard despite only getting serious movie roles wanted to play a more comedic part and although producer Hal Wallis was worried about this, he eventually reluctantly gave Leslie Howard a comedic role (which was this film).

Finding a leading lady proved somewhat difficult. Leslie Howard wanted a talented comic stage actress. The first two considered for the role were Gertrude Lawrence and Ina Claire. Gertrude Lawrence even meet with Archie Mayo to discuss the film. Archie Mayo was happy with her though Hal Wallis wasn't. After seeing her in the film Men Are Not Gods, Leslie Howard came to the conclusion that her greatness on the stage did not transfer over to film. Many other actresses were tried out, until Hal Wallis came up with the idea of casting Bette Davis. Bette was originally very reluctant to take the role. She had been working a lot lately and wanted a vacation. She also felt that Olivia de Havilland had a better role than she would have. To convince Bette Davis to be in the film Hal Wallis, told her the change of pace would be good for her career (she had been doing mostly dramatic pictures lately) and he replaced the originally planned cinematographer, James Van Trees, with Tony Gaudio, one of Bette's favorite cinematographers.

This movie centers around Shakespearean actor Basil Underwood (played by Leslie Howard). Basil and his co-star Joyce Arden (played by Bette Davis) are in love with each other, but can't stop bickering. After much fighting the two finally diced to put it behind them and get married as soon as possible. However Harry Grant Jr. (played by Patrick Knowles), the son of a man who helped Basil out when he was down on his luck, comes get revenge on Basil. Harry's finance, Marcia West (played by Oliva de Havilland) has seen Basil perform in plays and has fallen for him. Basil and Harry come to the conclusion that Basil could visit her families house and act like such a jerk that Marcia would begin to hate him. He views this as a way to renew himself before getting married. However Joyce does not see it this way and is upset about their wedding plans being delayed. On top of that everything Basil does just seems to make Marcia fall more in love with him.

This is an absolutely hilarious film, full of laugh out loud moments. This is due both to a great script by Casey Robinson (based off a play by Maurice Hanline) and amazing on screen chemistry between the cast. In fact just everything in this movie works great. Despite this film not being well known this is one of the classic screwball comedies of the 1930's.

-Michael J. Ruhland

Resources Used
http://www.tcm.com/tcmdb/title/1791/It-s-Love-I-m-After/articles.html