The Great Oscar Baiter

A few days ago, I wrote a post on  Canary Row , the last Oscar-nominated Sylvester and Tweety short we had to cover. However, it turns out that’s not quite the whole story. While it is true that Canary Row received an Oscar nomination for Best Animated Short, what I did not know at the time was that the short’s producer, Edward Selzer, withdrew it from consideration. This certainly raises a lot of questions, of which I'd like to get to the bottom. (via IMDb) For starters, I want to make it clear that the film's nomination being revoked would have had no effect on whether or not I'd cover Canary Row in our Year in Shorts whether or not I had known about it. The stated futile goal of The Great Oscar Baiter is to see every film ever nominated for an Oscar, even if that nomination didn't stick. That means one day Song of the Week will cover "Alone Yet Not Alone", and we would have covered Canary Row either way. So my annoyance for my gaffe comes not from subjec...

Some may say that I’ve been too harsh on Tweety Bird over the past year. And those people would be dead wrong. I have, if anything, gone far too easy on the yellow bastard, trying to look past my deep hatred for him in order to find what good there was in his various shorts. Hell, the last time we talked about a Tweety short I was downright mildly positive! It took a long shower to get the stink of that off me, I can tell you that much. At any rate, Canary Row marks my last opportunity to dunk on him, so buckle up folks, things might get emotional. Hey, anger and hatred are still emotions! (via Wikipedia) Friz Freleng's Canary Row is, if nothing else, a fairly important short in the history of Tweety and Sylvester, as it marks the first time Granny appeared in a short with the pair. In fact, Canary Row is generally considered her first "official" appearance; granny characters had appeared in shorts since the thirties, but it wasn't until this 1950 short that she b...

When we think of Chuck Jones, we think of his comic genius or the artistic leaps forward he took in the field of animation. Rarely do we ever think of him as an educator or advocate for important social policies. We certainly don’t think of him as the type of guy who'd be working for the United States government. (Well, aside from that time Bugs Bunny told people to buy war bonds, but I guess that was a special case). And yet, in 1949 he was all those things, with his Oscar-winning short documentary, So Much for So Little. (via Wikipedia) Co-written by fellow Looney Tunes regular Friz Freleng, So Much for So Little was commissioned by the United States Public Health Service during the Truman Administration to educate the public on the need for a strong Department of Health. It does so by following the hypothetical life of John E. Jones from birth to adulthood, showing the various health problems he might face and services he might need as he grows up. That might sound like a part...

It’s been nearly one month since we last talked about a Tom and Jerry short, which just feels wrong to me. Although I suppose it’s not surprising; with thirteen nominations in the series, it’d only make sense if we only covered one a month. It doesn’t quite work out that way thanks to me frontloading our Year in Shorts, but that’s neither here nor there! So let’s quit stalling and dive into our next film, Hatch Up Your Troubles. (via IMDb) Released in 1949, Hatch Up Your Troubles doesn't deviate too far from your typical Tom and Jerry formula. A woodpecker egg falls from its nest and winds up hatching in Jerry's mousehole, causing the baby to imprint on Jerry. Boy, Jerry winds up in charge of a lot of cute baby animals, doesn't he? Nibbles, Quacker, now this? I suppose Hanna and Barbera knew that Jerry was too much of a dick, so they had to give him some softer edges. Well, it doesn't take too long for Jerry to get tired of living with a baby woodpecker (the little guy...

If there’s one icon of early American cinema who has been unjustly forgotten by the vagaries of time, it’s Joe McDoakes. Who is Joe McDoakes you ask? You might as well ask who is America itself. Joe McDoakes is you. Joe McDoakes is me. Joe McDoakes is all of us. In a series of 63 short films written and directed by Richard L. Bare (three of which received Oscar nominations, and only one of which I’ve actually seen), Joe McDoakes went through the same trials and tribulations that the average member of his audience might encounter. Just, perhaps, a bit more ridiculously than most people would encounter them. It’s still Hollywood after all. Still, let us celebrate this unsung hero by looking at his 1949 misadventure So You Think You’re Not Guilty. (via TV Tropes) As far as I can tell, the Joe McDoakes films follow the Joe (played by future Jetsons star George O'Hanlon) as he gets into all sorts of comical mishaps. In this short, Joe runs afoul of a faulty traffic light and gets erron...

If there are two names that should be familiar to regular readers of The Great Oscar Baiter, it’s UPA and John Hubley. Hell, the last time we talked about a John Hubley short, it was one he made for UPA. As we’ve seen in our Year in Shorts, both UPA and John Hubley’s work can be defined by their unique styles and bizarre sense of humor. But they weren’t always that way. It took a while for UPA to find its identity, and for Hubley to find his own voice as an artist. For some time the studio was more or less following the trends set by other animation studios at the time. Today’s short, The Magic Fluke, perfectly demonstrates that. (via TV Tropes) The Magic Fluke is an entry in the "Fox and Crow" series of shorts, which seem to have more or less fallen into obscurity. By 1949, fledgling studio UPA had signed a deal with Columbia Pictures to produce a few Fox and Crow cartoons for them, earning themselves an Oscar nomination for Robin Hoodlum the year before. The Magic Flu...

Content Warning: Today's post contains discussions of sexual harassment and suicidal imagery. Regular readers of The Great Oscar Baiter will remember that of all the Looney Tunes out there, I hold a special place in my heart for Tweety Bird. That special place is called “loathing.” Still, while Tweety may be my personal least favorite Looney Tune, I know there’s at least one that has earned a more or less equal amount of ire from people, and it’s hard to blame them. After all, Tweety might be insufferably cute, but at least he’s not a sex pest. The same can not be said for Pepe Le Pew, star of today’s short, Chuck Jones’ For Scent-imental Reasons. (via Wikipedia) Although Pepe had made some early appearances, this 1949 short pretty much cemented him as the skunk we all know and grudgingly tolerate during Saturday morning cartoon blocks as we wait for something with Bugs or Daffy to come on. After an absurd amount of setup, For Scent-imental Reasons follows the typical Pepe formul...

By 1949, Disney had Chip and Dale more or less figured out. Dale is the one with the red nose. Dale is the dumb one. Chip and Dale should not feed on human flesh. (Not saying they ever did that last one, but by 1949 it was pretty clear that they never would). But most importantly, Disney had found an antagonist worthy of the chipmunks- Donald Duck. (via IMDb) Is Donald Duck the greatest Disney character? Quite possibly. I'd say he's at the very least the funniest, a barely contained bottle of rage just waiting to explode in new and exciting ways. In fact, as far as classic animated characters go, he's right at the top of the list, just below Daffy. Ducks are just funny. Need proof- check out Jack Hannah's Toy Tinkers. It's a pretty simple short, much in the same vein as a lot of others we've covered on here. Chip and Dale want something of Donald's (in this case, walnuts), Donald doesn't want them to have it, madness ensues. It's not much different ...