Suffering Succotash
My first recollection when I thought of this title was Snagglepuss, the pink, high-falutin, well-dressed cat who thinks of himself as a great thespian (Thay that with a listhp). But Snagglepuss was the cartoon character who most often said, “Heavens to Murgatroyd!”, with a slight Bronx accent. And who can forget his stage-craft with the phrase I find I use all the time, “Exit, stage left!” But Snagglepuss had no appetite for lima beans and corn. The guy who suffered the succotash was Tweety Bird’s “Puddy-tat”, Sylvester J. Pussycat Sr. (Sylvester Jr. didn’t suffer succotash, but he did have to suffer the indignity of his father’s embarrassing failure with regard to Tweety or a large kangaroo-looking mouse).
Sylvester was a sympathetic character to most of us. He tried hard to succeed, whether on his own or to impress his boy. I’m not sure what Looney Tunes, Merry Melodies, Disney, Hanna-Barbera and Warner Brothers had about male bonding, but it was quite prevalent. My favorites besides the Pussycats were Foghorn Leghorn with Nephew Egbert or the little Henery the Chicken Hawk. “I say, I say…..boy, you need to go after that dog…”
Those were the Golden Age of Animation, as they were called in the biz. I like to think they don’t make them like that any more. The shear creativity of the whole Bugs Bunny Show and, the The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle and Friends could occupy my mind for days. You can hear it now:
Overture, curtains, lights,
This is it, the night of nights
No more rehearsing and nursing a part
We know every part by heart
Overture, curtains, lights
This is it, you’ll hit the heights
And oh what heights we’ll hit
On with the show this is it
Or maybe it’s that musical riff and serious-sounding narration about Rocket J. Squirrel and his pal the moose. Boris and Natasha serving their Fearless Leader. Dudley Do-Right and sweet Nell on the railroad tracks. Mr. Peabody and Sherman telling their Fractured Fairy Tales from the Way-Way-Back Machine with the little guy sweeping up after the elephant. Anyone in my age group is already smiling, I can tell.
I was visiting with my granddaughters, who are six and three. They are both Paw Patrol addicts. Now I tried to watch a little Paw Patrol, but it felt too much like Johnny Quest to me and I never found the cartoon dramas as interesting as the creative humor variety. I read somewhere that Paw Patrol is now a $6 billion entertainment and merchandising juggernaut that shows no sign of cooling off. You have to respect that from a business perspective if not a creative one. I remember the story of Steve Ross of Time Warner fame, who sought board approval to break new media ground by buying the merchandising rights for E.T. from Spielberg. The board approved up to $5 million. When Ross proudly returned with a signed $23 million deal, the board and the world thought Ross had lost his mind. Time Warner went on to make $100 million even though the Atari E.T. game was a horrendous flop. That set the stage for future merchandising successes like Star Wars and others.
I shouldn’t let nostalgia for the great cartoons of the Golden Age allow me to ignore that huge animation success, Pixar, and its Toy Story et. al. franchises. These are mostly fantastic feature-length films (twenty-one of them so far) with a wide variety of themes (from WALL-E to Cars to Moana) and the same high-quality visuals and books. The thing I admire about Pixar is that it seems to recognize that kids don’t go to see feature-length movies by themselves. And they get it that mom or dad have to not hate sitting through the movie. So, Pixar makes sure that while they are getting junior to laugh his little hinnie off, they need to toss in some quick and non-offensive gags for the parents. I recognized this during the first Toy Story when I heard the dinosaur explain that while it said “Made in China” on his foot, he was really from a small leveraged buyout shop in Pasadena. That practically knocked me off my banking seat and I know my kids paid no attention to it. Pixar had just given dads all over a good and unexpected chuckle that I have never forgotten. And none of it detracted from the kid-value of the cartoon story.
I imagine we all prefer our own growing-up music, movies and cartoons. These things are seared into our young souls and we will probably always remember them more fondly than whatever is favored by today’s kids. It’s not good or bad, it’s familiar. Say Mr. Magoo to people of my age and we all smile about a legally blind guy who kept avoiding running into stuff by sheer luck. We will all laugh about making fun of speech defects and Elmer Fudd will always say, “Shhh. Be vewy vewy quiet, I’m hunting wabbits”. Well, Suffering Succotash and Heavens to Murgatroid, kids will be kids and we were all politically incorrect kids of the 50’s. Quick-draw-McGraw surely offends Mexicans and well, Pepe La Pew is just an ethno-misogynistic foul-smelling animal to anyone who can stop laughing. I’m sure Buzz Lightyear will find that infinity and beyond will offend someone in 2035 and Woody will prove to have been less than fully respectful of Little Bo Peep with her frilly bloomers on display. Such is the way of the animation world. Just ask Betty Boop.
Cartoons are a staple in childhood. They most certainly have changed greatly though.
I would say Pixar without Disney would not be as good. Disney has terrific storytellers and Pixar brings them to an amazing level of imagery. As to which or both bring in the asides, they definitely are clever and directed at us adults. In ‘Wreck It Ralph 2, Ralph Wrecks The Internet’ they go so far as to put a Stan Lee character in a crowd scene for a few seconds. Not to mention the ‘out-takes’ while the credits roll.
However, the cartoons we grew up with were also very violent. Tom and Jerry, the Road Runner, etc. are examples. Luckily, TNT and anvils were not readily available to us or we may have seen them viable options.
In a book I read, one character is watching cartoons when he says to his friend ‘wouldn’t it be great if you could just order something and Acme would deliver it pronto’. The other character quickly says that that was the business model Amazon was inspired by. Hmmmmm
I still say Heavens to Murgatroid (Murgatroyd?). Never spelled it before, however, or even saw it written. Thanks for that. Let’s not forget the Road Runner, by the way. “Beep, beep!” My personal hero as my older brother acted the Coyote until I lost it at 17-years old.