Warner Archive Collection Announces “Tex Avery Screwball Classics” on Blu-Ray
This has been a long time coming and well worth the wait.
Told at the start of his career as an animation director at Leon Schlesinger’s LOONEY TUNES/MERRIE MELODIES Studio to make his pictures as much like Walt Disney as possible Tex Avery said to himself, “The only people the public wants to see make pictures like Walt are Disney or Lantz.”
His rule became to ask himself, “What would Disney do?” Then Tex headed as far as he could in the opposite direction.
Leon Schlesinger, his producer, said, “Let Walt Disney make chicken salad and win prizes. I’ll make chicken shit and make money.”
Leon also said, “I don’t want quality and I don’t want it in the worst way.”
Realizing he did not have the budgets for Disney calibre animation Avery focused on making that work for him. He designed his films with an acumen birthed by having grown up watching the masters of silent screen comedy. Tex went for laughs. And, boy, he got them.
Avery did the films at Leon’s studio in which the characters of Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Porky Pig and Elmer Fudd were either introduced or perfected.
As a reward Avery got fired.
After a brief stint at Paramount where he created an Academy Award winning series called “SPEAKING OF ANIMALS” Avery arrived at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer where he was told by his producer Fred Quimby, “Son, we don’t want any of your Warner Brothers’ rowdiness in our MGM cartoons.
Old Fred was probably the unfunniest and least astute man to work in the animation business. When Hanna and Barbera came up with TOM AND JERRY Fred said, “Boys, there’s nothing funny about a cat chasing a mouse. Don’t make any more of those.”
Then Fred got a letter from a woman he liked who had her own theatre asking for more cat and mouse cartoons. More were made. Academy Awards were won.
Tex decided to leave. As it would not be cool to quit Avery designed a series of the rowdiest cartoons made anywhere, each more rowdy than the last.
Instead he wound up with a fifteen year contract.
When asked how to succeed in life Avery would say, “Do your best to get fired. It works every time.”
Not having Avery’s MGM Cartoons available is like not having the work of Rembrandt available.
It takes time however to do things right. The right timehas come for Tex Avery.
–Reg Hartt
« The Rites of Manhood Reg Hartt, a Minto, Chipman New Brunswick native son, former TELEGRAPH JOURNAL delivery boy, is ranked among the fifty greatest male orators of all time. »