Wednesday, January 6, 2016

SYMPHONY IN SLANG - Tex Avery, Fred Quimby, Scott Bradley (1951)

Well, it's raining cats and dogs outside, so it's a perfect time to examine some of the strange expressions in the English language that we all take for granted!
Some are so strange, they're not even used anymore! That's why this cartoon is called "Symphony In Slang!"

"Symphony In Slang" is all about words and phrases that don't adhere to the conventional definitions commonly attached to them! Today, a perfect example would be the word fuck! How often is it actually used in every day language to describe fornication? Not very often!

Here's something I don't do often enough, and that's to give a big shout out to the animators, Walter Clinton, Michael Lah, Grant Simmons, and Tom Oreb, cause isn't this beautiful?

Open up them pearly gates!
Just for the record, in 1932, there was an Australian documentary made called "Symphony Of Steel" that is lost forever, and is on The Australian National Film and Sound Archive's most wanted list! In 1948, there was a cartoon made starring guess who called "Symphony In Spinach," and in 1949 there was short film featuring the Duke Ellington Orchestra called "Symphony In Swing!

 So this hep cat dies and goes to heaven, and he's trying to explain to St. Peter why he's there, but St. Peter can't understand anything that he's talking about, and refers him to Noah Webster who is equally puzzled by this stranger's vocabulary! From there it turns into a series of gags and ludicrous imagery Tex Avery style!

 To start with, he was born with a silver spoon in his mouth!

 He had a job, but wasn't able to cut the mustard!

 He met a girl and she gave him the goose bumps!

 He was all thumbs!

 She wore a dress that fit like a glove!

 And she had her hair in a bun!

 She finally gave him a date!

 They went out for cocktails!

 He found himself in a pickle when he wrote a check that bounced!

 The Proprietor drew a gun on him!

He ran off into the foothills!

In prison he found himself up against it!

His buddies were just hanging around!

The girl of his dreams had a hot date with an old flame!
There's a little more to the story, but you get the general idea!
Funny stuff, Tex!

5 comments:

Grant said...

I haven't seen this one in quite a while.
There's a similar one, maybe made by the same team, about a housewife explaining to her husband why dinner isn't ready or something like that. Her story is about all the obstacles she ran into that day, and also involves all kinds of slang given literal meanings, just like this cartoon. I think it ends with her knocking him down (!) for asking about dinner after everything she's been through. Something like that.
I've always wondered the title of that one, and when cartoons have one-time characters, it's hard to identify them even on IMDB. Does it sound familiar at all?

Eegah!! said...

Right off the top of my head I'm drawing a blank (Can You Picture that?) Grant, but I'll keep an eye open for it!!

Anonymous said...

I bet Grant's film is Wild Wife, a Warner cartoon directed by Robert McKimson.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0047678/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1

Eegah!! said...

Good job Anonymous! I love it! We've got our own free lance research team!

Grant said...

Thank you both! I'll try to find it on YouTube.

Monster Music

Monster Music
AAARRGGHHH!!!! Ya'll Come On Back Now, Y'Hear??