So the idea, started by the Pussy Goes Grrr blog, is to pick a number of animated shorts that you like that can all be viewed in under one hour. This is going to be hard as hell.
To make this very slightly easier for myself I will focus only on Warner Bros. animation since (a) I haven't had much opportunity to share my adoration for Looney Tunes and (b) my foggy memory has a better grasp on my favorite favorite Looney Tunes cartoons. Anyway, the math will be much easier to do since each Looney Tune is about seven minutes and my Gold Collection discs are right here on my desk.
I am just going to list (and hopefully find links for) the first excellent animated Warner Bros. shorts that come to my mind. Please don't read too much into this list and PLEASE don't fill the comments section with, "But what about...?" Those will only make me feel horrible for forgetting/not having room for a favorite. So without further stalling...
"Duck Amuck" (1953, Chuck Jones) - This might be my absolute favorite cartoon of all time if I am forced to pick one. I only wish I could have been in the theater audience the day it premiered. See, nestled in a compilation on Saturday morning, this short was hilarious but also kind of mind blowing. By then I was already used to characters breaking the fourth wall and even engaging in meta-commentary about the nature of their being animated. God knows what people in the early '50s thought of it.
"Feed the Kitty" (1952, Chuck Jones) - Sometimes straight-up adorable is just as good as mind-bending. Anyone who watches this and does not go "Awww" even once has problems.
"What's Opera, Doc?" (1957, Chuck Jones) - You cried when Bambi's mother died? Ffft!
"Waikiki Wabbit" (1943, Chuck Jones) - My favorite among the more stylized Chuck Jones shorts, and nearly all of them ("Dover Boys", "Hair-Raising Hare", "Haredevil Hare", "Super Wabbit") are awesome. The backgrounds are just so pretty!
"The Great Piggy Bank Robbery" (1946, Bob Clampett) - This is getting a little Jones-heavy isn't it? So let's have a few adrenalin shots to the heart care of Bob Clampett. I'd be in a happier place if more comic-to-film adaptations were like this.
"Baby Bottleneck" (1946, Bob Clampett) - Clampett Daffy is the best Daffy. The animation in this short is just straight-up screamingly funny, plus the baby characters are adorable.
"The Heckling Hare" (1941, Tex Avery) - In the last, like, minute and a half we get a genuinely cute and moving moment and then... you can't not love that finale. Avery thought Different.
"A Wild Hare" (1940, Tex Avery) - And sometimes you have to go for the obvious. There had been cartoons with clever rabbits and hunters getting way in over their heads thanks to aforementioned clever rabbits before. But this is where the legend really began, if we want to get all highfalutin' about it. And let's leave that for the Disney animation.
More Animation Marathons
* - The Chronological Disney Animated Canon
* - Don Bluth Month
* - Dreamworks' "Tradigitals"
* - The Short Animation Blogathon
* - My Summer of Sequels
* - Random 90's Animation
* - The Princess Project
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Sketch of the Day!
The Internet needs another drawing of Yutyrannus, doesn't it? Keepin' that beard meme alive.
