tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6956070.post1180982276058264696..comments2023-11-03T11:37:13.579-04:00Comments on Something Old, Nothing New: For Those Who Thought "One Froggy Evening" Was Too UpbeatJaime J. Weinmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15128500411119962998noreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6956070.post-16114446582683543432009-10-23T09:42:04.384-04:002009-10-23T09:42:04.384-04:00Besides, most of the Spector shorts we're talk...Besides, most of the Spector shorts we're talking about <i>were</i> Noveltoons anyway... (regardless of what the Harveytoon show versions say)Thadhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04443425643665474645noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6956070.post-18261636035632388732009-10-23T01:17:10.962-04:002009-10-23T01:17:10.962-04:00The whole series seems like a psychological attemp...<i>The whole series seems like a psychological attempt to cleanse themselves of Casper.</i><br /><br />Maybe.<br /><br />I think it got to where they needed to differentiate their more optimistic Noveltoons from their darker ones, as we saw with Chew Chew Baby. However, Modern Madcaps was formed around the same time they discontinued most of the regular Noveltoon subseries, and both main series would spend the rest of their runs searching for new cartoon stars.Yeldarb86https://www.blogger.com/profile/10131603833394294520noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6956070.post-55667447971675712652009-10-22T23:35:01.314-04:002009-10-22T23:35:01.314-04:00"L'amour the Merrier" kind of qualif..."L'amour the Merrier" kind of qualifies, if you include the one-shot Noveltoons, since M. Renoir does end up with the beautiful princess (instead of with a living room full of garbage and a shrew for a wife, as in Irv Spector's follow-up two years later. Which I still love, BTW). Also the "Abner the Baseball" two-reeler from 1961 was pretty upbeat, unless a Hall of Fame baseball with a Mickey Mantle bat bruise is a downer for a closing gag.<br /><br />Most of the one-shot Paramount cartoons from about 1954 on definitely go out of their way to be more adult than the studio's continuing series, and in the same way the Fleischer cartoons of the 30s looked darker than what was going on out west, the one shots plots of the 1955-65 period have a much darker, cynical New York City attitude than the similar cartoons from the west coast with adult themes, especially with Spector and/or Eddie Lawrence writing (and since, by 1957, the animation budgets had been cut so far back by Paramount, the cartoons rise and fall on story alone, so there's no way to put the nice polish on them that somewhat softens the message, the way Chuck Jones could with his more downbeat stories).J Leenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6956070.post-17305285064572342862009-10-22T23:04:58.063-04:002009-10-22T23:04:58.063-04:00Do any of the Modern Madcaps end with an upbeat en...Do any of the Modern Madcaps end with an upbeat ending? Any of them?<br /><br />The whole series seems like a psychological attempt to cleanse themselves of Casper.<br /><br /><a href="http://yowpyowp.blogspot.com" rel="nofollow">Yowp</a>Yowphttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09264605351878574044noreply@blogger.com