A Bad Clampett Cartoon (gasp!)

Last night I was watching the Daffy Duck Superstars DVD again, mainly because I was curious to re-watch Tashlin's Nasty Quacks. That cartoon's pretty bizarre, but before I could get to that one, I was struck by the mediocrity of the first cartoon on the disc. Tick Tock Tuckered is a Bob Clampett short from smack in the middle of his 1942-46 peak. Clampett's earlier filmography has a lot of ups and downs, but that period was mostly great. This particular cartoon is really unsatisfying. It's not terrible... it's just really bland, which isn't usually something you can say about a Clampett cartoon.

It's disappointing that the print on the DVD is a Blue Ribbon re-issue, because I'm curious who received the story credit. There aren't really any new or unique ideas in the short. Normally, even a second-rate Clampett short like The Wise-Quacking Duck has some fresh gags, but not this one. Given how great many of his shorts are, it's not surprising that Clampett also made a few stinkers. Everybody gets burnt-out sometimes. But it's striking how different this is from most of his shorts.

The fact that it's a remake of his first cartoon, "Porky's Badtime Story" probably means that he and his story men didn't have any good ideas but were forced to crank out something to fill the shorts-per-year quota. Clampett had a well-documented history of reuse, and indeed the cartoon he made right before this one, What's Cookin' Doc, is basically just a wraparound for a clip from an early Bugs cartoon. But at least WCD feels like a Clampett cartoon, during the parts that ARE a Clampett cartoon. Tick Tock Tuckered almost feels like a Lantz cartoon, and not a particularly good one. There's none of Clampett's usual energy, invention or great animation.

The animation, normally the highlight of a Clampett cartoon, is unusually sloppy, stiff and awkward (perhaps I'm being just a tiny bit unfair by comparing it to some of the greatest animation ever made... It's still way better than I could ever do). The only scene that stands out to me is Daffy shooting out the sun, which looks like Scribner's work. The rest is pretty unmemorable.

Here's a Youtube video of the short:


Clampett's trademark weird cuts are on full display -- he breaks the 180-degree rule when Porky is at the window, and there's a jump cut, which almost seems like a camera error, after the lightning strikes Daffy's umbrella.

Even the music seems like it's on autopilot. Most of the time it doesn't really follow the action on-screen, nor does the mood even seem appropriate.

I'm a HUGE fan of Bob Clampett, and I'm not trying to trash him at all with this post, but I think it's comforting to know that even one of the best directors in the history of the medium wasn't completely infallible, even during his prime.

The Greatest Video Ever

This is the funniest video I have ever seen in my life. I first saw it a while ago, but it had since been taken down. I just found out there's another copy of it still on Youtube.

THE HANGOVER PART II IS SO BAD

The Hangover Part II is awful. I haven't even seen the original, but I've heard enough about it to know that the sequel completely rehashes the same plot, but lacks whatever made it the hit that it was. There are maybe two jokes in the first twenty minutes that aren't actually just direct references to the events of the first movie, as if the filmmakers are hoping for cheap "recognition laughs" (the same problem Family Guy has had since Season 4). After that, it seems to become a beat-for-beat recreation of the events of the first film, only bigger and louder. Basically, this is the dumb frat-boy movie that the first one seemed like it would be, given the plot (and maybe the original was just as stupid, but if it was, it really doesn't deserve all the attention it got).

The whole thing feels incredibly rushed, and relies on every cheap, lowest-common-denominator comedy cliche imaginable. Among them are a monkey enaging in naughty human behaviour (a he chain-smokes and deals cocaine! HAHAHA), a car chase where everybody's screaming the whole time (they're smashing stuff! HAHAHA), sexual deviancy (a chick with a dick! HAHAHA), and that most common comedy crutch-- constant reiteration of earlier scenes, as if reminding the audience what's happening is somehow funny. I'm not talking about running gags, I'm talking about literally recapping what just happened, every few minutes.

On the acting side, Zach Galifianakis and Ed Helms give fine performances, but they can't overcome the terrible script. And it goes without saying that Bradley Cooper is the most annoying actor ever. I'm still trying to block "Limitless" out of my brain, although to be fair everything about that movie was annoying.

In other news... Well, I don't have much to report. I'm coming up with lots of ideas for more Fester Fish cartoons, but I haven't yet found one that I like enough that I'd want to dedicate the next six months of my life to it.