Classic Cartoons #12 - King-Size Canary

Today's Classic Cartoon is a classic of one of the all-time great American animators, Fred "Tex" Avery. Avery, best known as the genius behind Daffy Duck and Bugs Bunny, also later developed Chilly Willy for the Walter Lantz studio. Some of Tex's best work, though, was for MGM's cartoon studio. At MGM, Avery created Droopy, as well as a stream of hilarious short films, including this one, King-Size Canary.

Cat and mouse, cat and bird, and cat and dog pairings are pretty common in animation, but this is something pretty special. The hilarious animation lends the short a sense of freedom that we rarely see in modern animation.

Avery's legacy is his zany, larger-than-life animation - animation we may be seeing a resurgence of, in CG; just look at Hotel Transylvania - and that animation is on full display in this critically acclaimed short from 1947.

Classic Cartoons #4 - Snow Place Like Home

Although there's no Bitesized Biography to accompany this week's Classic Cartoon (they take an awful long time to research and write, but it seemed foolish to only post Classic Cartoons with them, as there's so many great shorts to chose from for each animation legend), this one does directly correlate with our last Bitesized Biography, of Walter Lantz.

Last time I shared with you one of the finer outings for Walter Lantz's best known creation, Woody Woodpecker, in the short, The Screwball. However, as I mentioned, perhaps even above Woody in my heart is one of Walter Lantz's other creations, Chilly Willy. The lovable and mischievous penguin was a staple of my childhood and this short film from 1966 entitled, aptly, Snow Place Like Home, and directed by Paul J. Smith emanates from Walter Lantz Productions with an ironic warmth and remains one of Chilly's best outings.

Bitesized Biographies #3 - Walter Lantz

I never tried to make a cartoon for a certain age bracket. I just tried to make entertaining pictures. That's why they still play and why they play so well in foreign countries."
—Walter Lantz

After looking at perhaps two of the most famous and prolific figures in all of animation, Chuck Jones and Matt Groening, with our first two Bitesized Biographies; it seemed very apt and fitting - given A113Animation's new year's resolution to spotlight classic cartoons and pay homage to the geniuses behind them - that this latest Bitesized Biography is dedicated to one of the less famed animation pioneers, Walter Lantz.