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Transcription
00:00Hi, this is Eric Goldberg and it's my pleasure to provide audio commentary for a great Tom
00:09& Jerry Academy Award winner, The Cat Concerto.
00:12Now, this is a terrific cartoon.
00:15It's animated beautifully to the music by Ken Mewes, Ed Barge and Irv Spence, as you
00:20can see.
00:21The only one of the famous Tom & Jerry unit not represented here is Ray Patterson.
00:25I don't know what he was doing at the time.
00:28In any case, you'll see Tom walking in and he is animated by Ken Mewes.
00:34And most of his very, very skilled piano playing is animated by Ken Mewes.
00:40This very kind of studious body movements, shoulder rolls, things like that.
00:45The hand movements.
00:47This is all Kenneth Mewes.
00:54Now this cartoon is interesting for a variety of reasons, not the least of which is because
00:59it was the center of a controversy.
01:02Those cartoon geeks out there who know what I'm aiming at will know I'm talking about
01:06the Warner Brothers cartoon, Rhapsody Rabbit, directed by Frizz Freeling.
01:11Well, here's what happened.
01:13Both cartoons were being made simultaneously and they sent the film to the labs and the
01:20film lab switched the reels.
01:23They sent Freeling's Rhapsody Rabbit over to MGM instead of the reels for Cat Concerto.
01:31So Hannah and Barbera apparently took a look at them, you know, out of professional curiosity.
01:37The story goes that then they raced ahead to finish Cat Concerto before and when time
01:44came to actually have films in consideration for the Academy, first they ran Cat Concerto
01:53because alphabetically it came first and then they ran Rhapsody Rabbit, which is almost
01:58exactly the same in terms of Bugs Bunny playing the piano to the same piece of music and he's
02:03being tortured by a mouse.
02:05In any case, it looked like Frizz Freeling ripped off Hannah and Barbera, so of course
02:12his film wasn't even considered and Cat Concerto went ahead and won the Academy Award that
02:17year.
02:18The lawsuits were heated, the accusations were even more heated, Freeling contended
02:24that, you know, Hannah and Barbera copped a look at his and, you know, incorporated
02:29into theirs and Hannah and Barbera claimed that Freeling must have seen or known about
02:35work that they were doing on their cartoon before he started on Rhapsody Rabbit.
02:39In any case, they are both excellent cartoons, handled very, very differently in terms of
02:45the music and the gags to the music.
02:48One thing you'll note is that Tom's piano playing is very realistic, it's not a
03:18You can actually believe it and his gestures are all very, very natural.
03:23Bugs Bunny's, by comparison, are much more stylized to the point where he'll actually,
03:29you know, jump on top of the keys, you know, but enough about Rhapsody Rabbit.
03:36Nice flattened fingers.
03:47What would a Tom and Jerry cartoon be without violence?
03:50Now these scenes are animated by Ed Barge.
03:53You can tell because Ed kind of drew slightly larger eyes and a rounder head on Jerry.
03:59He was very, very good at volume.
04:02His stuff always felt very three-dimensional.
04:04And we are going to switch to Irv Spence here.
04:19Irv Spence and Irv, of course, was the most cartoony of the Tom and Jerry animators.
04:26His expressions were always more pushed.
04:31His actions slicker and much more exaggerated than the other guys.
04:37Like this one.
04:45Just wouldn't have been the same if they gave that scene to Ken Mewes.
04:47Now this is Ken Mewes' scene right here where he's getting into the boogie-woogie, beautifully,
04:53beautifully animated, as is Jerry dancing.
04:55That's also Ken Mewes.
05:26Même l'arme gauche de Tom ne s'arrête pas de jouer au piano même quand il tombe.
05:33Maintenant on retourne à Irv Spence et ce sont Ed Barge à l'intérieur du piano ici.
05:49Une chose qui était probablement très difficile dans ce cartoon était le layout.
05:53Ils font beaucoup avec l'intérieur du piano ici, moins que dans le cartoon d'Irv Spence.
05:59Et animer tous ces claviers de piano en perspective, ce n'est pas facile.
06:16Cette lipe en dessous était très caractéristique de beaucoup d'animations d'Irv Spence.
06:24Maintenant, Tom doit mimer en jouant.
06:27C'est vraiment un très bon morceau d'animation, Ken Mewes encore.
06:44Ces scènes de Jerry dans les claviers peuvent en effet être de Dick Bickenback,
06:48même s'il n'est pas crédité dans ce film.
06:50Dick Bickenback a mis en place le layout de la plupart des cartoons de Tom et Jerry dans les années 50.
06:55Un artiste terrifiant.
07:08Allez Jerry, prends ton bain.
07:17Bravo.
07:20Sous-titrage Société Radio-Canada