Title: The Tortoise and the Hare
Studio: Disney
Date: 01/05/35
Credits:
Series: Silly Symphonies
Running time (of viewed version): 8:36
Commercial DVD Release: Silly Symphonies (v1)
Synopsis: Hare learns impressing the ladies doesn't necessarily win foot races.
Comments: (Unusual DVD error; pressing Tortoise and the Hare started 'The Flying Mouse"; returning to the menu screen, I was on the page which had that cartoon; returning to the correct, page, it worked. Both cartoons were at the top of their pages.) Opening credits give this a '34 copyright. Year early dates were common for '39 releases as well. More groups moving punctuatedly en masse. It looks slightly more natural within each group than in An Elephant Never Forgets, but it still looks odd. I always kinda hated this cartoon, with the mocking of the slow guy, and the dick rabbit everyone loves with his hideous laugh. I had a neighbor with the tortoise's vocal intonations (he was handicapped in some way). The raccoon's not a good shot; he took four shots, and only hit twice. This cartoon has lots more going on in it, and lots more gags in it, than the Disney cartoons of 1939. I always kinda like the tortoise's hiking up the shell to get his legs longer. While the tortoise is loved at the end, it is unfortunately not by any females of his own species. In terms of the genetic race, the hare may remain winner this day. Incessant rhyming couplets are bad news. Opens on establishing shot of a text based sign. There's a progression in the tortoise and hare story genre. First, there was the fable (well, first, maybe someone saw a tortoise and a hare interacting, possibly in an ironic way, in the wild); then comes a gently humorous cartoon where they expand on the idea slightly (this one, for instance); then you get a wilder, more vicious take on it (WB), and finally you get a little dog with no claim on speed showing up everywhere saying "Hello, Bub" in Tex Avery MGM cartoons. Hare pitches southpaw, but bats right handed, and finally catches the ball with a gloved left hand, making him schizophrenically ambidextrous.
Well...
ReplyDeleteThe animation of this cartoon as a whole did not impress me, but at the very beginning I liked the cartoon diverse crowd, and another scene that I'll named later. Annoying voice and laugh of the Hare almost kills this character, but the voice of the Turtle was picked up very well.
I really liked the animation of Hare in the scene where he himself plays tennis. Solid, good animation movements and a sense of versatility, three-dimensional does this scene for me is very attractive. I think of this scene may well have to work of Ward Kimball or Hamilton Luske, but I'm more inclined to the idea that it was an animation of Luske - Ward in this cartoon had just acquired the status of a full-fledged animator, he hardly could accrue to such scenes.
I guess for me the best gag of the cartoon is the skunks on the stadium, although there is still some good gags. But overall, I would not call this stunning animation and wonderfully made.
But the only thing that I really so like of this cartoon is invention of cartoony SPEED(you know what I mean).
And...I don't want to hurt anybody, but I simply hate 90% of Disney's cartoons in 1935.SS on my hate top here...
And I really don't like that thing that Disney fans, and creators of the character themself always said that Hare was the prototype for Bugs Bunny...