Month: March 2020

Favorite TV Show Episode Blogathon: Tiny Toons "Acme Bowl"

Posted on by bernardovillela

Original Air date: 11/16/1990

Director: Ken Boyer

Writers: Steve Langford, Debra Blanchard, Tom Ruegger, Paul Dini

Tiny Toons was the first of a wave of Warner Brothers Animation shows produced by Steven Spielberg. Each episode began with an opening title sequence complete with theme song. 


It’s no small feat to create a next generation of characters to interact with, and follow in the footsteps of, the Looney Tunes. Perhaps what made this show successful was that it incorporated the notion that these characters were learning and being taught the ins and outs of being toons by the old guard who act as teachers and mentors at Acme Looniversity. So they play a supporting role for those who don’t want to see only all new characters. Another function this show served was a continuation of the Warner Brothers canon following the death of Mel Blanc. 

The episode opens with a Wacko World of Sports newsreel, which is a reference to an eponymous episode earlier in Season One, which itself was a riff on ABC’s longtime series ABC’s Wide World of Sports.

The segment sets up the rivalry between the Acme Looniversity Toonsters and Perfecto Prep. The term rivalry is used loosely here because Acme is winless on the season (a montage shows their loss to the University of Woodpeckers,  Santa Ana Barbarians, and the Metropolis Marvels. 

Elmyra plays nurse to the team, her character originated on this show before joining both Animaniacs and being teamed up with Pinky & the Brain. Little Sneezer is established as the team’s super-fan and his involvement is pivotal later in the episode. Babs, Fifi, and Shirley the Loon are the cheerleaders and Buster has just been named the new quarterback of the team. 

Then there’s an ominous introduction to Perfecto, the antagonists. Even the building looks foreboding. It’s also the first part of the episode that requires a little suspension of disbelief as they are cited as being undefeated in their 200 year history. A would-be record in actual college football and if the implication they’ve played that long—well, college football only turned 150 in 2019. However, that information, the whole opening captured my imagination as a child and serves as a great lead-in to the story.

Next, we go into a pep rally where Bugs, the team’s coach, introduces Buster to the student body. The cheers from the cheerleaders are the comedic highlight here and they’re jokes I relate to better as an older sports fan.

“ARE WE GONNA WIN?”


“NO!”

“ARE WE GONNA LOSE?”

“YEAH!”

“ARE WE GONNA LOSE BIG?”


“YEAH!”

“HOW BIG?”

“WE’RE GONNA GET ANNIHILATED!”

We move to Perfecto who sing their fight song in this scene and it includes the lyric “because, you see, we always cheat,” this is both fitting for sports at the moment and the honesty is refreshing.

Aside from the new QB Acme is also unveiling a new playbook for the big game.

The playbook, “filled with razzle-dazzle,” is coveted by Perfecto. When they Acme players go their separate ways  we see that Plucky is not headed toward his house but is covertly meeting with Perfecto. In an Eight Men Out kind of twist, Plucky has with him the playbook they so desire. He enters a limo, hands over the book, and visits campus. In exchange for relinquishing it and throwing the game he’s being promised the ability to transfer there.

Plucky’s courtship includes video games and a seductress by the name of Margo Mallard who induces a rather Daffy-like reaction from Plucky; the first of many successful sight gags in the episode.  The combination of classic bits with modern motifs was one of the things that drew me to this show aside from old favorites still being there. 

One of the best running gags of this episode is Perfecto’s cheerleaders being disaffected Valley Girls (“Perfecto…rah”). When Plucky first signals Perfecto a play during the game he says “Am I a louse or what?”, which is a very Looney Tunes kind of aside. Later, there’s an anthropomorphic football gag that despite nearly being mandatory is well done.

Football fans will appreciate some of the trick plays Acme tries to run like the Statue of Liberty play. The most famous example of it can be seen below.

Recently, I was watching Who Framed Roger Rabbit with my son, and during the opening animated sequence, he asked something to the extent of  “Why are there so many windows in that kitchen?” What he was commenting on was the subtle gag at play in that scene that it took me many views to pick up on—animated shorts played with space to conserve how many backgrounds they needed to create in the cell animation days and Who Framed Roger Rabbit exaggerated that. 

There’s an instance of that technique which may not have been intentional in this episode.  After a kick Acme is pinned at the one-inch line (A good call by Sylvester doing play-by-play in the booth; his flooding the booth with spit and Porky trying to avoid it is another great running gag in this episode. On the next play after that kick, Buster drops back to pass about twenty yards and doesn’t even enter his own end zone much less run out the back of it like he should have.

The only other football-related SNAFU is that no extra points being kicked were shown, one was arbitrarily awarded to generate the closest possible result. 

Because Perfecto is signaled by Plucky about the plays they are able to force two strip-fumbles that are returned for touchdowns. 

Near the end of the first half Buster brings in the secret weapon he told no one about: Diz; Diz being the young counterpart to the Tasmanian Devil. Diz is told to go long. He does. Buster puts some mustard on his throw, cue sight gag. Diz catches it, by swallowing the ball, for a touchdown.

On Perfecto’s next series Diz creates some havoc on the defensive side and would have come down with an interceptions if Perfecto hadn’t put a literal rocket on the ball that carried him out of the stadium, the where we don’t know. 

It’s 18-7 at the half (see, Perfecto missed their extra-points, Acme didn’t and we saw none of them). 

The halftime show is the Wackyland Rubber Band a great homage to Porky in Wackyland. 

During halftime, Ronny, Perfecto’s alpha, accosts Plucky in the restroom. He’s angry about the touchdown, having expected a shutout, and is adamant that Perfecto better win. 

Sneezer was in a stall overhearing this and it prompts him to say “Say it ain’t so, Plucky,” in another Eight Men Out moment. 

Coming back from the second commercial break, or fade to black on streaming (Hulu has it in the US), we’re thrown back into the action with another tried and true gag: the use of stock footage. Many more of these techniques can be used in a single narrative when aiming for 22-23 minute episodes than a 6-8 minute theatrical short. 

Sneezer’s  refrain of “Say it ain’t so” continues to assail Plucky. Buster is sacked and as other players fall to injury Buster accepts the cheerleader’s offer to suit up. His only protestation being “Oh, brother.” For 1990 that’s progressive indeed.

As one might expect the girls don’t just help the boys avoid forfeiture. About to get tackle Babs screams that she lost her contact lens—insert gag about her having brown eyes—she finds it first and runs for touchdown. Acme now trails 18-13, another extra point missed unseen.

Fifi, the new generation’s answer to Pepe, forces a fumble and recovers for Acme with 0:06 left in the game. Buster is drawing up a play for Shirley the Loon and Babs catches Plucky signaling Perfecto. Perfecto thinks they have the game won regardless. Plucky is sent to the bench.

For the fourth time Sneezer implores “Please, Plucky, say it ain’t so.”

After the snap Plucky steps back onto the field just inside the boundary at the line of scrimmage. Buster gets him the ball immediately. In football terms, excluding the trick element aside, this play became popular much later. It’s a smoke-screen—a quick, short throw to a wideout that relies on yards-after-catch. Because Perfecto believed Plucky out and not replaced they didn’t cover that area and couldn’t catch up to him. Plucky scores as the gun sounds, no extra-point needed, Acme wins 19-18.

Ronny complains: “That wasn’t in the playbook!”


“Sure it was,” is the response. “Check the last page.”

It reads: You’ve been had. Signed, Buster Bunny.

Aside from the only-as-cartoony-as-it-needs-to-be football action, the drama of the game on display in this episode captured my imagination when I first had it and has kept it since; more on that in a bit, but first the denouement. 

Sneezer approaches Plucky in the tunnel. He is proud and never doubted the team. Sneezer offers him a drink, Plucky gives him his jersey in an homage to the Mean Joe Greene Coke commercial.

Perfecto laments their fate as Diz returns on the rocket-ball, from Hawaii it seems, and crash lands on them in a final bit of poetic justice. 

A few times in my early teen years and twenties I tried to deny the sports-loving part of me thinking it interfered with my creative side. What I later discovered was I needed to find balance. Since I’ve gotten better and better at doing.

The notion of Tiny Toons not only learning their craft in school but being student-athletes captivated me. I drew my favorite characters—Warner, Disney, or otherwise—in Acme uniforms and based on when they debuted in theatrical shorts I plotted when their school days would have been. I’ve thought about it with modern characters also. 

In that endeavor I also imagined what positions certain characters might play. I sated my sports interest, my creative impulse, and I also learned a little bit of film history. Little did I know at the time this was an activity all about balance. 

For artists in any discipline you never know what kind of impact your work will have. I’m sure those involved in “Acme Bowl” didn’t know that I—and other kids like me—would still know the score of that game thirty years later, still have drawings they made inspired by it or the diary entry I wrote recapping the episode when I had just seen it.

One of the reasons I love this blogathon so is that to discuss a series or season in totality can be tiresome. However, some individual installments can stand the test of time even better than the show as a whole. It was a pleasure discussing this one. 

110 Years of Claire Trevor Blogathon: Breaking Home Ties (1987)

Posted on by bernardovillela

This post is part of the Claire Trevor Blogathon hosted by In the Good Old Days of Classic Hollywood and The Wonderful World of Cinema. Claire Trevor was an actress I had seen but was nit conscious of before this blogathon, so I’m glad I joined up.

NOTES: 1. This film can be streamed on Hallmark Movies Now, which is available for a free seen-day trial 2. There were few photos of this film I was able to find online, none featured Claire Trevor unfortunately.

Breaking Homes Waves aired on ABC on November 27th, 1987 and is based on a Norman Rockwell painting by the same name, the film is written and directed by John Wilder. It stars Jason Robards as Lloyd, Eva Marie Saint as Emma, Doug McKeon (best known for On Golden Pond) as Lonnie; and, of course, Claire Trevor as Grace Porter was given the TV honorarium of “Special Guest Star.”

Despite being based on a work by the epitome of Americana, this film does go beneath the wholesome veneer to find the drama. It centers of Lonnie who is leaving home for the first time to attend college. While he’s adjusting academically and socially. At home, his mother, Emma, learns she has leukemia and decides not to tell her husband, Lloyd, or her son.

Claire Trevor comes in as Grace, a high school teacher, Lonnie being a former student of hers, and she is also a friend of the family. Her scenes in this film are few but significant. 

In her introductory scene she arrives at our protagonist’s home driving herself. Her first shot is a male gaze shot (While male gaze was an old-hat cinematic motif by the late-‘80s what makes this instance a little different is that both characters involved are senior citizens) that starts at her foot exiting the vehicle and pans up. This establishes the mutual attraction between Grace and Lloyd. That scene is the setup and we immediately sense the screen presence that earned her the special guest star credit, even if we were previously unfamiliar with her. During this very same year she also appeared on an episode of Murder She Wrote. 

When Grace speaks to Emma she asks how she’s doing especially considering Lonnie has just left for college. The bond Grace shares with Lonnie is revealed when she mentions that she never had kids but if she did he’d have been like Lonnie. Direction-wise this scene is a little off because the subtext that Grace carries a torch for Lloyd is clear but there’s never a reaction shot for Emma, so whether or not she’s any the wiser is unknown. We’re led to believe she’s not. 

Regardless of that Trevor carries much of the screen-time in this scene and emotes subtext through the surface of banal dialogue, which is a testament to her abilities.

Claire next appears when Lonnie comes home from school over Thanksgiving. This visit is at the beckoning of her mother because he and his success at college mean a lot to her. This is the part in the film where Trevor has her first significant involvement and is one of two storytelling scenes she has. Here she relates how this was her hometown and that she met a man, fell in love, and then traveled the road. What surprises Lonnie as a young man who has left the nest for the first time is that Grace’s returning home and teaching generations what she learned in the great big world gave her a renewed sense of purpose after losing her husband and brings her more joy than globetrotting did. Trevor in this scene effortlessly captures the energy of a sage who tells the tale quite naturally evidencing the progression of her acting style to a more modern sensibility, demonstrating that at this age she still had the chops. 

The next scene Claire Trevor has is her penultimate of the film, and finds Grace running into Lloyd in town near the pharmacist’s. At this point in the film the ailment that Emma has been hiding from her family is highly suspected by her husband. This adds a layer to the tension, this is on top of the sexual tension, as there is confirmation in this scene that there was a romantic past between the two. The restraint of emotion with clear communication between the scene partners here is most excellent. 

Spoiler Alert

Claire Trevor’s final scene in this film is one where Lonnie visits her at school after the death of his mother. This is another storytelling scene where she relates to Lonnie that she and Lloyd had a relationship after he was a student of hers. Due to this fact they broke it off in order to spare her reputation. She then met her eventual husband and Lloyd met Emma. This sequence consists of longer takes and Clair Trevor and Doug McKeon play off each other well. Moreover, the naturalistic style of delivery is still present. This scene paves the way for Lonnie to talk to Lloyd get his side of the story and bury the hatchet with him as he had been angry with his father when he didn’t understand his actions and now needed to vent and to understand his mother’s decision.

Claire Trevor plays a small but significant role in this film. There are times when the “special guest star” connotation is given due to an actor’s reputation and is not merited by the role and/or the material. Here it is deserved and Trevor shows to those who may not have known why her reputation preceded her into this film. 

The Out to Sea Blogathon: Lifeboat (1944)

Posted on by bernardovillela

When I saw the Out to Sea Blogathon the first thing that came to mind was Alfred Hitchcock’s Lifeboat. The reason for this is that when dealing with seafaring narratives you are normally are left with few options of how to approach it in terms of the kind of story being told.

As per usual Hitchcock worked from a concept first conceived in prose. In this case a story by John Steinbeck. Shaping into cinematic story proved a daunting task in the scripting stage, as Hitch told Truffaut in their now-legendary interview series:

I had assigned John Steinbeck to the screenplay, but his screenplay was incomplete and so I brought in MacKinlay Kantor who worked on it for two weeks. I didn’t care for what he had written at all. He said ‘Well, that’s the best I can do.’ I thanked him for his efforts and hired another writer, Jo Swerling, who had worked on several films for Frank Capra. When the screenplay was complete and was ready to shoot, I discovered the narrative was rather shapeless. So I went over it again, trying to give dramatic form to each of the sequences.

This kind of revolving door of writers was not unusual then, nor is it unusual now; nor is a director’s pass of the script. This kind of revisionary writing is what many directors do in lieu of writing their own scripts start-to-finish—Spielberg would be a modern day example. Much of Hitchcock’s contribution can be seen in Constance Porter’s (Tallulah Bankhead) arc. However, there are other touches that make this work special, one of under-appreciated works.

In the shipwrecked variant of the seafaring tale (this film deftly incorporates elements of that, war film, and chamber drama) there can be visual monotony to the goings on. What Hitchcock does to break this up is balancing the claustrophobic (being on a small lifeboat with a group of survivors) to agoraphobic (the oceanic nothingness that surrounds them). Another visual component that gives this film some vibrancy is that Hitchcock uses close-ups sparingly. Instead he frames many three-quarter, two-, three-shots, and larger group shots.

While, like Rope, this is a unity of space tale (but not time) yet there are cinematic moments, cuts, and mise-en-scène. So while the actors often share the frame listening and reacting to each other in the same take this film never feels theatrical.

As the title indicates the primary motivation for all the characters is survival. It instantly jumps into the action barely showing the sinking of the passenger ship by a U-Boat and getting right into the lifeboat.

The sea and their vessel is the ideal setting for this clash of characters who are a microcosm of World War II’s combatants. The focus remains myopically on the characters only focusing on the seafaring aspect as much as necessary and as a function of these characters.

As Hitchcock did later on The Birds, there is no musical score in this film. It’s another decision that focuses the audience’s attention on the characters as it searches for more verisimilitude and less spectacle.

As each passenger climbs out of the wreckage and onto the boat, there is tension and conflict as those already on the boat discover who the newcomer is and more about them. This is mostly subsumed and not bombastic. Most of the overt conflict surrounds the character of Willi (Walter Slezak), the German who comes aboard.

There are deceptions along the way but the character of Willi is most definitely an intriguing one. Hitchcock mentioned to Truffaut that some criticism from the press about the film was about the Nazi being too skilled, in short that they wanted the movie to be more propagandistic as it was released in 1944. However, the fact that he was the most qualified to captain the lifeboat doesn’t changed the fact that he lied about his rank on the U-boat and what supplies he kept on his person amongst other things. Plus, he goes to great lengths to earn their trust in order that his deception(s) can go undetected.

Had the film been more starkly black and white in its characterization, as some critics wanted it to be (judging a film by what you want it to be, and not what it is, is a cardinal sin of criticism), I don’t think the film would have had the afterlife its enjoyed despite its disappearing from cinemas with little fanfare upon its initial release. Save for a rather lengthy run in New York.

With any film the audience, both critics and the general public, are the final arbiter of meaning and impact–or at least have the final say whether “correct” or not. My perspective ends up being somewhere between Truffaut who said:

At one time I was under the impression that Lifeboat intended to show that everyone is guilty, each of us has something to be ashamed of, and that no one man is qualified to pass judgment others.

And Hitchcock who said:

Here was a statement telling democracies to put aside their differences temporarily and to gather forces and concentrate on the common enemy, whose strength was derived from a spirit of unity and determination.

In drawing the characters out, in giving them all dimension, you will naturally see flaws and positives in all these people. Having no character be a paragon of virtue is what makes this film art and not the propaganda some desired.

Yet Hitch’s message is also there, especially at the very end after the second shipwrecked Nazi is dealt with, the line is clearly delivering the moral he wants, but can be variously interpreted such that it doesn’t become a preachy statement–a trap many films of the era fell into. It could taken as a modern spin on the expression “Kill them all, let God sort them out.” The preceding events showed that when these people allowed their better natures to prevail and followed the Golden Rule they were taken advantage of. They were shown over and over again they could not deal with the Nazis humanely.

With Lifeboat Hitchcock puts on a morality play at sea with representative figures which are archetypal, yet layered; well-rounded and not stereotypical and it is perhaps that it did not connect as well 76 years ago as it might now.

O Canada Blogathon 2020 – Dawson City:Frozen Time

Posted on by bernardovillela

Hearing that the O Canada Blogathon was back I was wanted to join up. What I needed was a subject. To find one I sifted through my mounds of unwatched Blu-rays and DVDs (some blind buys; some not). Upon doing that I knew the film I’d write about would be Dawson City: Frozen Time.

When I was young I would often study maps and the Yukon was one of the areas that fascinated me. The attraction had to do with its name, its remoteness, it nearness to the Arctic Circle, and also (probably on a subconscious level) that Dawson City was denoted on the map in what I could only assume was a sparsely populated area and it was not the territorial capital. 

The reason for Dawson City still being on a world map in the mid-to-late ‘80s, when I was young boy, looking them was that it was epicenter of the final great gold rush in world history.

The town was built so prospectors had somewhere to live, the local Hän tribe displaced. That was one of many things I learned in watching this documentary.

But its selection is about more than just facts gleaned, which were many.

The film opens interviewing the couple who made a discovery of the movie reels while excavating for new construction project in 1978. However, this is but a framing mechanism and what comes between these bookends and predominates the film is a mix of stills, archival footage, and Dawson City film finds, both newsreels and features, that tell the story of the town’s history either with events that locals witnessed via movie houses or reenacted through narrative features that were set in Dawson City. 

The impetus for the narrative crisscross is that in discussing the town you have to establish the find, the foundation of the city, the year-by-year stampede of prospectors north, followed by the dwindling population later. 

Dawson City’s apex population of 30,000 in 1898 and the fact that people from all walks of life came there in search of fortune made it such that it was a crossroads. The people who came through as the town boomed and what became of them after their time there also play a part in the story. 

To the nascent film industry Dawson City was a new market, so films came as people needed entertainment in all forms. However, Dawson was the end-of-the-line and films were slow to come there. Studios did not want the costs of shipping the film canisters back from the Yukon to California, so when local theaters were done with them the studios ordered the prints destroyed. 

The formerly flammable nature of film stock plays a part in some of Dawson City’s early tragic moments and gives this film its tagline: Film was born of an explosive.

The tragedy for film everywhere—one of the omnipresent in its early history—was shortsightedness. Many films were purposely destroyed, involuntarily burned, or merely decayed over time erasing much of the silent era’s output. A form of safety film was first developed in 1910 but not adopted until the early ’50s due to prohibitive costs—more shortsightedness. All this talk of film burning had me thinking of Cinema Paradiso when Alfredo, already blinded in a film fire, is introduced to safety film by Toto he laments that progress always comes too late. 

In the end the decision in Dawson City to not burn all the film and how it was finally stored helped preserve much of it paving the way for one of the most monumental film finds in motion picture history. More specifics than that are spare to preserve some other surprises, for the film which contains plenty (not that one could adequately describe the magic of this particular film in mere words, but my meager attempt is forthcoming).

This film separates itself in its aesthetic approach to its subject matter. Other films have used feature film footage as a stand-in for archival footage or dramatization; the essays in the booklet included with the Blu-ray by Lawrence Weschler, Vanity Fair,  and Alberto Zambenedetti highlight Los Angeles Plays Itself as a prime example. However, it is the other techniques that combine with this that make this film a unique and masterful work.

For long stretches of its running time Dawson City: Frozen Time functions as a silent film. The titles cards disseminate needed information about the images we are shown, without voice over. We go through the rise and fall of Dawson City as a hub of civilization.

Director Bill Morrison was one of the first people to view much of the recovered footage, and so, over the years developed an intimate relationship with it that allowed him to exploit it as well as he does here. 

The rapturous symphonic score by composer/multi-instrumentalist Alex Somers increases the immersive nature of the film. 

A general interest audience will be captivated alone by how disparate folks like Fred Trump, grandfather of Donald, had his first financial success there; Tex Rickard, founder of the New York Rangers, passed through; Robert Service, poet and Jack London, novelist, found inspiration there; Calamity Jane, made a splash; Klondike Kate, of course, got her name there and there’s a pub not too far from me bearing her name a mere 3,917 miles away; the Carnegies, Guggenheims, and more all crossed paths at the top of the world.

The connections to the film industry and its history don’t stop with a couple thousand rediscovered film reels: Alexander Pantages and Sid Grauman both had their humble starts in Dawson City. Perhaps, most amazing to me was the reference to the 1957 Academy Award winning documentary short City of Gold, which tells the tale of Dawson City’s gold rush, but more influentially pioneered the pan and zoom techniques on still photos that Ken Burns would later make famous and make a staple of documentary filmmaking.

A few years ago when cutting a documentary for my local church I learned that Final Cut Pro now has a function called Ken Burns that facilitates usage of the aforementioned technique. So if you’ve used that software recently you’ve felt the influence of Dawson City, too, albeit in a very indirect way. 

Toward its conclusion the film becomes transcendent upon entering a montage of Dawson City film finds that are in various stages of water damage and other forms of decay. The imperfections of the film, scratched, nebulous, nearly abstracted images dance to the crescendo in the score. Being able to see part of an image that was previously lost is better than nothing. The visual image in a motion picture can be—and often is—beautiful even when imperfect. Hairs not removed from the gate live forever in the recorded image. Some older films will always have Nelson Spots or cigarette burns on them. Pristine images are ideal, but there is a majesty, power, and poetry to decayed film that still survives through the ages, preserving a moment in time.

It is the fact that this film can tell the story of the Gold Rush; how it created Dawson City; who came and left and how those people experienced the world; how the film was found and also celebrate celluloid itself that makes this work so special.

Decasia (2002)

The essays included with the Blu-ray also made me aware of a film I had not heard of by Morrison called Decasia. Decasia is a portmanteau of “decay” and “fantasy” and it plays with the idea of this kind of montage for a feature. The fact that Morrison made a whole film in this motif and blends a similar sequence seamlessly into a film that already tackles so much is remarkable.

Morrison’s Decasia was the first film released in the 21st Century to be added to the National Film Registry. It would not surprise me if this film ends up there someday also. It’s a story about a small town in the Yukon, but also all of Canada, all of America, and all of cinema. So much stemming out of such a small town is a miraculous thing, as is the discovery of the film, as is Dawson City: Frozen Time.