Howdy, web-crawlers! If your here, you must love TOONS as much as I do! its easier than ever to find whatever your looking for on the "information superhighway!" You can put just about anything into infoseek or askjeeves and get a full page of results........unless that is your looking for the animated works of the mysterious Lawrence Pepper, an animator I'd never heard of myself until recently! its difficult to even scrounge up evidence the man existed at all, let alone his work, but my favorite dollar theater has begun to showcase his films this week, and I plan to give every cartoon a review! I've even got the help of my friend, "independent animation historian" Cecil to fill in some of the blanks!
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"Bimbo's Initiation" - Max Fleischer
Now I'm sure your all familiar with the works of the legendery Max Fleischer, especially if you've been reading TOON SALOON since it opened its e-doors in '93! A lot of folks wanted a piece of the same pie as good old Max, and bless their hearts, he outlasted pretty much all of them. Even back then, life as a theatrical cartoonist was no cake walk (hey, weren't we talking about "pie!?"), and some of his fiercest competitors and wannabe's crashed so hard their 'toons are all but impossible to find, in some cases maybe lost for real!
This is very nearly the case for Mr. Pepper. Cecil says its a miracle anybody found his reels at all, and we've both tried to get in touch with whoever brought them to Nick's Nickel Cinema, but even Nick himself wasn't sure. He's said he's going to find out more for us! All Cecil knows, from a few papers he's dug up (don't ask me how he does it!) is that there were six cartoons that played in just a handful of theaters from 1929-1934, all credited to Lawrence Pepper.
The first was just screened yesterday for us animation-maniacs (don't you call us "ANIMANIACS!" NO COMMENT on those brats!!!) and as usual only a couple of us showed up (Nick pretty much only stays in business for the...*COUGH COUGH*....you know what kind of movies!!! NOT FOR ME!!!).
None of us have a camera that can take a good picture of a movie, but there isn't much to really show you of the first cartoon, "Forest Foibles." its actually...pretty ordinary! A bunch of animals turn things like logs, flowers and mushrooms into musical instruments. Honestly, under whelming if you ask me, but I am an animation reviewer and I am none the less pretty interested to see more by a forgotten cartoonist!___________________________________
So today they screened the second cartoon, and it was actually ALSO called "Forest Foibles." From what we've pieced together it seems like the first one was only played one time, and people hated it! Including apparently Pepper's very own boss! RUH-ROH, RAGGY!
Pepper got sent straight back to the old drawing board (heard that one before!!!) and came out with a total rehash, and WOW! Forest Foibles 2.0 was actually gorgeous for its time, maybe even exceeding (DON"T HURT ME!!!!!) Fleischer himself! (FORGIVE ME LORD), lots of clever animation tricks and even some of the "twisted" humor the period was best for! There's a scene in which a horse kicks a greedy pig right into an open grave, but the pig's ghost rises from the ground and just keeps eating!
This cartoon also introduced a very unusual new character. Most of the others are kind of typical: there's a dog whose name we never really learn and he seems like the main character, then there's the pig, a rabbit and some others, but the most memorable moments defintiely come from a tree! The tree seemed to be almost a "bad guy" of sorts, since the animals shivered and chattered their teeth when he arrived and he seemed to love playing little tricks on them or just plain spooking them!
The short ends with a bunny couple sneaking off behind a seemingly normal tree, only for it to become the tree guy and scare them off - followed by a whole daisy chain of new baby bunnies! SICK stuff, Pepper!! But that's why we love these old toons!!!
And guess what - we have PICTURES of this one! You know it isnt easy to get "picture grabs" of toons but once we had the title and the date Cecil was able to rustle up a few photograph from a "digital archive" he uncovered here! Good luck if your hopin to find anything in all that.....you just aint Cecil!
WOW!!! I told you this cartoon looked good didn't I??? Notice the sign, "Clyde Wood." I think that might be the tree's name! Yeah, nice to meet ya "Clyde!" You don't fool me!
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It was only me and Cecil in the theater today, and maybe a guy who just wanted in from the cold for a little while. This one felt almost like ANOTHER rehash of Forest Foibles at first, but people must have really liked "Clyde," because now he was in almost every single scene! Sometimes he was just sort of dancing in the background, but other times we got to see him up close. He would stretch himself out, squash himself down, tie himself in knots, even pull off a few moves I'm pretty sure were ripped straight from Disney's Skeleton Frolic. Weirdest of all was how Clyde could seemingly be any tree in the forest! An ordinary oak might suddenly become Clyde for a moment, then turn back into a regular, painted background tree only for a nearby Sycamore to become Clyde, kind of like he was "haunting" any tree he wanted.
As a matter of fact, the whole feel of this 'toon is a lot like the Haunted House pieces that were so popular at the time. Thunder, lightning, shots of the full moon, you know the drill! This toon ended on a pretty ordinary, happy dance scene, but for some reason its the only scene in the whole picture without Clyde at all.
I asked Cecil if he could find me more pictures. he says they're "buried in so much gibberish" that its a lot of hard work. Remember to thank him guys!
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So Clyde was a full blown star by now, but Pepper must have been feeling a little pressure from Fleischer's increasingly popular Betty Boop, because this 'toon opens up on a TOTAL KNOCKOFF of Betty!! We see her strolling through the woods as the film opens, showing off her garterbelts every step of the way. She walks by different animals who whistle, or faint, or melt into blushing puddles as she passes by, but soon she enters an empty grove of the forest with only a single tree at the center...and I think we know what that means.
When the unnamed girlie sits down under that tree, every other animal gasps, and runs, leaving her all alone! The tree fades from a painting to a drawing with Clyde's trademark grin, and he winks at the audience...then without warning, he scoops the gal up in a claw-like branch and drops her RIGHT DOWN HIS THROAT! He licks his lips and rubs his stomach, plucks one of his own twigs to pick his teeth and does this horribly recorded laugh, like a clown.
Overall the short is no freakier than some others I've reviewed from the era, but I wasn't expecting Clyde to make such a jump to full-blown EVIL! And I thought we'd get the other animals working together to save the poor woman and send Clyde packing, but we actually never see her again. In fact, the 'toon just follows Clyde around, eating more innocent characters one by one! He uses his various shape-changing tricks to catch them off guard, popping out from regular trees and swallowing everybody up.
Like I said its not much grislier than other period toons, just look at this picture from Disney's "The Mad Doctor," that almost made me wanna hurl the first time! but the funny thing is that the music in "Clyde's Carol" stays upbeat, in fact from the musical score you'd think we're just supposed to find all those gruesome scenes funny! I hate to be that person, but just what was Pepper "smoking?!" YOU know the kind I mean!!___________________________________
Cecil didn't join me today, he said he didn't feel good but that he would still find me some pictures, but I hope your sitting down! I thought I'd seen some pretty sick stuff out of Fleischer, even out of Walt Disney from time to time, but there's nothing "fancy" about "Fall Fancies," which is seven straight minutes of pure SADISM, all from the dangnable tree's perspective again.
There's a scene that goes on MUCH TOO LONG where the dog character is drowning in a river, and Clyde keeps reaching out a branch to "rescue him," but the branch breaks off and the dog falls back in the water, over and over and over to music that's still cheerful for some reason. All Clyde does is laugh!
Later on we see the bunny couple from the second cartoon, but they're running around in circles in a panic, while Clyde looms over them and juggles their babies in his branches! I don't know what happens to them since the film cuts right to the next scene. Was something removed???
Clyde came up with pretty clever ways to gobble up more animals, too. There's a scene where a bird perches on a branch, and his mouth shifts to where it can slurp the whole branch up like a spaghetti noodle! There's another scene where he wraps around a lady like a snake, until she disappears in his coils. When he unravels...she's just gone! In another scene he opens up like an iron maiden to catch a police officer.
Every time Clyde eats anybody in this 'toon, he turns back into a regular tree, except it has that person's face! Then he reappears from some other tree and continues on his rampage. As the toon goes on, more and more of the background trees have faces on them...and they ain't a pretty sight.
By far the sickest moment comes at the end. A circle of saplings rise up from the ground to trap some dopey chipmunk character, who beats at them like prison bars as they grow larger. They twist together until he's totally obscured and they meld into one giant tree, and we can still hear him crying until the tree forms his face, and the crying turns to a stupid, brainless chuckling. Clyde pops up at this point, winks to the audience and says his first-ever line of dialog:
its an obvious a ripoff of comedian Jimmy "The Schnozzola" Durante's famous laugh, but mashed up with "GOTCHA!" After this, Clyde opens his mouth and "eats" the camera, and that's the end.
I have to be honest...this 'toon was actually kind of unpleasant. When I reviewed Disney's Pluto shorts last month, I talked about how Pluto's suffering in some of them felt really cruel, and his realistic yelps and screams always really got to me as a child. Well, TRIPLE that and you have this short. I'll never get the sound of that drowning dog guy out of my head!!! I wasn't alone either, because that last picture Cecil found actually comes with the following "factoid:"
"Clyde's Carol played only once, to a booing and hissing audience. Flooded with complaints, Lawrence asked that the film not be played again. His turnaround had previously been only one year between cartoons, but his next would take nearly two years to debut."
Hoo boy. So far all I know is that Pepper's career did not last a whole lot longer than this, and that isn't saying good things for tomorrow's 'toon! ULP!!!!___________________________________
...I almost don't know what to say.
I haven't been able to get hold of Cecil since he said he was sick, but without even giving him the name of this 'toon I found more of his findings in my email box.
This cartoon opened up on Clyde twisting around and dancing in front of the full moon. I notice the distinct face on the moon is one I've seen in every previous cartoon, and I believe it is a self-portrait of Lawrence himself. This time Clyde was actually singing along to a song I don't recognize, in fact the audio was so degraded I couldn't really make out a single word! It was no wonder this one took Lawrence two years, I have to admit, because the animation is unbelievable. He has his beloved wooden devil twisting and warping and tangling and writhing from one form to another like you can't imagine without seeing it, if only any digital video existed and I had that kind of web speed to show you one! There's a bit where Clyde is even a bunch of trees at once, walking around on the trunks like a big weird spider or an octopus, hard to describe but we have a picture of it:
its obviously all a beautiful sequence, and you might think Pepper listened to his critics and toned down the violence and mayhem to just make something cool, fun and only a little freaky...........no dice. It isn't that the man learned nothing, no, I think he heard the critics loud and clear, but it only sent him on some kind of warpath.
A while into his dancing, Clyde happens upon a little boy seemingly lost in the wood, and for a second Clyde looks angry, but then a big, wicked smile curls on his face, like the Grinch would do years later, and his rain of terror truly begins. With another "GOT-CHA-CHA-CHAAA!" he picks up the screaming, sobbing kid by the neck, flips him into the air, catches him in his mouth and chews him with a grinding, crunching sound before spitting into a spitoon!
Next Clyde takes his aggression (or is it Lawrence Peppers aggression???) out on some tramps who are trying to warm themselves around a campfire. He forms from their burning firewood, and well........."turns the tables" on that situation. I know later cartoons would routinely show characters burning up into ash (how many times did it happen to poor Wile E? Or Tom?) but I didn't typically see that gag in cartoons this old, and it wasn't even done in a comedic way. No blinking, grumpy eyes in these ash-piles. Just.......ash piles.
I'm GLAD we don't have more pictures from this toon. He tears through a series of victims that range from obvious political figures (I think I spotted FDR in there) to every awful stereotype under the sun. He even goes after a blind man and his guide dog, downs a bunch of squealing infants and has an undeniable bias towards tormenting young, pretty women, targeting them more often than anybody else, drawing it out longer, letting them squirm and shriek longer and that stupid music still plays like its all just jolly fun and games. I know I excused some pretty regrettable things as "products of their time" in some of my past reviews, and some people weren't happy, and, I really get it now. This was just...well......ugly.
Once again the final scene is the worst, as the footage finally breaks away from Clyde and centers on a happy human family. Two kids frolick with a fat, clumsy puppy as their parents nuzzle one another on a park bench. The music dies down to chirping birds and serene harps, but soon enough, a tall shadow is cast over the couple, and the whole family screams as a tree branch like a skeleton's hand closes over only the mother. She is taken off screen and the rest of her family wails. It is incredibly loud, but still drowned out by the sound of something TEARING, like they recorded a fat book being ripped in half, and the cartoon faded to black with TRIUMPHANT ending music.
I went home downright rattled, even queasy. I know that sounds stupid but there are subtleties to the details I honest to g-d cant do justice with words. You can never get it if you didn't see how vicious and lewd and just completely foul this cartoon was. Maybe you can find fouler now on Fox or "MTV" but at least Beavis and Butt Head are someone's idea of a "joke" no matter how disgusting they are. This felt JUST disgusting, like Pepper didnt mean it to be funny but wanted to just leave people feeling awful about it, which he cetainly did.
The guy either wanted desperately to destroy his own career or he was truly just that spiteful, lascivous and vengeful, a man who had a real bone to pick with virtually everyone and would burn every bridge it took to express it. I thought I could handle almost anything the industry could throw at me, but never in all my years have I seen such a smugly hate-filled piece of animation. let alone from what felt like such a safe and simpler time to look back on!!
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Nick's is closed today, doesnt say why. Cecil is still a no-show and hasnt said anything to me, he hasnt even answered his phone or his door but he's still sent me more files sans any commentary of his own. I was pretty sure that last one was Pepper's final cartoon but this scan was in my email today:
I have no idea what sort of paper or magazine this was taken from and I dont know what in the name of g-d its trying to say. These are weird and confusing choices of words and I really dont like where any of it takes my mind to.
A cartoon can't possibly be that bad.....can it? I mean, thats what I want to say, but, I haven't felt good since seeing "Gambol." I know its just a piece of animation, but, I just can't stop feeling really down now, a lot worse after sleeping on it. This cartoon may be old and it may look silly on the surface, but it really made me think about hate, and cruelty, and anger, and how someone could ever be so full of bile that he'd waste his beautiful talent and trash his whole legacy just to make sure everybody saw his ugliest side.
If there's really one more cartoon, and Nick is going to screen it, then I don't know if I can go the rest of my life never knowing what Pepper's final piece was like but I dont know if it would really be good for me. I tried to cheer myself up today, I put on some of my all-time favorites... the real Betty Boop. The Chuck Jones and Doctor Seuss team-ups. Duck Dodgers. But, they kind of didn't feel fun anymore. Maybe its just a lingering glass-half-empty outlook Ill come out of, i hope so, but right now its like these toons all look dreary and petty and mean to me, like putting on a new pair of glasses and now you can see all your boyfriends zits.
My favorites just arent making me laugh right now, there just making me feel lonely and weird, like im too aware im watching the labor of people who are mostly old or gone. What felt "naive" about old media feels "ignorant" to me now, which is just a little difference maybe, but its not a fun one. Maybe you folks were right that I need to give some newer stuff a chance....when I feel better.
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I made my decision. I'm really not seeing the last short. I have another email from cecil and it just says "TITLE CARD" and I'm not opening it, I'm sorry Cec, you can stop doing this for me, I really need a break from just obsessing over cartoons at 50. I know you must be reading this if your still trying to send me material but I really just want to talk to you for real, actually I really miss you and the way you and I were before, can you please just stop by or call me or at least shoot me another email about something that's not cartoons?
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Cecil, did you mean to fill my whole entire FOUR(!!!) MEGABYTE inbox with the same file??! you want me to put it up that bad??? is this stuff really all you care about. I know its still playing at nicks but I still dont feel good. Not just sad, its gotta be a bug or something. are you still sick too? talk to me. I dont like this picture, I dont want to know more.
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This is very nearly the case for Mr. Pepper. Cecil says its a miracle anybody found his reels at all, and we've both tried to get in touch with whoever brought them to Nick's Nickel Cinema, but even Nick himself wasn't sure. He's said he's going to find out more for us! All Cecil knows, from a few papers he's dug up (don't ask me how he does it!) is that there were six cartoons that played in just a handful of theaters from 1929-1934, all credited to Lawrence Pepper.
The first was just screened yesterday for us animation-maniacs (don't you call us "ANIMANIACS!" NO COMMENT on those brats!!!) and as usual only a couple of us showed up (Nick pretty much only stays in business for the...*COUGH COUGH*....you know what kind of movies!!! NOT FOR ME!!!).
None of us have a camera that can take a good picture of a movie, but there isn't much to really show you of the first cartoon, "Forest Foibles." its actually...pretty ordinary! A bunch of animals turn things like logs, flowers and mushrooms into musical instruments. Honestly, under whelming if you ask me, but I am an animation reviewer and I am none the less pretty interested to see more by a forgotten cartoonist!
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TUESDAY, JAN 70: FOREST FOIBLES REDUX???!!!
So today they screened the second cartoon, and it was actually ALSO called "Forest Foibles." From what we've pieced together it seems like the first one was only played one time, and people hated it! Including apparently Pepper's very own boss! RUH-ROH, RAGGY!
Pepper got sent straight back to the old drawing board (heard that one before!!!) and came out with a total rehash, and WOW! Forest Foibles 2.0 was actually gorgeous for its time, maybe even exceeding (DON"T HURT ME!!!!!) Fleischer himself! (FORGIVE ME LORD), lots of clever animation tricks and even some of the "twisted" humor the period was best for! There's a scene in which a horse kicks a greedy pig right into an open grave, but the pig's ghost rises from the ground and just keeps eating!
This cartoon also introduced a very unusual new character. Most of the others are kind of typical: there's a dog whose name we never really learn and he seems like the main character, then there's the pig, a rabbit and some others, but the most memorable moments defintiely come from a tree! The tree seemed to be almost a "bad guy" of sorts, since the animals shivered and chattered their teeth when he arrived and he seemed to love playing little tricks on them or just plain spooking them!
The short ends with a bunny couple sneaking off behind a seemingly normal tree, only for it to become the tree guy and scare them off - followed by a whole daisy chain of new baby bunnies! SICK stuff, Pepper!! But that's why we love these old toons!!!
And guess what - we have PICTURES of this one! You know it isnt easy to get "picture grabs" of toons but once we had the title and the date Cecil was able to rustle up a few photograph from a "digital archive" he uncovered here! Good luck if your hopin to find anything in all that.....you just aint Cecil!
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WEDNESDAY, JAN 7: "WOODLAND WONDER"
It was only me and Cecil in the theater today, and maybe a guy who just wanted in from the cold for a little while. This one felt almost like ANOTHER rehash of Forest Foibles at first, but people must have really liked "Clyde," because now he was in almost every single scene! Sometimes he was just sort of dancing in the background, but other times we got to see him up close. He would stretch himself out, squash himself down, tie himself in knots, even pull off a few moves I'm pretty sure were ripped straight from Disney's Skeleton Frolic. Weirdest of all was how Clyde could seemingly be any tree in the forest! An ordinary oak might suddenly become Clyde for a moment, then turn back into a regular, painted background tree only for a nearby Sycamore to become Clyde, kind of like he was "haunting" any tree he wanted.
As a matter of fact, the whole feel of this 'toon is a lot like the Haunted House pieces that were so popular at the time. Thunder, lightning, shots of the full moon, you know the drill! This toon ended on a pretty ordinary, happy dance scene, but for some reason its the only scene in the whole picture without Clyde at all.
I asked Cecil if he could find me more pictures. he says they're "buried in so much gibberish" that its a lot of hard work. Remember to thank him guys!
YIPE!!!!!! There he is!!
a certain someone said it best: "ZOINKS!"
WATCH OUT BUB!
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THURSDAY, JAN 8: "CLYDE'S CAROL"
So Clyde was a full blown star by now, but Pepper must have been feeling a little pressure from Fleischer's increasingly popular Betty Boop, because this 'toon opens up on a TOTAL KNOCKOFF of Betty!! We see her strolling through the woods as the film opens, showing off her garterbelts every step of the way. She walks by different animals who whistle, or faint, or melt into blushing puddles as she passes by, but soon she enters an empty grove of the forest with only a single tree at the center...and I think we know what that means.
When the unnamed girlie sits down under that tree, every other animal gasps, and runs, leaving her all alone! The tree fades from a painting to a drawing with Clyde's trademark grin, and he winks at the audience...then without warning, he scoops the gal up in a claw-like branch and drops her RIGHT DOWN HIS THROAT! He licks his lips and rubs his stomach, plucks one of his own twigs to pick his teeth and does this horribly recorded laugh, like a clown.
Overall the short is no freakier than some others I've reviewed from the era, but I wasn't expecting Clyde to make such a jump to full-blown EVIL! And I thought we'd get the other animals working together to save the poor woman and send Clyde packing, but we actually never see her again. In fact, the 'toon just follows Clyde around, eating more innocent characters one by one! He uses his various shape-changing tricks to catch them off guard, popping out from regular trees and swallowing everybody up.
Like I said its not much grislier than other period toons, just look at this picture from Disney's "The Mad Doctor," that almost made me wanna hurl the first time! but the funny thing is that the music in "Clyde's Carol" stays upbeat, in fact from the musical score you'd think we're just supposed to find all those gruesome scenes funny! I hate to be that person, but just what was Pepper "smoking?!" YOU know the kind I mean!!
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FRIDAY, JAN 9: "FALL FANCIES"
Cecil didn't join me today, he said he didn't feel good but that he would still find me some pictures, but I hope your sitting down! I thought I'd seen some pretty sick stuff out of Fleischer, even out of Walt Disney from time to time, but there's nothing "fancy" about "Fall Fancies," which is seven straight minutes of pure SADISM, all from the dangnable tree's perspective again.
There's a scene that goes on MUCH TOO LONG where the dog character is drowning in a river, and Clyde keeps reaching out a branch to "rescue him," but the branch breaks off and the dog falls back in the water, over and over and over to music that's still cheerful for some reason. All Clyde does is laugh!
Clyde came up with pretty clever ways to gobble up more animals, too. There's a scene where a bird perches on a branch, and his mouth shifts to where it can slurp the whole branch up like a spaghetti noodle! There's another scene where he wraps around a lady like a snake, until she disappears in his coils. When he unravels...she's just gone! In another scene he opens up like an iron maiden to catch a police officer.
Every time Clyde eats anybody in this 'toon, he turns back into a regular tree, except it has that person's face! Then he reappears from some other tree and continues on his rampage. As the toon goes on, more and more of the background trees have faces on them...and they ain't a pretty sight.
"GOT-CHA-CHA-CHAAAA!"
its an obvious a ripoff of comedian Jimmy "The Schnozzola" Durante's famous laugh, but mashed up with "GOTCHA!" After this, Clyde opens his mouth and "eats" the camera, and that's the end.
"Clyde's Carol played only once, to a booing and hissing audience. Flooded with complaints, Lawrence asked that the film not be played again. His turnaround had previously been only one year between cartoons, but his next would take nearly two years to debut."
Hoo boy. So far all I know is that Pepper's career did not last a whole lot longer than this, and that isn't saying good things for tomorrow's 'toon! ULP!!!!
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SATURDAY, JAN 10: "GLEEFUL GAMBOL"
...I almost don't know what to say.
I haven't been able to get hold of Cecil since he said he was sick, but without even giving him the name of this 'toon I found more of his findings in my email box.
This cartoon opened up on Clyde twisting around and dancing in front of the full moon. I notice the distinct face on the moon is one I've seen in every previous cartoon, and I believe it is a self-portrait of Lawrence himself. This time Clyde was actually singing along to a song I don't recognize, in fact the audio was so degraded I couldn't really make out a single word! It was no wonder this one took Lawrence two years, I have to admit, because the animation is unbelievable. He has his beloved wooden devil twisting and warping and tangling and writhing from one form to another like you can't imagine without seeing it, if only any digital video existed and I had that kind of web speed to show you one! There's a bit where Clyde is even a bunch of trees at once, walking around on the trunks like a big weird spider or an octopus, hard to describe but we have a picture of it:
A while into his dancing, Clyde happens upon a little boy seemingly lost in the wood, and for a second Clyde looks angry, but then a big, wicked smile curls on his face, like the Grinch would do years later, and his rain of terror truly begins. With another "GOT-CHA-CHA-CHAAA!" he picks up the screaming, sobbing kid by the neck, flips him into the air, catches him in his mouth and chews him with a grinding, crunching sound before spitting into a spitoon!
Next Clyde takes his aggression (or is it Lawrence Peppers aggression???) out on some tramps who are trying to warm themselves around a campfire. He forms from their burning firewood, and well........."turns the tables" on that situation. I know later cartoons would routinely show characters burning up into ash (how many times did it happen to poor Wile E? Or Tom?) but I didn't typically see that gag in cartoons this old, and it wasn't even done in a comedic way. No blinking, grumpy eyes in these ash-piles. Just.......ash piles.
I'm GLAD we don't have more pictures from this toon. He tears through a series of victims that range from obvious political figures (I think I spotted FDR in there) to every awful stereotype under the sun. He even goes after a blind man and his guide dog, downs a bunch of squealing infants and has an undeniable bias towards tormenting young, pretty women, targeting them more often than anybody else, drawing it out longer, letting them squirm and shriek longer and that stupid music still plays like its all just jolly fun and games. I know I excused some pretty regrettable things as "products of their time" in some of my past reviews, and some people weren't happy, and, I really get it now. This was just...well......ugly.
Once again the final scene is the worst, as the footage finally breaks away from Clyde and centers on a happy human family. Two kids frolick with a fat, clumsy puppy as their parents nuzzle one another on a park bench. The music dies down to chirping birds and serene harps, but soon enough, a tall shadow is cast over the couple, and the whole family screams as a tree branch like a skeleton's hand closes over only the mother. She is taken off screen and the rest of her family wails. It is incredibly loud, but still drowned out by the sound of something TEARING, like they recorded a fat book being ripped in half, and the cartoon faded to black with TRIUMPHANT ending music.
I went home downright rattled, even queasy. I know that sounds stupid but there are subtleties to the details I honest to g-d cant do justice with words. You can never get it if you didn't see how vicious and lewd and just completely foul this cartoon was. Maybe you can find fouler now on Fox or "MTV" but at least Beavis and Butt Head are someone's idea of a "joke" no matter how disgusting they are. This felt JUST disgusting, like Pepper didnt mean it to be funny but wanted to just leave people feeling awful about it, which he cetainly did.
The guy either wanted desperately to destroy his own career or he was truly just that spiteful, lascivous and vengeful, a man who had a real bone to pick with virtually everyone and would burn every bridge it took to express it. I thought I could handle almost anything the industry could throw at me, but never in all my years have I seen such a smugly hate-filled piece of animation. let alone from what felt like such a safe and simpler time to look back on!!
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SUNDAY, JAN 11: Research Notes
Nick's is closed today, doesnt say why. Cecil is still a no-show and hasnt said anything to me, he hasnt even answered his phone or his door but he's still sent me more files sans any commentary of his own. I was pretty sure that last one was Pepper's final cartoon but this scan was in my email today:
I have no idea what sort of paper or magazine this was taken from and I dont know what in the name of g-d its trying to say. These are weird and confusing choices of words and I really dont like where any of it takes my mind to.
A cartoon can't possibly be that bad.....can it? I mean, thats what I want to say, but, I haven't felt good since seeing "Gambol." I know its just a piece of animation, but, I just can't stop feeling really down now, a lot worse after sleeping on it. This cartoon may be old and it may look silly on the surface, but it really made me think about hate, and cruelty, and anger, and how someone could ever be so full of bile that he'd waste his beautiful talent and trash his whole legacy just to make sure everybody saw his ugliest side.
If there's really one more cartoon, and Nick is going to screen it, then I don't know if I can go the rest of my life never knowing what Pepper's final piece was like but I dont know if it would really be good for me. I tried to cheer myself up today, I put on some of my all-time favorites... the real Betty Boop. The Chuck Jones and Doctor Seuss team-ups. Duck Dodgers. But, they kind of didn't feel fun anymore. Maybe its just a lingering glass-half-empty outlook Ill come out of, i hope so, but right now its like these toons all look dreary and petty and mean to me, like putting on a new pair of glasses and now you can see all your boyfriends zits.
My favorites just arent making me laugh right now, there just making me feel lonely and weird, like im too aware im watching the labor of people who are mostly old or gone. What felt "naive" about old media feels "ignorant" to me now, which is just a little difference maybe, but its not a fun one. Maybe you folks were right that I need to give some newer stuff a chance....when I feel better.
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MONDAY 12
I made my decision. I'm really not seeing the last short. I have another email from cecil and it just says "TITLE CARD" and I'm not opening it, I'm sorry Cec, you can stop doing this for me, I really need a break from just obsessing over cartoons at 50. I know you must be reading this if your still trying to send me material but I really just want to talk to you for real, actually I really miss you and the way you and I were before, can you please just stop by or call me or at least shoot me another email about something that's not cartoons?
