Heckle Jeckle Im a Mouse Im Myself Again

The Ability of Thought
Director: Eddie Donnelly
Release Date: Jan. 1949
In short: Heckle and Jeckle become cocky-aware, and try out their newfound ability...

Cartoons at their all-time have e'er acknowledged the magical nature of the medium. If the artist can draw it, it tin happen.

The earliest animators knew this, even before Gertie The Dinosaur divisional on-screen. In the experimental animation of Emile Cohl and J.Due south. Blackton, one object would morph into another in stream-of-consciousness fashion. The blithe versions of Winsor McKay's comic-strip characters inexplicably inverse shape and class, stretching and contracting like putty. In an early on J.R. Bray picture, THE Creative person'South DREAM, the artist'south cosmos (a drawing dachsund) gorges on a plate of sausages until it bursts.

Throughout the twenties and into the thirties, impossibility reigned. Max Fleischer took us into nightmare worlds with hallucinatory fantasies like BIMBO'S INITIATION and MINNIE THE MOOCHER. In the erstwhile, a knife blade perilously close to Bimbo'south rump sprouts eyes, a mouth, and a tongue as it licks its lips in anticpation. Should Betty Boop's wearing apparel come close to falling down (and it did quite a lot) a screen might come up to life and discreetly "walk" in front of her to protect her modesty.

Even Disney's early on films played with the possibilities of the medium--he had made his name with films in which a alive-action footling daughter cavorted with pen-and-ink drawings, later on all. In an early Mickey Mouse cartoon, THE BARN DANCE, clumsy dancer Mickey continually steps on poor Minnie's anxiety, his own feet growing with every footstep to illustrate his awkwardness. Her poor legs stretched hopelessly out of shape, Minnie but snips off the excess with a scissors, and ties the ends in a knot.

Only Disney eventually chose to concentrate on personality and "realism", and by the mid-thirties even the Fleischer cartoons had followed suit. While this did a nifty deal to make blithe characters seem like living, breathing individuals, it also stripped animated cartoons of the one great advantage it had over live-action. It took a rebellion past the likes of Tex Avery and Bob Clampett for drawing studios to relearn how to exist "cartoony."

Not Terrytoons. For them there was nothing to "relearn", since they'd never abandoned their now quaint "annihilation tin can happen" way. The studio existed in a sort of vacuum--their stories, gags, drawing style and fifty-fifty music stayed remarkably the aforementioned, twelvemonth after year.

On the 1 hand, this attitude nearly doomed the studio to stagnation, on the other, it had the unexpected benefit of making Terrytoons a "fourth dimension capsule" of sorts, preserving the freeform storylines and nonsensical animation of the silent and early audio eras. (Equally we've already seen in THE MAGIC PENCIL.) At that place seemed little reason to change: Terry mostly ignored manufacture trends unless--naturally--they made money.

In the mid-forties, characters like Bugs Bunny and Woody Woodpecker were doing but that, so it didn't have long for Terry to put his own spin on them. Given a vague directive to do something involving "twins", Terry'south artists came upward with ii wisecracking magpies, soon to be named Heckle and Jeckle. Strangely, in what'due south generally regarded to be their debut cartoon, THE TALKING MAGPIES (1946), the main characters are an unnamed magpie and his married woman "Maggie", whose abiding arguing disturbs neaby Farmer Al Falfa. They before long vanish from the story, and two other unnamed magpies take over.

They were, even so, officially named later that year and launched in a serial of their own. The bulk were undistinguished: if Woody Woodpecker was an imitation Bugs Bunny, Heckle and Jeckle were an imitation Woody Woodpecker--carve up in ii at that.

The ones that stood out, however, combined the raucous, wiseguy sensibility of the Warner's and Lantz cartoons with the freewheeling impossibility of the silents. THE Power OF Thought is 1 such cartoon: information technology dawns on Jeckle (for the tape, Jeckle is the one with the British emphasis) that equally cartoon characters, he and Heckle can practise anything they think of. With bully power, in this case, comes disaster, as they run afoul of a bulldog cop--who soon beomes their unfortune victim. For awhile, that is.

Curious? Then read on the for synopsis of THE Ability OF Idea:

(Notation: I know Heckle and Jeckle never addressed each other by proper noun in the classic Terry
cartoons--merely did in the afterward, Bill Weiss installments. Since I take to differentiate the two
somehow, for the purposes of this review, the British-absolute 1 is Jeckle. That's my story and I'k sticking to it...R.)

The opening titles on the tape I have, I suspect, were not the originals--they look like the standard TV release titles in which Terry'southward proper noun is missing (Terrytoons of this menstruation were usually prefaced by a championship that read "Paul Terry Presents.")

The championship cuts alarmingly rapidly to Jeckle lying in bed, which makes me believe in that location had been some rather impuissant editing. He sits with his legs crossed, dangling one foot. The scene cuts to a medium shot to reveal Heckle, who's sleeping in the same bed. Jeckle shakes him to wake him upwardly. "You know, I've been lying here thinking," he says.

"With what, chum?" replies his eternally sarcastic friend.

We go back to a closeup shot of Jeckle. "Brains, old boy, brains..." Jeckle says, pointing to the top of his head.

The scene changes again, to a medium shot of the 2 of them. "Well, what have you been thinking about?" Heckle says.

Lounging with his hands backside his head, Jeckle says, "We drawing characters tin have a wonderful life, if we only take advantage of it. We can practice anything nosotros think of!"

"What do ya hateful, chum?" Heckle says.

"Well, supposing I desire to be a mouse," Jeckle replies. "Click! I'k a mouse..." As he says this he snaps his fingers, and indeed transforms into a mouse, with what might be called a "morphing" effect now. Mouse-Heckle then says, "Supposing I want to exist myself again. Click! I'thou myself again." He snaps his fingers, and turns back to his quondam self. He turns his caput to the left of the screen and leans back with a cocky-satisfied grinning. "Go alee, give me something difficult to do!"

More than up to the challenge, Heckle says, "OK, I like music. I bet yous can't be a one-man band..."

"Why, of grade I can," Jeckle says, and shrinks until he disappears.

He reappears--seeming to "grow" from out of nowhere--in the next scene, his arms raised like a conductor. I rather liked this effect, since it's a bit smoother than an sharp cutting in which he suddenly appears. "Ready?" he says.

A pianoforte appears in front of Jeckle...we see him from the dorsum of the instrument as he pounds out a simple boogie vamp. The piano disappears, seemingly absorbed into the floor. A trombone takes it's place, and Jeckle continues the boogie melody, his trombone pointed up in the air toward the right of the screen. He turns around briefly and faces the viewer holding a violin. It and then dissolves to a set up of drums, and Jeckle plays a lively drum solo.

Heckle, still in bed, jumps upwardly and the camera follows him to the right as he starts to dance. This scene, incidentally, left me wondering if the scene had been retraced from earlier (possibly Mighty Mouse) cartoons, as the trip the light fantastic he was doing looked vaguely familiar. We cutting back to Jeckle on drums--then back to trombone, then a trumpet, and back to drums again. (A missed opportunity here--he could take split into several versions of himself and done a actually frenetic number, Tex Avery-fashion).

Cutting to a medium shot of the bed every bit our heroes hop back in, emerging from the right of the screen.

"Say, that's great!" Heckle says, "How practice you do it?" Jeckle simply shrugs slightly and says, "I just think about it, and and then it happens."

Above: Jeckle, the ane-homo--uh, magpie band....

We hear a dramatic chord on the audio track as Heckle says, "Practice yous suppose I could do information technology?" he says, pointing to himself. The wheels are definitely turning.

"Certainly--what would you like to do?" Jeckle asks.

Jeckle places his finger on peak of his head, thinking for a moment. "I recollect I'd similar to take a bath," he finally decides. With a snap of Jeckle'south fingers, the scene changes and we find them both in a bathtub.

"Boy, this is grand!", Jeckle says, testing the water with his finger. "And but the temperature I like, as well!" The camera bending changes slightly, to a three-quarter view of the tub, as he's saying
this.

Jeckle says, "Would you like to go for a swim now?"

"Boy, I certain would," Jeckle answers. The camera angle changes back to the original medium shot, showing all of the bathtub and our two heroes inside. Jeckle says, "Well, merely lengthen the tub and go ahead..."

They plough to the correct, assuming swimming positons. They swim along in synch with each other, the tub expanding equally they go. (They'd have been a hit at the Olympics if synchronized pond existed then). Eventually it expands beyond the confines of their home: we cutting to an outside shot as the wall cracks and gives way, and the stretching tub pushes through.

Cutting to the sidewalk beneath, where a bulldog cop stands sentry at a corner, twirling his baton club.
(You know, it's impossible to write that without making it sound dirty somehow...) A few drops splash down from the drain of ever-growing tub above him. (Accentuated by a slight musical trill on the sound track).

Looking up at our heroes simply off-photographic camera, the cop shakes his fist and yells, "Hey! What's goin' on upward at that place?"

Cut to Heckle and Jeckle peering over the border of the tub. Spying the cop just out of viewing range, Heckle raises himself up slightly and says, "Uh-oh!" They make a quick retreat back toward their apartment edifice, equally the tub contracts dorsum into the gaping hole in the wall. In one case the tub is dorsum inside, the hole in the wall seals up on its own.

Before the tub fully contracts, yet, 1 terminate drops downward, causing information technology to dump its entire load of water on the poor unsuspecting cop, soaking him. Equally soon as the hole seals up, nosotros cutting apace to the now-drenched cop beneath. Shaking his fist at our unseen heroes, he says, "I'll come up and
get you for this!"

The view changes to Heckle, looking down at the off-camera cop from an open window. "Okay, Primary," he says, pointing down with his finger, "but have the lift."

The confused cop asks, "What elevator?" He doesn't have to wait long for the answer, as a department of the sidewalk on which he'due south standing starts rising in the air. We briefly cut to a shot of the window every bit Jeckle zips within, and the cop zips into screen from the bottom of the frame.

Jeckle'southward quick go out is a dainty little fleck of "smear animation," which comes as a scrap of surprise to me. I didn't know Terrytoons attempted annihilation that unusual--I suspect that detail sequence must accept been animated by Jim Tyer, whose oddball animation style made him that studio's equivalent of Rod Scribner. (Kevin has a few things to say almost Tyer in a future entry). The piece of sidewalk on which the cop stands bends downwardly a flake from the speed, making the bulldog a picayune unsteady on his feet.

A couple of quick cuts here, equally we see Heckle looking at the glowering cop from the interior of the building. He slams the shutter, the blinds and closes the cutain--and so "folds upwards" the window, widthwise and so lengthwise, until information technology disappears. Then to the exterior, where we see Jeckle enter into the scene from around the corner. "How is it upward in that location?" he asks mockingly.

Another quick cut, a "worm's centre" view of the cop, still hovering in midair. "Become me downward outta here!" he screams, fists clenched. Then back to Jeckle beneath, who "wills" a lever to appear, and so pulls it.

Dorsum to the cop above, every bit he plummets downward at incredible speed. The piece of sidewalk heads down so fast, the cop is momentarily suspended in midair, flailing a bit before he lands back onto it. Crouched on all fours, he has a panicked expression equally he peers over the edge.

The cop and the department of sidewalk hit the ground with such forcefulness they terminate upwardly several feet surreptitious. Heckle (or Jeckle, information technology's unclear at this point) slides a wooden box marked DISHES over the gaping hole. We run across brief evidence of a rumbling underneath the box as the cop speeds dorsum upwards--breaking through it, he again rises several stories, struggling to carry about a dozen or so dishes. The section of sidewalk comes to a sudden stop--the deceleration causes the cop to flip caput-over-heels through the air, but he comes back down on his feet, rescuing the dishes.

"Get me down outta here!" the cop repeats to his off-camera tormenters.

Back on the ground, Jeckle, standing to the left of the screen, says "You heard the gentleman..."

Heckle, on the correct, immediately produces a fire fighter-mode ladder, which rises from his ii hands. It vibrates slightly equally it unfolds.

Back now to the cop, even so in midair, as the ladder emerges from the bottom of the frame. He steps gingerly off the floating slice of concrete with his left foot as he continues to balance the dishes.

The piece of sidewalk wobbles slightly as he--only barely--makes it onto the top rung, dishes intact.

Unfortunately, the ladder comes autonomously--the rungs collapse on top of one another as he zooms down, the camera following him all the while. On the footing, Heckle and Jeckle stare up gaping at the disaster about to occur. They duck and put their hands over their eyes every bit nosotros hear an off-photographic camera cymbal crash.Terrytoons nonetheless used musical instruments for the majority of their audio effects, even at this late engagement.

Cut to the dazed cop amid the debris of broken ladder and dishes. A deject of dust rises in the air around him. He slowly rises and and disappears from the right of the frame, re-emerging in the next scene as he approaches the smug-looking magpies. He leans over them, fists clenched.

"Hey! What'southward this all about??" he shouts.

"We're drawing characters," Jeckle says."We can do anything we think of. But watch this..."

He proceeds to brand a fist and waves his hand over information technology like a magician. He flicks his pollex, which immediately "lights" as if it were a match. Cupping his other hand and sticking his other thumb in his mouth, he sticks the flame down into his cupped hand and puffs as if he were smoking a pipage.

Jeckle casually blows some smoke equally the dumbfounded cop looks on.

We cut to a close-upwardly of the cop, who remarks, "Say, that's wonderful!" Unthinkingly, he flicks his own thumb, pointing to it with pride equally it lights, non full aware of what he'south just done. His thumb glows crimson-hot, and the oestrus speedily spreads down to the balance of his manus.

"Hey!" the cop shouts, when he realizes his entire hand has at present outburst into flame. As he waves it frantically to put it out, we get back to Heckle and Jeckle, who scramble effectually in circles yelling
"Water, water!!" Jeckle transforms into a hydrant as Heckle releases the water with a twist of a wrench.

Hydrant-Jeckle releases an enormous cascade of h2o toward the burning cop, the force of which sends the cop back what appears to be several yards.

We cutting back to Heckle and Hydrant-Jeckle. Jeckle transforms dorsum into himself and takes off with Heckle toward the right of the screen every bit the cop comes into view close behind them. We then move to a medium shot of Heckle and Jeckle running, then skidding to a stop. Jeckle morphs into a streetlight, which the pursuing cop instantly slams into, his momentum causing information technology to bend slightly. It snaps back, throwing the cop to the ground.

The streetlight morphs back into Jeckle, who says "Run across what I mean?"

The enraged cop tries to strike Jeckle several tmes with his billy gild, but it has no outcome, going through Jeckle as if he were transparent. The cop momentarily looks at his society, puzzled. Equally he does so, Jeckle suddenly disappears, and a ready of footprints appear on the sidewalk from nowhere. The camera trucks correct every bit the cop follows the moving footprints into an open grassy expanse. "I'm on the right runway at present", he comments to the audience.

How right he is, since a set of railroad tracks immediately announced beneath him. Oblivious, the cop continues sneaking along, and so breaks into a run.

He skids to a cease, gaping in horror at the activity off-screen. Cut to a shot of an anthropomorphic train--complete with "eyes"--barreling toward him. We cut to the cop, fleeing badly to the left, and then skidding to a stop again--hands over his eyes--as the train appears to run over him. He looks downward to discover he's unharmed, and the tracks have disappeared.

Putting his hands on his hips, he remarks to the audience, "I don't get it!" He'll "get information technology," all correct, every bit we cut to a medium shot of Heckle and Jeckle in a rowboat, "rowing" in mid-air. Jeckle sings "Row, Row, Row Your Boat" while Heckle rows, equally we cut again to the cop. The shadow of our heroes' boat can be seen passing directly overhead. The boys' oars hitting the cop on the dorsum of the head, knocking him down. The cop goes into a fighting pose and draws his pistol, shooting at the
offscreen Heckle and Jeckle.

The bullets hit their rowboat, sending information technology falling and our heroes out of frame. 1 can see the 2 large gaping holes in the bottom as information technology plummets. Meanwhile, on the ground, the cop is even so shooting into the air, only to be hit past the falling boat, which smashes to bits over his body.

The impact has forced the cop'due south Keystone Kops-style policeman'due south hat down over his optics, virtually all the way downwards to his bulldog jowls. He pulls the chapeau off his caput and sits at that place in disgust. "It'southward virtually fourth dimension I got some BRAINS knocked into my head," he says.

The cop gets up on his anxiety--we immediately change to a closeup shot of his noggin. Right on
cue, a large hammer appears and raps him several times on the skull. The cop likes it, information technology turns out, as he has a pleased--if somewhat goofy--look on his face. "Do it again! Do information technology once more!" he shouts.

The hammer complies, hitting him a few more times on the head. His head vibrates slightly as thoughts conspicuously enter his listen (more than Tyer blitheness, peradventure?)

"That's it--now I'1000 thinkin'!" he says. We cutting to an extreme closeup of the peak of the cop's head, as nosotros run into the clockwork gears in his brain tick away in a "cutaway" view.

The inner workings of a cartoon character's

mind...

Now "enlightened," the cop throws his pistol off-camera past the left of the frame. In the next shot we see it's grown enormous--it fires shot subsequently shot equally it moves under its ain ability across the screen, from right to left.

We cut once more, this time to a medium shot of the panic-stricken magpies as they're pursued by the gigantic firing pistol. Soon, instead of bullets, a acquit trap emerges from the barrel of the gun, which non only grabs Heckle and Jeckle every bit information technology clamps down, just morphs into a ready of "stocks" on a wheelbarrow, ensnaring our heroes.

"I say, what happened?" the perplexed Jeckle says. "Yeah, what happened?" says Heckle.

Cutting one last time to a close up of the cop, who says, "I'm a cartoon character besides--and I've been doin' some thinkin' myself..." The vindicated cop winks at the audience.

Ah, yes--unlike poor, simple Gandy Goose, the boys are left to ponder their careless use of power equally the cartoon irises out.

CONCLUDING THOUGHTS

"In one of these here cartoon pictures, a torso can get away with anything," says the aged hillbilly of Tex Avery'south A FEUD THERE WAS. The idea of the self-enlightened cartoon character was not new in 1949--Avery, Clampett and others had toyed with information technology in numerous cartoons--simply to Avery, Clampett, et. al., it was nothing more than a throwaway joke. The artists at Terrytoons went i step farther to build an entire cartoon effectually the concept--a fresh, clever twist for that time, especially coming from the likes of Terrytoons.

I must say this cartoon is a pleasant surprise--in my dim memories of decades ago, this cartoon was quite lackluster, simply it proved funnier and more rapid-fire than expected. Old studio hand Eddie Donnelly was no Tex Avery, certainly, but he did a more than than passable job in executing the central premise. There was certainly faster action than I remembered, as well every bit more than "extreme" poses and expressions. The cross-eyed, goofball look on the bulldog cop's face as he shouts "Do information technology over again! Do information technology once more!" is truly a sight to behold. This is THE MAGIC PENCIL done as it ought to have been, minus the faux Victorian melodrama, and with far more than interesting characters. (Terry's curious obsession with Victorian melodrama parodies could probably contain an entire post in itself). As I said in the introduction, it's Fleischeresque "old school" meets Warner's insanity--truly the best of both worlds.

THE Power OF Thought, like the postwar production of every other studio, shows the effect of cutbacks in product: fewer characters per frame, quicker cuts, having action take place off screen rather than on, and much more dialogue. However in Terrytoons' case, such cutbacks led to better cartoons, as the animators were forced to rev up the timing--they couldn't afford to linger on 1 scene very long. Terry's cartoons were now not simply baroque, but the weirdness came at you a mile a minute.

Yet I tin can't seem to milk shake the nagging feeling this cartoon needed something more. More of what, I tin can't exist sure--more gags, faster pacing (though information technology was quite fast every bit it was, at to the lowest degree by Terry standards) more than clever banter--possibly all of those things. The animators seemed at the same time to be restrained, yet champing at the bit to bear witness what they could do. I doubtable Terry'due south often unwelcome interference prevented this cartoon from being as funny every bit it could have been, just as it is, it's one of the rare standouts among a overflowing of mediocrity.

It gives united states a glimpse of the Terrytoons that might take been, had its artists been given as much control as those at Warner'south, MGM and Lantz. (Much every bit the Gene Deitch cartoons would do
years later).

Not bad, onetime top, as Jeckle might accept said.

Tags: Heckle+and+Jeckle, Terrytoons, Paul+Terry, The+Ability+Of+Thought, orphan+toon

mcclellandtakether.blogspot.com

Source: http://orphan-toons.blogspot.com/2007/04/terrytoons-double-bill-part-2-todays.html

Share this post