Friz Freleng Animation Direction Spotlight

Beyond good, beyond evil, beyond your wildest

imagination. And here we are, folks, at the famous

Polo Browns. It's been a one -sided, knock -down,

drag -em -out ball game right from the very first

inning. With the visiting team, the Birdie Gas

House Gorillas, giving the home team, the T -Totallers,

a shal - they'll never forget. Baseball fans,

oh! There goes the screaming liner into the field.

Home team hasn't a chance, but they're in there

punching nevertheless. I'm only 93 and a half

years old. I meant to say strike. Hello and welcome

to Tooncast Beyond's animation direction spotlight.

I am one of your hosts, TM John Mike, and joining

me is TV's Mr. Neil. I'm the roughest, toughest,

T -Man stuffest ombre that ever crossed the Rio

Grande, and I ain't no Namby Pamby. I can't believe

I got through that without stuttering. T -t -t

-t -t -t -t -t -t -t -t -t -t -t -t -t -t -today,

Junior. So, this is the fourth overall, I think,

for Animation Direction. Yes, ladies and gentlemen,

I can't count. Yay. Yes, this is the fourth episode

out of twelve. And today, tonight, whenever you're

listening to this, we're going to be talking

about the man, the myth, the legend, the guy

who has a drink named after him, Mr. Frizz Freeling.

I always remember, I don't remember the short,

but I remember seeing his name on a drink sign

in one of the cartoons and then I saw the same

sign except it was upside down in one of them.

Yeah, Frizz Freeling, he, one of the founding

fathers of Looney Tunes, has had some of his

tunes are some of the funniest. Yeah, he's he's

kind of a chameleon almost whenever whenever

you think of like the great Looney Tunes cartoons

you always think of clamp it or Tex Avery or

or even Chuck Jones, but then there's this guy

and he did so much he First of all, he he he

didn't particularly like Elmer Fudd, but he did

create a bunch of great characters to use in

place of Elmer such as most importantly Yosemite

himself. Yeah Yosemite Sam He also He also created

the The Tasmanian Devil he only did one Tasmanian

Devil cartoon and then the rest when the rest

of them were all Robert McKimson But that's a

shame. Yeah That he only did one. Yeah, he did

the lion's share of the the the Tweety bird cartoons

So, yeah. Go ahead. There's not a lot... I know

this is gonna be sacrilege here, but... I've

seen so many Sylvester and Tweety cartoons over

the years. I think the only one that I still

absolutely love, and I don't even think it was

Frizz that did it, was Birds Anonymous. I don't

know what it is. They are great. They were great

when I was a kid, but... I don't know I just

don't see I know Sylvester and Tweety are classic

but like I prefer the ones where it's like Sylvester

and son and it's them going up against a kangaroo

which I think is a giant mouse and that kind

of like I that's the Sylvester cartoon that I

like I will take that back there is one Dr. Jekyll

and Tweety hide or whatever it is. Oh, yeah.

I love that one. But Frizz, he has, I mean, I

mean, these guys put out and these are we all

know these are shorts, but these guys put out

a lot. You know, people say I've put out a lot

of podcasts in the six years I've been podcasting

in the time that these guys had. as directors

and producers. Frizz has 332 directorial credits

and he has 355 producer credits. Just think about

that, 300 and something cartoons in 20, 30 year

span. That's amazing. That's an achievement in

and of itself. He and Chuck Jones really did

the lion's share of the cartoons after the war,

after Schlesinger left. And I think they had

recommended, there was a conspiracy theory that

they had recommended Robert McKimson being given

a directorial role, you know, to kind of have

someone that really couldn't compete with them.

But you know, McKimson did okay. Everybody rats

on Bob McKimson. He has done some of my favorite

Bugs Bunny cartoons. Well, we'll get to that.

Yeah, yeah, I mean, well, no, I know, I know,

but I'm saying like, I remember when you and

I first started coming up with this whole spotlight,

you're like, I don't know how long I can talk

about McKimson. Well, there is the farmhouse,

the farmland characters. Those are okay. Yeah

But you know frizz, you know the harebrained

hypnotist the sheepish wolf What what are the

ones is he most famous for Rookie review notes

to you There's so many different ones that he

has done I Think one of my absolute favorites

though is um uh is it uh it's uh where is it

oh god so many oh here we go um hairdo i love

hairdo hairdo is awesome because he's hunting

he's um oh he's hunting elmer is hunting for

wow probably the only one that one of the only

ones that frizz directed that has elmer in it

hunts for bugs with a army surplus wabbit detector

i love that one is that one of the ones with

fat elmer because i know he did two fat elmer

cartoons um no i think that's regular elmer okay

i think i wish itunes give me the dates on these

other than when they actually released but um

You know, it's just it's just one of those things

where he is such an interesting gray, especially

the the Bugs Bunny Yosemite stuff Yeah, I think

the one that that I I always that always comes

to mind for me is nighty night bugs. Yep Where

the drawbridge keeps falling on him? I Demand

you open this door right now you honorary critter

I absolutely love that. I think... You're a stupid

dragon. Yeah, you stupid, idgit dragon. I'm trying

to see here if... yeah. Let's see. Or the one

where he's a pirate and Bugs keeps throwing the

match down in the gunpowder room. I ain't going

to get it again. But I have to say, I would be

remiss without mentioning this one, because it

is one of my number one favorite all -time Bugs

Bunny cartoons. Baseball Bugs. Oh, yes. Baseball

Bugs was amazing. Every joke in that in that

cartoon is amazing you know the there's a screamer

going into left field and the ball starts screaming

uh one of the outfielders going back i got it

i got it i got it grave pops up he got it i love

baseball bugs he also did showbiz bugs which

is interesting i think that's one of the ones

where lolly interviews bugs um I forget what

her... It was one of the Foray characters, because

we all know that it wasn't just Mel. Oh, yeah.

Even though Mel... He had an exclusive contract

where he only got... Right. I mean, Mel Blank

would have been a super genius if he could sound

like June Foray. You know? I mean, this is just

absolutely hilarious. What other ones from Frizz

do you really enjoy? Unfortunately, I don't know

as many of them by name as I do with the other

directors. You know, I really do like the Tweety

and Sylvester cartoons. They're a little too

close to Tom and Jerry, but they're still funny.

Well, there's a difference. Sylvester and Tweety

talk. Yeah, that's true. Let's let's say okay

sure later when Chuck went to and we're not talking

about Chuck this time around but when he did

get later go to Created his own studio and did

his own version of Tom and Jerry those were more

Looney tunes. I mean there was several times

where Jerry made the time Jerry each made noises

that I think were both also provided by Mel But

yeah, Chuck is the last one in this thing. I'm

looking at my iTunes thing here, and I don't

know what it is with seasons one and two of Bugs

Bunny on iTunes, but they're all... Almost all

of them except Baseball Bugs and Chill Biz Bugs

are Chuck. But Friz, you know, he did some amazing

work. He went to MGM in 1937. You know, he was

going to direct for MGM's cartoon studio, headed

by Fred Quimby. He found he would be working

on the Captain and the Kids adapted from the

popular comic strip, the Katzenjammer. kids.

The series failed to achieve much success, much

as Freeling had predicted. Though skillfully

animated, the characters could not compete in

the funny animals and the prevailed in the time.

And then he went back to Schlesinger. Is this

where you ought? Yep. You ought to be in pictures.

Right. Anybody who's anybody who grew up on Looney

Tunes or ever saw a Bugs Bunny or porky pig or

daffy dot cartoon you ought to watch this one

because oh my god this is hilarious i love you

ought to be in pictures one of the very rare

times that there was live action in the looney

tunes universe right and it was quite a feat

to do that back then i mean this was way before

uh roger rabbit oh yeah absolutely um Wait a

second I thought Mike Maltese wrote this one.

Um It says Jack Miller, I don't know could be

a wiki flub, but but You ought to be in pictures

actually Actually has Mike Maltese in it, right?

He was the the security guard, right? Security

guard. Yep, but it's not his voice. That's Mel

of course Oh, man. So, Frizz, as you said, kind

of started the whole thing with Bugs and Yosemite

Sam. I don't understand Sam's obsession with

hating rabbits. I mean, I know it's just in human

nature to hate rabbits, but I don't get why he

hates him. Think it's just because Sam is an

outlaw and bugs just routinely made a fool of

him Yeah, that could be it because every cartoon

he's in he just kind of like walks into a bar

or something and there's bugs and then bugs just

Proceeds to humiliate him from the beginning

Yeah Oh Wow, he did Homeless Homer 1929 Wow That's

that's interesting. Yeah So here he also worked

at Disney for a very brief time yeah, because

he's credited with a He's unc well, he's also

uncredited with a Bosco cartoon. Yeah, I wouldn't

want my name on that either Pigs is Pigs, 1937.

The fellow with the fiddle. You know, I mean,

he's done so many cool things. I still gotta

go back to baseball bugs though. That's probably

my favorite Freeling tune. And you're right,

he did obviously most of the... the war stuff

and which is fine you know you've got um big

house bunny uh let's see a stooge for a mouse

uh canary row bunker hill bunny i think i remember

bunker hill bunny is that the one where bugs

joins the the military i think so uh fight it

out in the little known american revolutionary

war battle of Battle of Bagel Heights What always

kind of confused me was because I had always

heard his name as Frizz Freeling when I start

seeing the cartoons showed as director I Freeling

Because that's his yeah Isidore's his real name

Yeah, that's Schlesinger again requiring that

he uses his real name Yep 14 carat rabbit love

that one. That's the one where he and Yeah, that's

the one where he and Sam go gold hunting and

because Bugs goes crazy every time he's near

gold and once Sam finds out about this and he

tries to exploit it and Bugs leads him into the

worst trap you could ever be in if you're a gold

hunter You never want to dig at Fort Knox. Oh,

yeah. Man, that's so hilarious. You know, Frizz

didn't just do, you know, like I said, he was

at MGM, but he didn't just do Bugs Bunny and

Looney Tunes stuff. He also did a lot of the

Pink Panther stuff later. Yeah, he and the Patty

opened up their own studio. Mm -hmm Yep and You

know, I love a lot of the old pink panther stuff.

I really do What oh I was no I was just reading

the the article here. Um Yeah, I was just thinking

that we have a separate spotlight for David H

to Patty but I give a Feeling that like we're

gonna say everything that needs to be said about

him right here because yeah pretty much because

these two basically worked in tandem until Marvel

bought the studio and then proceeded to create

Transformers and GI Joe Wait Marvel bought the

Patty studios. Yep. Yep, that's they turned it

into Sunbow They didn't turn it into Sunbow Sunbow

is always a separate entity, but okay It became

it became Marvel Productions and to Patty stayed

on for a little while and while freeze -frieling

retired so Yeah, so that's why some of the later

Pink Panther cartoons are actually credited as

being done by Marvel Studios and if you look

in the credits some of them even have Nelson

Shin as an animator So yeah So there's a there's

a direct link from the looney tunes right to

The 80s our childhood Well, you know sludge did

have that moment. Mm -hmm I bet Nelson Shin boarded

that segment when Devastator crushes sludge and

he has the Looney Tunes I pop out moment Probably

not. I think that was I think no that the yeah,

that's just been like Some some animator having

fun. Yeah He's got, um... You know, Schlesinger

had a hands -off attitude towards his animators,

which allowed Freeling and his fellow directors

almost complete creative control and room to

experiment with cartoon -comedy styles, which

allowed the studio to keep pace with the Disney

studio's technical superiority. Freeling's style

quickly matured, and he became a master of comic

timing, often working alongside layout artist

Howley Pratt. He also introduced or redesigned

a number of famous Warner Brothers characters,

including Yosemite Sam, Sylvester and Tweety,

as we've already said, and Speedy Gonzales! There's

a character that I don't see a lot of cartoons

for on Boomerang right now. Yeah, because he's

kind of politically incorrect. Kind of the same

thing with the Frito Bandito. So I think Freeling

also designed... if I'm not mistaken. Frito Bandito

was the spokesperson or the spokesperson for

the Frito chips and after a while some parents

groups got kind of upset and even though I think

both Frito Bandito and Speedy Gonzalez were kind

of popular in the Hispanic community and Speedy

Gonzalez is still popular. He is, he is. Always

love those speedy cartoons. And then they had

to introduce Slowpoke. That was hilarious. Slowpoke

Rodriguez. He has a gun. Now, Freeling in his

later career before he passed away... He was

the executive producer on three 80s Looney Tunes

compilation features, which linked together several

of the classic shorts with new animated sequences.

The ones he produced were the Looney Looney Bugs

Bunny movie, or Looney Looney Looney Bugs Bunny

movie in 81, Bugs Bunny 3rd movie, 1001 Rabbit

Tales in 82, and Daffy Duck's Fantastic Island.

now these used to drive me nuts not because i

didn't enjoy watching them but because i i instantly

knew that they were like made up of like pre

-existing cartoons and everyone else i knew like

didn't see that for some reason i was like i'm

like that's an old cartoon and they're like what

i some of the some of the kids i knew when i

was young are really stupid or didn't watch cartoons

apparently It's like I was already like studying

cartoons and like I guess no one really I Hate

to say this, but I guess like kids were really

weren't watching them or something I Don't know

What's so interesting to me is to see How they

did the cutarounds because I've seen Transylvania

six five thousand outside of A Thousand and One...

Not A Thousand and One Rabbit Tales. Quackbusters.

I've seen it outside of Quackbusters. It's interesting

to see what the original cartoon was compared

to what they put in the movies. I... I always...

I could never tell the new animation, like, what

they put in. I could, just because the color

composition would be off. And the voices were,

I mean, because you have an older Mel Blanc.

And especially like characters like Bugs and

Daffy were in the old cartoons, they would speed

them up. And in the compilation movies, they

wouldn't. So Daffy's voice would be noticeably

lower than it would be in the old cartoons. So

that was another thing. I'm just like, what the

hell is going on here? Why are the voices so

different? I mean, I know he's older, but that

shouldn't matter that much. Yeah, it was that

they were they were speeding them up in the old

cartoons Hmm interesting, I wonder how that went

though like what was the process for that like

did they just use Did they just fast -forward

the tape or Well, yeah, it was just they would

just play the the tape back at a different speed.

I mean that was pretty common They did that with

a lot of characters just to hide the voices.

If you only have five guys on the staff, there

are a lot of different things you could do to

mask the voice. In Warner Brothers' case, we

only have one guy, plus maybe on an off day,

you might have been co -starring with Dawes Butler

or I don't know who else, June Ferre. Right,

yeah. I think the thing that I hear most said

about Fritz Freling is how he always had that

very short temper, hence why Yosemite Sam came

to light. I mean, that's always, I've always

heard that. I mean... Which I don't understand

why the guy had such a short temper I mean if

he was left to do whatever he wanted to do it

You know at Looney Tunes and Leon didn't bother

him or his animators They should have gotten

along perfectly. I don't know maybe his attention

to detail or something. Maybe that that's what

it was but At least he had enough a sense of

humor about himself that he would parody himself

Yeah So awesome What else you want to say about

frizz? Well, we only briefly mentioned the pink

panther cartoons the pink panther was was actually

just going it was just going to be a movie done

by what was it it was a MGM I think and They

were going to hire the animation team to do an

intro cartoon and they did I think they did the

intro cartoon on every Single movie except for

the two remakes Obviously because you know both

guys are dead now Yeah, they came up with the

Pink Panther character, and then they co -owned

the character with the movie studio. And then

they added a bunch of their own cartoon characters

to kind of flesh it out, like the Inspector,

which was kind of loosely based on the Inspector

Clouseau character. There were other cartoons

that were, I guess, produced apart from Pink

Panther, but you always see them kind of... kind

of linked in yeah lumped in like the Ant in the

Yard Vark and uh I love the Ant in the Yard Vark

Hoot Clute and uh Roland and Rat Fink mm -hmm

yeah I absolutely love the Ant in the Yard Vark

though those are some of the funniest ones um

and then you've got the Pink Panther cartoons

that it's Well, most of the pink panther cartoons

it's him versus some Old white care cartoon character.

Yeah, and not like white as an ethic. I mean

like actually No, he is white color is white.

Yeah, I think the one I remember the most off

the top of my head is the one where they're doing

the guy is trying to plant flowers and he's planting

yellow flowers and pink panther sees this and

Goes behind him and plants pink ones and he keeps

getting frustrated more frustrated as it goes

along So, yeah You know frizz and the pink panther,

you know, I think they started some sort of new

pink panther thing now Like I know there's the

two remakes with Steve Martin for the for the

live -action films, but Something like pink panther

and his pals or something or other. I don't know

if that's just an old repackaging or I know that

they did a couple of revivals in recent years

and It's kind of like it's kind of like the screwball

squirrel revival or it's like you really don't

watch it Then there's a pink panther and Sun

which is a mid 80s revival of sorts and it was

from what I remember it was okay, but it was

like It was basically like it was almost Muppet

Babies ish if I don't know if you kind of get

what I'm going No, I know you're going because

like all the characters are talk and it's just

the Pink Panther You would kind of come in like

for like a cameo for you know, whatever it wasn't

really a Pink Panther cartoon per se it was like

something completely different, but it was animated

all right for the 80s You know the one I'm talking

about Lasted from March 7th to August 23rd 2010

and is currently airing on boomerang He's had

the voices of Kel Mitchell. Oh my god Kenan and

Kel um Eddie Garvar and Alex newson bomb Trying

to see executive producer David Corbett Basically

seven seven minute segments 21 minute episodes

It was done by Rubicon studios and MGM television.

Mm -hmm So it was about four years ago And the

funny thing is I'm just noticing this now because

they're showing it on Boomerang Cartoon Networks

retro show channel whatever and I thought it

was something like new like to this year It's

not apparently But no frizz he led an amazing

life he had an amazing career He's one of the

most loved Out of the Looney Tunes directors.

Oh, yeah, I do know that what is it? two or three

shorts, Jones dedicated to Frizz's memory. I

read that somewhere recently where Frizz, Chuck

Jones had dedicated a couple of shorts to him.

But yeah, I mean, Frizz Freling was one honoree

son bitch, and he was awesome. And unlike Bob

Clampett, he stayed, he stayed working pretty

much up until, uh, up until he retired. Yep.

Pretty much. He was, he was never really out

of the spotlight. You know, well, kind of because,

you know, in the, like I said on, on another

episode, you know, during the eighties, um, their

names are kind of not really well known. Like

people, people like would, I don't know. It was

something weird. Weird thing about the eighties

is that like the whole dedication to the directors,

it's just kind of like de -emphasized. You never

really heard about who Chuck Jones was during

that era. The only names you really knew were

Hanna -Barbera because they put their names on

the studio. Yeah. I mean, and honestly, we'll

get into them, but it's one of those things where

half of the Hanna -Barbera, Tom and Jerry cartoons,

it says at the very end of it, produced by Fred

Quimby. So I always thought as a kid I always

thought oh well that's the guy that's in charge

is That's the last thing you see on a credit

roll is the you know the last person you know

director Whatever, but he was always credited

as producer because obviously Hannah and Barbara

directed the stuff If you guys want to, so since

Neil brought up the fact that we do have a separate

episode planned for Dupati, but since we've pretty

much talked about him this episode. If you guys

want to hear me curse for 30 minutes, I guess

we could throw in Deutsch. Or do we have, do

we have one for Walter Lance? Cause we might've.

No, no, we can put him in the hands. Okay. That's

fine with me. He's got an interesting career.

That's fine with me. That'll work. All right,

what do you got going on over at the superhero

sexy pants comic? That is still on hiatus, but

I'm very close to getting new pages done I had

a computer meltdown a couple of weeks ago, and

I'm I had a couple commissions I needed to do

and that's been taking up my time so yeah, that's

gonna be coming back very shortly plus I have

a I have a holiday special coming up for the

end of the year and thankfully I'm not doing

all the pages for that. So I've been giving a

very nice reprieve from having to do all the

pages. That's cool, that's cool. What do you

guys got coming up over at AA? Well, we keep

doing episodes and we keep skipping the Sailor

Moon app, which we have done. It's just that

something else will come up and we... We put

that out. So I think the Sailor Moon episode

is gonna be coming out fairly shortly based on

the new series not the original because I think

yeah, we already did an original sailor episode

Yeah, so yeah, we spoiler alert. We weren't very

impressed with the new sailor Alright so next

week next time we come around We're going to

be talking about the man, the myth, the Foghorn

Leghorn with Mr. Bob McKimson. Oh, yeah. That

dog, I keep throwing him. You keep missing him.

Are you listening to me, dog? I found a YouTube

clip that was like the best of Foghorn Leghorn.

I'm like, perfect. I can pull all the audio right

off of that. Awesome. All right. We will catch

you next time institutions to leave the theater

for this performance likes thank you some appropriate

music maestro thank you first i drink a generous

portion of gasoline then some nitroglycerine

a goodly amount of gunpowder some uranium two

Boyfriend swallow the man