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Classic Cartoon of the Week: One Froggy Evening

February 6, 2011

I guess I should just go ahead and get this one out of the way. Any discussion of classic Warner Brothers cartoons invariably turns to Chuck Jones' One Froggy Evening (1955), the surprisingly cerebral tale of greed, human nature, luck, and a singing frog. Steven Spielberg referred to One Froggy Evening as "The Citizen Kane of cartoons," and for good reason—it's not just a great cartoon, but stellar filmmaking as well. Note that this cartoon features not one single word of dialogue, only animation and Milt Franklyn's inspired soundtrack.

If for some reason you're unfamiliar with this masterpiece, it concerns a demolition worker who finds a metal box in the cornerstone of a decades-old building he's destroying. Inside the box is a frog who dons a top hat and sings various Tin Pan Alley hits, ragtime songs, and opera arias. The rest of the cartoon follows the worker's descent into madness as he realizes that the frog only performs when he's watching (or does it?).

Classic Cartoon of the Week: Chow Hound

January 30, 2011

I feel sorry for my kids and others these days, since they don't have ready exposure to the classic cartoons that we grew up watching. As every cartoon connoisseur knows, the best classic cartoons—the only ones, perhaps—are those produced by Warner Brothers during the post-war Golden Age of Cartoons. In the late '40s and 1950s, the Warner Brothers animation crew elevated cartoon shorts to a high art unsurpassed by anyone to this day (sorry Pixar).

Fortunately for us, YouTube has tons of Warner Brothers Cartoons hidden amongst its offerings. I've decided to showcase some of my favorites to create an online cartoon museum of sorts that you can share with your kids so they don't grow up deprived.

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