Alright! Confession Time! What's YOUR "Guilty Pleasure?"

[LizzieMaine]

Well, y'know, it's a comic book. Not Marvel or even DC, but the kind you read back when you were 10. (Harvey Comics, Baby Huey or Casper, that sort of thing.)

I may be the only person living who actually enjoyed Baby Huey cartoons. The animation was passable, and the story values were nil, but Sid Raymond's Baby Huey voice was, when I was 10, the acme of hilarity. That was one of the first comedy voices I learned to imitate, and decades later I was actually cast to play a duck in an animated film using a simulacrum of that voice -- imagine my disappointment when the financing fell thru and the film was never made. There will likely never again in my lifetime be a chance for me to make money imitating Baby Huey.

 

[scottyrocks]

I take pleasure in many things, but none I feel guilty about.

If I think of anything that makes the guilt run thick (or thin), I'll let you know.

 

[Worf]

I'd like to file a "friend of the court" brief advocating that no further prosecution be considered.
If "B and B" was actually about the lives of two idiot slackers, prosecution would be justified. The fact that is a well-thought-out parody/satire of two idiot slackers actually takes it out of the "guilty pleasure" category.
I even used in my engineering-design class an episode of B and B in which they invent "The next big thing - The Buttscratcher 2000" - using a bent coathanger.
Believe it or not, it had most of the aspects of the engineering design process portrayed in a humorous way.

"Hrrmmm, hrmmmmm, (mumble). We have heard your plea and while this court admires your well thought out brief... the heinous nature of the crime requires further deliberation. Ah shall retire to my chambers and watch said episode and revisit this case at a later date. But be warned if the Court loses any brain cells in the process the case shall be reopened and you Sir named as a co-conspirator in the process. Hearing adjourned till a later date."

Worf (Man this robe itches!)

 

[Worf]

Your honor, really I wasn't watching ...it was kinda on in the background as my crazy, cross eyed Uncle Jeb was watching it. Honest. But that Walker Texas Ranger was so well written and the acting was so goood that I just couldn't turn away. Dang!

Are you mockin' this Court son???? (The Judge casts his eyes sideways and two vitamin fed bailiffs slowly approach the accused from both sides).

Judge (you've been amply warned) Worf

 

[Worf]

I take pleasure in many things, but none I feel guilty about.

If I think of anything that makes the guilt run thick (or thin), I'll let you know.

Methinks he doth protest too much!

Da Judge

 

[EngProf]

Mike Judge, creator of B&B, and a truly gifted comedy writer/performer, actually holds a degree in physics, putting to lie the stereotype that scientists have no sense of humor. You have to be very very smart to come up with characters that convincingly dumb.

As an engineer, one of my more enjoyable duties in life is to make fun of physicists. However, I wasn't aware that there was a stereotype that they (or scientists in general) had no sense of humor.

(Engineers look down on physicists because they are too theoretical. Physicists look down on engineers because they are too practical. The only way that both types can look down on each other simultaneously is if space-time is curved.)

 

[Edward]

I confess to occasionally watching Sabrina the Teenage Witch. Not too puzzling, as Melissa Joan Hart and Beth Broderick were both cute; the show was crisply edited and directed; and they gave Nick Bakay, as Salem, some of the funniest lines in sitcoms (at least in the '90s).

I was a big fan of Salem too. I used to get a real kick out of how they would use a real black cat to do the running sequences, then cut back to the cat puppet that was in no way, shape or form (other thsn being a black cat) remotely a lookalike. I was more attracted to the aunts than abrina and her pals, though - but then I was in my early twenties by the time it ended.

Mike Judge, creator of B&B, and a truly gifted comedy writer/performer, actually holds a degree in physics, putting to lie the stereotype that scientists have no sense of humor. You have to be very very smart to come up with characters that convincingly dumb.

Completely. It's why the Ramones were geniuses. Of course, if they hadn't existed, somebody like Mike Judge would probably have invented them.

 

[scottyrocks]

Methinks he doth protest too much!

Da Judge

Protest? Where?

 

[ChiTownScion]

I may be the only person living who actually enjoyed Baby Huey cartoons. The animation was passable, and the story values were nil, but Sid Raymond's Baby Huey voice was, when I was 10, the acme of hilarity. That was one of the first comedy voices I learned to imitate, and decades later I was actually cast to play a duck in an animated film using a simulacrum of that voice -- imagine my disappointment when the financing fell thru and the film was never made. There will likely never again in my lifetime be a chance for me to make money imitating Baby Huey.

All of the Harveytoons were pretty inane, although some of Casper were passable. I could tell (even as a kid) that the MGM (especially Tex Avery) and Warner Brothers toons were originally written with adult audiences in mind... but the Harvey characters always seemed to "talk down" to kids, at least as I saw it. I always felt that if Baby Huey had been hit by a car while chasing after the other ducklings that no one but his parents would have shed a tear.

 

[LizzieMaine]

It's even more disturbing to realize that a lot of the people who produced those cartoons were the same people who, twenty years earlier, were the rank and file of the Fleischer studio. Seymour Knietel, the head of production at Famous Studios when these were being made, was Max Fleischer's son-in-law. "Schmendrick! That you should produce such drek!"

 

[ChiTownScion]

It's even more disturbing to realize that a lot of the people who produced those cartoons were the same people who, twenty years earlier, were the rank and file of the Fleischer studio. Seymour Knietel, the head of production at Famous Studios when these were being made, was Max Fleischer's son-in-law. "Schmendrick! That you should produce such drek!"

Did the Fleischers run a sweat shop? I had read that they moved the operation to Florida to avoid dealing with unionizing.

 

[LizzieMaine]

Papa Max had a paternalist view of the help -- he took good care of his favorites, like Knietel, Willard Bowsky, Dave Tendlar, and Doc Crandall, but the little people, the inbetweeners and the ink-and-paint girls, were kept in their place, so to speak, at pay rates around $15 a week, and they're the ones who were involved in the strike in 1937. Max took it personally -- how could these people do it to ME? -- and he was completely unwilling to negotiate, much like Disney, who had precisely the same mindset about his staff, would be in 1941.

The mood in New York being what it was at the time -- ardently pro-labor -- it wasn't too hard for the strikers to get a boycott of the studio's films going, and Paramount demanded that something be done, assuming Max would settle, agree to a contract, and all would be well. Instead, he fired fifteen of the leading union members, and hired some hoods to infiltrate and break up union meetings. The union retaliated by letting off stink bombs -- they were cartoonists, after all -- at theatres where Fleischer cartoons were showing. THe situation got so rough between the two sides that Mayor LaGuardia himself insisted on giving the pickets police protection.

The strike was finally settled afer six months, but Max neither forgave nor forgot. He immediately made plans to move the studio out of New York, knowing that most of the union leaders were New Yorkers thru and thru and would not want to make the move. He built his new studio in Miami on a big loan from Paramount, but in doing so he sowed the seeds of his own destruction: Parmount got sick of the poor managment at the studio and called the loan in 1941, and that was the end of that.

I'd have to say that because of all this, Fleischer cartoons are a guilty pleasure for me. Some of the work in them is brilliant, but I can't get the stink of 1937-38 fully out of my head when watching them.

 

[ChiTownScion]

I'd have to say that because of all this, Fleischer cartoons are a guilty pleasure for me. Some of the work in them is brilliant, but I can't get the stink of 1937-38 fully out of my head when watching them.

The early (pre- Code) Betty Boop features, and the early ones with Popeye muttering puns (Ex: After removing Swee' Pea's facial features with ink remover.. "Take that blank expression off yer face..") were priceless.

 

[Doctor Strange]

Of course, apart from the magnificent Superman cartoons, the Fleischers' best work was already behind them by the time they moved the operation to Florida.

A couple of years ago I treated myself to all 100+ b/w Popeye cartoons on DVD (a steal for like $50 at Amazon!)... and while there was still plenty of great stuff in the early Florida days (even with the switchover to the more suburban backgrounds and deco-streamlined look, not to mention changes in the voice cast), it can't hold a candle to the peak Popeyes of the mid-thirties, when one unique masterwork after another rolled out regularly. And as for the changes in the series in 1942 after the war began - not to mention the Fleischers ouster and start of Famous Studios by the end of that year - wow, there's some really odd and depressing stuff there.

Amazing trivia tidbit I always have to mention: One of comics giant Jack Kirby's first jobs was as an inbetweener on Popeye, etc. at the NYC Fleischer studio. He didn't enjoy it, he found it too much like a factory... but it was a master class in draftsmanship and the principles of motion. Anyone who wonders where Kirby developed his ability to imbue a still image with a remarkable sense of movement (envision any panel with Thor flying behind the hammer, Cap fighting and leaping, all those dynamic poses that somehow exude strength), need only look to his apprenticeship on the spinach-gulping superhero!

 

[MisterCairo]

I miss American Hoggers and Cajun Justice...

 

[Fading Fast]

Of course, apart from the magnificent Superman cartoons, the Fleischers' best work was already behind them by the time they moved the operation to Florida.

A couple of years ago I treated myself to all 100+ b/w Popeye cartoons on DVD (a steal for like $50 at Amazon!)... and while there was still plenty of great stuff in the early Florida days (even with the switchover to the more suburban backgrounds and deco-streamlined look, not to mention changes in the voice cast), it can't hold a candle to the peak Popeyes of the mid-thirties, when one unique masterwork after another rolled out regularly. And as for the changes in the series in 1942 after the war began - not to mention the Fleischers ouster and start of Famous Studios by the end of that year - wow, there's some really odd and depressing stuff there.

Amazing trivia tidbit I always have to mention: One of comics giant Jack Kirby's first jobs was as an inbetweener on Popeye, etc. at the NYC Fleischer studio. He didn't enjoy it, he found it too much like a factory... but it was a master class in draftsmanship and the principles of motion. Anyone who wonders where Kirby developed his ability to imbue a still image with a remarkable sense of movement (envision any panel with Thor flying behind the hammer, Cap fighting and leaping, all those dynamic poses that somehow exude strength), need only look to his apprenticeship on the spinach-gulping superhero!

What year was the move to Florida? I ask, because I was wondering if it was before or after the general adoption of air-conditioning. If before, it's hard to see why anyone would move a business to be in that hot, humid environment unless for health reasons (at the time, some doctors recommended Florida for certain respiratory ailment).

 

[LizzieMaine]

Early 1938. An air conditioning system was installed in the new studio, which was quite an improvement over conditions in New York -- the studio there was in a building at 1600 Broadway, where the only ventilation was electric fans, open windows, and transoms. Over a hundred people worked at that studio at its peak, crammed in like garment workers. It truly was a sweatshop.

The Fleischers only had the Miami complex for a little over three years -- Paramount moved them back to New York as soon as they could manage it after taking over the studio. The buildings still exist, and are used today by the Miami Police Department.

 

[Fading Fast]

Early 1938. An air conditioning system was installed in the new studio, which was quite an improvement over conditions in New York -- the studio there was in a building at 1600 Broadway, where the only ventilation was electric fans, open windows, and transoms. Over a hundred people worked at that studio at its peak, crammed in like garment workers. It truly was a sweatshop.

The Fleischers only had the Miami complex for a little over three years -- Paramount moved them back to New York as soon as they could manage it after taking over the studio. The buildings still exist, and are used today by the Miami Police Department.

⇧ This information was brought to you by Lizziepedia - a more informative and user friendly version of the better-known Wikipedia.

Kidding aside, how you know all this stuff is amazing and thank you for being so generous in your willingness to share.

 

[Stearmen]

The Good Witch!

 

[GHT]

Not so much a guilty pleasure as Fedora Lounge heresy.
"I don't own a single piece of denim."
Nor can I ever remember owning anything in denim.
Are you still talking to me?