Tex Avery

Tex Avery

In my opinion the father of the modern day cartoon.
I came across him whilst researching for my self-directed project. I was following the story of Hollywood's golden age of animation. After reading about Disney I found it to be very impressive technically and I have great respect for the animators, I didn't really get inspired and exited about it.

However when I discovered Tex Avery's work, and more impressively his attitude to animating and I was blown away.
I loved the way he thought about his cartoons, his attitude was why create realism in something that isn’t real. Watching a documentary on the life of Tex, some of his ex employees spoke of him always trying to ensure the audience never forgets there watching a motion picture.

This comes through very obviously at the beginning of one of his early cartoons, ‘Red Hot Riding Hood’.

you can watch the short Here

At the beginning the tale of ‘little red ridding hood’ starts out as you may expect, until the wolf interrupts the narrator, shortly joined by the rest of the characters all demands a different angle on the story just like a bunch of artistically restricted actors. The story then begins again within the setting of the New York Nightlife. Little Red Riding Hood is a strip tease, the Wolf is a successful businessman on a night out, and grandma is a nymphomaniac.

The story deals with sex, lust, violence, suicide, irony and delivers real humour to the gags because non of them are possible in real life.

Tex's 'attitude' towards animation is also shown in a screwy the Squirrel cartoon.

This can be Found Here

In this short, Tex couldn't have mad a more direct dig towards Disney's style and philosophy. The most clear and apparent thing about this is the difference in style between a Disney squirrel and Tex's. Tex's squirrel then goes on to beat up the cute, fluffy, friendly Disney squirrel to the delight of the audience.

Tex is famed for many famous characters, including Bugs Bunny, Droopy, Red, the wolf and many nameless but instantly recognisable faces.