In 1991 I was asked by the good people at the Juste pour Rire/Just for Laughs Comedy Festival in Montreal, Canada if I could produce an event for then that would feature animation. I immediately proposed an evening of the funniest Hollywood cartoons ever made. Great they said, we’ll run it for a week, what are they? Damn if I know, I said, it’s probably a matter of opinion, so how about I poll some people who might have interesting opinions about what are the top ten funniest Hollywood cartoons. Great, they said, go to it. So I did, polling such people as filmmakers, both live action (Martin Scorsese) and animation (Richard Williams), comedians (Richard Belzer), and journalists (Tom Shales). All responded with enthusiasm and strong opinions. I gathered the votes and ranked the films by the number of votes each one got and came up with the list. I helped the Festival book the films, and the festival rented the wonderful Rialto Theater, a classic old movie house, which I hope is still there.
On opening night of The Top Ten Funniest Hollywood Cartoons of All time we had a line around the block to get in and a full house.
I introduced the show, somehow being daring — or stupid — enough in a town crawling with the best standup comedians in the world, to try a little standup routine myself. I did not, as the saying goes, “kill” but I didn’t do that bad either. My biggest laugh came when I was talking about other top ten lists, giving examples, one of which was: The Top Ten Canadians Wines. If you know anything about Canadian wines you’ll get the joke. I told the audience that the number one Canadian wine (whine) was, What do you mean we’re out of beer?
I introduced the show, somehow being daring — or stupid — enough in a town crawling with the best standup comedians in the world, to try a little standup routine myself. I did not, as the saying goes, “kill” but I didn’t do that bad either. My biggest laugh came when I was talking about other top ten lists, giving examples, one of which was: The Top Ten Canadians Wines. If you know anything about Canadian wines you’ll get the joke. I told the audience that the number one Canadian wine (whine) was, What do you mean we’re out of beer?
Fortunately for subsequent audiences of the show I only did the introduction on the opening night. The show was so popular, the Rialto ran it for three weeks after the festival was over.
I returned to the festival the next year with The Top Ten Toons in Tune, a show of musical cartoons with Tom Kenny (now the voice of Sponge Bob Square Pants) doing the standup on opening night, and I continued to produce shows for Just for Laughs until 1996, including one on The Simpsons, and a tribute to producer-director Ivan Reitman. But that first show was the best.
I wrote a short essay on the show for the Rialto’s in-house paper, and you’ll find it below as well as the list of advisors and, finally, the list itself —
THE TOP TEN FUNNIEST HOLLYWOOD CARTOONS OF ALL TIME!!!! As of 1991, at least.
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Okay, just how do you chose the ten funniest Hollywood cartoons of all time? I mean, who would be so stupid as to suggest that such a subjective assessment can be made? Especially one that would make everyone happy? Well, not me, that’s for damn sure. Although I can come up with the idea of producing this show - and am happy to take all credit for it - I turned over the actual choosing of the ten films to a panel of expert advisers through a polling of their personal choices, thus deflecting all the blame to them (clever enough to be a politician aren’t I?). So if you don’t like or agree with any or all of the films on the list, you go talk to Martin Scorsese!
But why chose them at all? To make a point. Comedy! Comedy, folks, is what Hollywood animation has always been about. Comedy! Not - really, I swear this is true - not fairy tales or furry tails, but comedy!
Comedy: that glorious genre that the Just For Laughs Festival celebrates.
Comedy: honored by Aristotle, practiced by Shakespeare.
Comedy: currently big bucks in show biz.
And what is comedy? How the hell should I know? But I do know that timing is involved and a sense of the ridiculous. Also understanding of the frailty of human nature. And truth is usually best reached not through a realistic rendition of a story, but through an exaggeration of it, and that exaggeration can range from slightly subtle to broadly outrageous. Given the above, can you think of any form of storytelling more suited to comedy than animation? Look, in animation we can control the timing to one twenty-fourth of a second. We can get as ridiculous as the human mind can imagine, and we can exaggerate on a scale that reaches from the incredibly subtle to the inhumanly broad.
Animation is the perfect medium for comedy.
These ten films demonstrate my point perfectly. Their display of human greed, the fickleness of luck, the capriciousness of gods, the horrors of the sex drive, the destructiveness of family life, the pain of addiction, the prevalence of crime, the torturing of the weak by the strong, the madness of arms escalation, and the ever present threat of death through gravity is a virtual laundry list of the funny.
As Daffy Duck is wont to say, “It is to laugh.”
THE TEN FUNNIEST HOLLYWOOD CARTOONS OF ALL TIME!!! LIST OF ADVISORS:
Martin Scorsese - Film director of such films as TAXI DRIVER, AFTER HOURS, GOODFELLAS, and, of course, KING OF COMEDY.
Joe Dante - Film director of such films as GREMLINS, INNER-SPACE, and GREMLINS II.
Paul Fusco - Television producer/writer/director and creator of ALF.
Chuck Jones - Three time Academy Award winning creator of the Coyote and Road Runner; co-creator of Bugs Bunny and one of the top directors of now classic Warner Bros. Cartoons.
Mike Lah - Animator on the Tom and Jerry shorts.
Shamus Cullhane - Animator of such characters as Popeye, Betty Boop, and on the Disney feature PINOCCHIO.
Cordell Baker - On staff at the National Film Board (Manitoba), director of Academy Award nominee THE CAT CAME BACK.
Richard Williams - Animation director on WHO FRAMED ROGER RABBIT, Academy Award winning director of A CHRISTMAS CAROL.
Darrell Van Citters - Director of the first new theatrical Bugs Bunny short in years, BOX OFFICE BUNNY.
Rebecca Rees - Directing animator on THE BRAVE LITTLE TOASTER, member of Disney Animation Story Department.
Kelly Asbury - Member of the Story Department at Disney Animation, Art Director on ROLLER COASTER RABBIT, the second roger rabbit short.
John Musker - Co-director of Disney's THE LITTLE MERMAID and the upcoming BEAUTY AND THE BEAST.
Michael Giamio - Production designer for Warner Bros. Cartoons on the first new Bugs Bunny short in years, BOX OFFICE BUNNY; character design instructor at the California Institute of the Arts.
Mark Kausler - Animator at Disney Animation, animation historian.
Jay Cocks - Writer screenwriter. Knows both Martin Scorsese and Stefan Kanfer personally. Prevailed on Chuck Jones to baptize Michigan Jay Frog with his middle name.
Stefan Kanfer - Critic, Senior Arts Editor for TIME MAGAZINE, author of numerous books including JOURNAL OF THE PLAGUE YEARS.
Tom Shales - Pulitzer Prize winning television critic for the WASHINGTON POST.
John Canemaker - Animator and animation historian biographer of Winsor McCay, author of FELIX: THE TWISTED TALE OF THE WORLD’S MOST FAMOUS CAT.
Tom Kenny - Standup comic, the new host of NBC's FRIDAY NIGHT VIDEOS, and a cartoon is his own right.
Richard Belzer - Standup comic, author, actor, semi-regular on THE FLASH.
Robin Budd - Director at Nelvana productions in Toronto on the animated BEETLEJUICE.
Brad Caslor - On staff at the National Film Board (Manitoba); director of GET A JOB and creator of Bob Dog.
THE TEN FUNNIEST HOLLYWOOD CARTOONS OF ALL TIME
- One Froggy Evening (Chuck Jones - Warner Bros.)
- Bad Luck Blackie (Tex Avery - MGM)
- Duck Amuck (Chuck Jones - Warner Bros.)
- Red Hot Riding Hood (Tex Avery - MGM)
- Bear For Punishment (Chuck Jones - Warner Bros.)
- Birds Anonymous (Friz Freleng - Warner Bros.)
- The Great Piggy Bank Robbery (Bob Clampett - Warner Bros.)
- Quiet Please (Hanna-Barbera - MGM)
- King Size Canary (Tex Avery - MGM)
- The Clock Cleaners (Ben Sharpsteen - Disney)
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And that's how it stood -- up to 1991. Can anyone think of a Hollywood short cartoon made since then that might qualify to join this list?
I want to thank my daughter, Miranda, for her assistance in preparing this blog entry.
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