Hello and welcome back to picsandportraits.
I’m sure everyone is terrified at the uncertainty of this strange new world we find ourselves
in.
We are being told to avoid each other, to stay home, if we can afford to.
If not well, that’s the future we’ve been given.
It’s pretty terrible and certainly not like the one predicted in better times.
Retrofuturism is a huge part of this channel and given what we are currently going through,
we are heading back to that well once again by further exploring its relationship with
animation.
This is a followup to our Cartoons of the Future video and while that focussed on animation’s
portrayal of the future as a whole, this once is going to focus on the output or vision
of one animator, Tex Avery.
Now Avery is one of my favourite Golden Age animators and throughout the 1940s and 50s
he produced a series of shorts depicting life in the future.
We will be looking at those in just a bit but first I wanted to give a little background
on the artist.
Fred Avery, affectionately known as Tex, got his start inking the post-Disney Oswald shorts
for Margaret J. Winkler.
There is more on the rights history of that in episode two of Animation/Propaganda, but
eventually Avery worked his way up to the position of animator at Universal, where he
continued producing Oswald until 1935.
That same year, he conned his way into a job as director at Warner Bros., by lying to producer
Leon Schlesinger.
He falsely claimed to have previous experience.
Lucky for us Schlesinger believed him and there, along with Chuck Jones, Friz Freleng
and Bob Clampett, Avery would help define not only Warner cartoons, but the medium as
whole.
From their studio, the fabled Termite Terrace, they produced short after iconic short, introducing
the world to characters that have stood the test of time.
Avery personally contributed the popular, softer version of Porky Pig, Daffy Duck, and
directed the first official appearance of Bugs Bunny, as well coined his catchphrase
“What’s up, Doc?”
In 1941, he jumped ship to MGM following an argument with a producer over the inclusion
of a risqué joke in one of his shorts.
Here he produced the propaganda piece, Blitz Wolf, which we talk about over on Patreon,
and created the character Droopy.
His most enduring post-Warner cartoon, Droopy was a hyper-calm dog who overcame any challenge
that was presented to him.
Truly an example to follow in these dark days.
Beyond his main gimmick of sight gags, more than anyone else Avery also infused cartoons
with horniness with the introduction of Red, a sexualized version of Little Red Riding
Hood.
What a legacy.
While at MGM, Avery also produced a series of shorts around the theme of Tomorrow, focusing
on what life in the future may look like.
These don’t follow any sort of narrative, instead presenting series of gags or short
vignettes from the year 2050.
The first came in 1949 with The House of Tomorrow.
In it, the homes of the future are present as compact, convenient and ever-changing.
This is used as a part of tax-evasion scheme.
The appliances of this future are in line with most retrofuturistic depictions: things
are automated, personalized.
There is also a device that lets you ignore your child, it even abuses them for you.
Every member of the family can experience this house in their own way.
This introduces us to a running gag in the series, mother-in-law jokes, with the punchline
being, usually, that she needs to die.
I feel like Tex had some underlying issue or was working through some shit here as they’re
borderline excessive.
He also manages to work in his trademark horniness, with the father’s personalized television
consisting of a shot of a live-action women, who kinda looks uncomfortable.
The House of Tomorrow was followed up with 1951’s Car of Tomorrow.
Self-explanatory, we see the absurd places the automobile may go.
Many are just sight gags based on automotive puns, fish tail, head room, but more than
any of the others, this short really shows its age.
Its portrayal of cars from other cultures is insensitive to say the least and it perpetuates
the notion that women are poor drivers.
Television was a still a novel and new invention in the mid-1950s.
As such, it was the subject of the third short, T.V of Tomorrow.
This expands upon the depiction in The House of Tomorrow and addresses the issues with
modern sets like, eye-strain and poor picture quality.
It predicts, correctly in my opinion, the home of tomorrow will be built around the
television.
Future models are seen coming with a built in repair-person or a bookie, as well as an
add-on that gets rid of poor programming.
The attitude taken towards TV here is pretty negative.
It’s shown as repetitive, inferior and generally a nuisance, perhaps because at the time it
was rendering theatrical shorts obsolete.
However the ingenuity and techniques used are extremely impressive, namely its blending
of live-action and animation.
It creates an awesome effect.
This is definitely my favourite.
And finally we have The Farm of Tomorrow from 1954.
In my opinion, this is the weakest of the four shorts.
It encourages eugenics, I guess, amongst animals, cross-breeding chickens with various other
species to yield more meat.
The same format is applied to other situations and animals, like cows and kangaroos somehow
making the milking process easier.
Some of these are entertaining but I found there to be more misses than hits.
Still, I think these shorts are great.
They are technically impressive.
I love the use of live-action and the animation is gorgeous but they are definitely not without
fault.
These are plagued by the norms of their time, obviously misogyny, women appear either as
pleasure objects, servants or hindrances.
Also racism, looking at the cars of the future from different countries, but their vision
of the future is one of comfort and it’s not likely we are getting anything like this
any time soon.
At the moment things are bleak but its important to remember these shorts were produced in
the aftermath of the second World War.
Seeing the death toll rising and mass mobilization and nations locking down on account of COVID-19,
its hard not to equate now with that period.
There is no guaranteed path forward.
This is a global crisis.
Life is seemingly forever changing.
We all feel it and during that war, they felt it too but we know there was a brighter tomorrow.
This video was intended for next month but I jumped it ahead given the circumstances.
I have other videos recorded that will be coming out more regularly as I have been advised
to self-isolate.
I’m sure many of you are in the same situation.
I wanna say it’s okay to be worried or scared.
These are uncertain times but I will continue producing content.
Hopefully if you find value in it, I can provide you some relief or comfort or entertainment
while we face this together.
If you can spare it, you can support us financially over on Patreon, patreon.com/picsnportraits,
but absolutely take care of your family and yourself first.
And hey, call a friend.
Social distancing doesn’t have to keep us apart with the technology we have today.
I guess that’s one of the pluses of this future.
We will leave it on that positive note.
As always thank you for your interest in this channel and thank you so much for watching.