Floriane Place-Verghnes examines the work of this great American animator. Focusing primarily on four facets of Avery's work, the author first concentrates on Avery's ability to depict the American attempt both to retrieve the past nostalgically and to catch the Zeitgeist of 1940s America, which confronts the questions of violence and survival. She also analyzes issues of sex and gender and the crucial role Hollywood played in reshaping the image of womanhood, reducing it to a bipolar opposition. Thirdly, she examines the comic language developed by Avery which, although drawing on the work of the Marx Brothers and Chaplin (among others), transcended their conventions. Finally, Place-Verghnes considers Avery's place in the history of cartoon-making technique. Floriane Place-Verghnes teaches in the School of Languages, Linguistics and Cultures at the University of Manchester. Tex Avery: A Unique Legacy (1992-1955) By Floriane Place-Verghnes John Libbey Publishing Ltd. Copyright © 2016 John Libbey Publishing Ltd. All rights reserved. ISBN: 978-0-86196-659-2 Contents Acknowledgements, vii, Introduction, 1, SECTION 1 – A FOREWORD ON THE GENERIC CONTEXT, 7, Chapter I The Cartoon-Making Technique, 9, Chapter II The Cartoon Before Tex, 19, SECTION 2 – THE UNIQUENESS OF TEX AVERY'S TESTIMONY 35, Chapter III Tex Avery's Americanness: An Attempt to Retrieve the Past, 39, Chapter IV Facing Contemporary Politics, 51, Chapter V Tex Avery's Unique Viewpoint on Good, Evil, and Morality, 69, SECTION 3 – ON SEX AND GENDER, 89, Chapter VI Freudian Pansexualism: Concepts of Activity/Passivity, 93, Chapter VII Reduction of Womanhood Into Two Types: The Destructive Power of Women, 103, Chapter VIII Oedipal Relationships and Their Consequences, 119, SECTION 4 – TEX AVERY'S UNIQUE COMIC STRATEGIES, 129, Chapter IX The Burlesque Heritage, 131, Chapter X Towards a Pragmatic Relation With the Audience, 145, Chapter XI The Provisional Nature of the Averyan Universe, 163, Conclusion, 179, Filmography – Tex Avery's Cartoons: The MGM Years (1942–1955), 185, Bibliography/Further reading, 201, Index, 209, CHAPTER 1 The Cartoon-Making Technique Provided that you have seen a few cartoons and you are rather curious, you must have wondered "How did they do that?" The magic atmosphere that pervades cartoons actually conceals a more practical side; that of the various techniques employed in order to achieve a maximum impact on the audience by constantly flirting with reality, without anyone noticing the amount of pain taken in timing the whole thing precisely. Five weeks of intense work, 8,640 frames and no less than 1,300 metres of film are required to create a six-minute cartoon. Cartoons in the 1940s had to be six minutes long, not more, not less, both for obvious financial reasons and because of their status of film preview: the duration of a cartoon, a set of commercials, a newsreel, and a film had to be precisely two hours long. I now propose to follow the birth of a cartoon from its conception to the final result, by examining all the different departments that deal with its creation. 1. The story-board The very first thing you need to make a cartoon is obviously a screenplay. The script-writer (or storyman ) is therefore the first person to put his shoulder to the wheel. Not only does he write the dialogue (unless a dialogue-man is appointed for this part of the process), but he is also responsible for the whole atmosphere of the cartoon through his detailed description of the characters, places, and forces at work in the story. He then works closely with the director to produce characters and situations that will work together visually. His role will be to translate the story in a limited number of sketches (from 50 and 150 for a six-minute cartoon), and to pair it with a few lines of dialogue, in order to see if the combination is effective. The drawings are very rough, not refined, and only depict extreme positions, behaviours, or physical expressions. "Extreme", because knowing that a character, object, or landscape will gradually change (at a rhythm of 24 frames per second) between a period X and a period Y, the story-artist will not take the time (or the financial risk) to draw all the pictures between X and Y, but will merely sketch out the two extremes X and Y. The resulting story-board, which looks like a huge comic-strip, will then be pinned onto a cork panel so that the whole team (animators, model-makers, scene painters, etc.) can discuss potential modifications. The technique of the storyboard has been used since the 1920s, but was significantly developed by Walt Disney. 2. The model-sheet "Attitude is everything". Chuck Jones You "must feel the characters from inside out. You have to get attitudes that express the character." Roger Allers, storyboard artist at Disney's In other words, since each character has his own way of running, walking, bouncing, etc., his