8mm Forum: Red Hot Riding Hood!! 1943 MGM Derann

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Posted by Osi Osgood (Member # 424) on March 21, 2017, 12:40 PM:

In 1942, a whirlwind came to the MGM animation studio, and the studo would never be the same, in a most wonderful way!

His name was Tex Avery, who was the well known wacky director of so many classic late 30's thru early 40's Warner brother cartoons, ending with "All This and Rabbit Stew" (A cartoon that, while not credited for it on screen, is known to having been a Tex Avery film). Now, Tex came to MGM films with a looney fire in his belly and better budgets than ever before!

In only his second (or third? I'm not sure which), Tex would invent his second most sucessful character (the first being "Droopy", of course), by name of "Red". The story of this first cartoon in the series, "Red Hot Riding Hood" is classic Tex Avery ...

A nararator, nararates in "kiddie film" fashion, you're typical Red Rding Hood story, complete with cutesy Red, cutesy grandma, and when the wold hears his own description, he interupts the nanarator, "Oh stop it! If you can't do this story a new way, I quit!!" to add to this bizzare turn of events, RED interjects, being fed up with it, and even GRANDMA is sick of it herself.

After much badgering, the nararator finally gives in, "ALRIGHT!!! We'll do it a new way!!"

Now we REALLY get into "Tex" territory!

Tex not only modernizes the story, but strongly "sexualizes" it!

The wolf is, well, a horny wolf, whistling at every girl in sight. Innocent little "Red" is now a caberet dancer in a hollywood nightclub! (gad! If Tex was alive today, making the cartoon today, no doubt Red would be a stripper!) and to top it all off, Grandma seems to be running a brothel, (though, at the time Tex couldn't get away with saying that on film, but he certainly hints at it by having grandma having a neon sign above her building, stating, "Come on up and see me sometime", ala Mae West). The wolf is so turned on by Red's very provocative dancing that he stiffens in a classic "phallic" position, before constantly hooting and hollering in hilarious fashion, the more "naughty" Red's lyrics become, the more wild the wolf reactions.

Red finishes her number, and the wolf attempts to pick her up with such material riches as "Nylons" (Hey, silk was at a premium during World War 2!), and to REALLY tempt her, "White sidewall tires" (also at a premium!). Red is not buying it, she escapes to Grandmas,

... But to top off the whole situation, Grandma is obviously quite horny for the wolf! Now the wolf is on the other end of the stick, trying to escape the clutches of Granny. He finally does and states that he's thru with women and he'll kill himself if he'll ever looks at another dame. Red comes out to do her number again, the wolf looks and promptly blows his brains out, but his spirit takes up the cat-calling, all the same.

The end!

the cartoon is complete over the top and in some ways, really amazes one that Tex was able to get some of it past the censors at the time, (which Tex had already been fighting earlier at Warners), with such lyrics from Red such as ...

"I want to be 19 ...
Oh Daddy, don't be mean!"

"With a little stimulation ...
I'll be you're great sensation ...
I'll even be you're little you're little consolation" (as in "consolation prize")

Boy, if a live action film even tried to be that "naughty" (so to speak) in 1943, it would never be released!

But, we do sooo LOVE this cartoon. In fact, it is listed as the all time greatest MGM cartoon today.

This was always meant to be a one shot cartoon, but it was so popular, that Tex made four (or five?) cartoons with Red making either guest appearances or being the central character (as in Little Rural Riding Hood"). In fact, this cartoon was so popular, that when "Little Rural Riding Hood" was being made, someone actually stole the "Red" anmation cels before they could actually be photographed, (to this day, they have never surfaced), and Preston Blair, ("Reds" animator), had to go back to his own Pencil animation and re-animate Red on cels to finish the cartoon.

I personally like the design of "Red" in this one better. She has a more little girl-ish-ness to the character, making her look more like a teenager almost, where, in "Rural" she is more fully adult, and Preston Blairs animation of "Red" is more bouncy and loose in "Red" than in "Rural"

Truly, a timeless classic!

Print condition ...

I don't know off-hand if this is a re-print by Derann of A Red Fox release, (did Red Fox first release this?) of "Red", but my personal print is on L.P.P. and the image quality is great, not perfectly pin-point shapr as the Disney Derann releases, but still better than most cartoons. It is just the slightest bit dupey, but it's not bad at all. Grain is very good and the audio quality (mono) is right up there, nice and sharp. Personally, I'm going to do a remastering of the soundtrack from the laserdisc and re-record this one to have it sound spectacular!

One slight drawback, as some hve mentioned to me, my print has this strangeness to it. During the MGM logo, there is a little black "boxing" of something on the screen that jitters about a little. I don't know what they were covering up, and if someone knows what it is, please inform us all, as I have no idea.

... but, that little drawback aside, this is an excellent cartoon print, and truly, in my opinion, a must have for any cartoon collector of classic cartoons! To this day, the only HD presentation of this cartoon was on a blu-ray of Looney Toons, overseas, celebrating Tex Avery's work, but no bluray collections of Tex Avery have ever been released in the U.S. but, by all means, get this cartoon for sheer sake of having this film on actual film, to enjoy on you're home viewing screen.

... and, as always ...

LONG LIVE SUPER 8!!!!!

Posted by Martin Davey (Member # 2841) on March 21, 2017, 02:17 PM:

Very enjoyable review Osi! Glad to hear your print is good, and good luck with the re-record. You must tell us how that goes and what you did.

Posted by Brian Fretwell (Member # 4302) on March 22, 2017, 03:37 AM:

Looked at my print of this last night from Derann, it has good colour but a few wet gate streaks in places.

It was amusing to see where part of the Toon Town sequence in Who Framed Roger Rabbit came from.

Posted by Osi Osgood (Member # 424) on March 22, 2017, 12:41 PM:

"Hi-ya cousin? What's Buzzin?'

(couldn't resist ... anyone who owns the print knows what I'm talking about! [Smile]

)

I have a "Audacity" audio editing program, which can take audio, sharpen the sound, clean up noise, ect. It's worth a shot, the only trouble I might run into is sync, more a problem with the projector than the PC, as I'll record straight from the file on the PC.

Posted by Martin Davey (Member # 2841) on March 22, 2017, 04:56 PM:

I suppose we are thinking along similar lines about using a computer to create a new master soundtrack, to then re-record on the strip but it is the sync issue thats the problem. Quality cartoons like this depend so much on frame accurate sound effects to sell the joke and there are typically no silent gaps in the track to aide us. I do have a Goko sound editor which I may use to re-record a documentary/ newsreel short which could have a slight drift sync wise but not notice too much. A cartoon is a tougher job. As I said I will be interested to see how you get on.

Posted by Terry Sills (Member # 3309) on March 23, 2017, 05:05 AM:

Haven't got that cartoon but I have got 'Coal Black' a similar take on Snow White.
Probably politically incorrect these days but great fun.

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