Disney-comics digest #257.

David A Gerstein David.A.Gerstein at williams.edu
Thu Mar 3 04:53:16 CET 1994


	Dear Folks,

	A few things to comment on today.


	Tom and Jerry as Tex Avery rip-offs
	===================================

	This is a rather inappropriate discussion for this newsgroup,
but I feel I should make something clear.  Don Rosa said, "TOM & JERRY
was Hanna and Barbera's slapstick-violent answer to Tex Avery's 
slapstickly violent product which was also usually done for MGM 
(though also for WB or Lantz). Perhaps any T&J that you see in ROGER
RABBIT was because T&J was an imitation of Tex Avery as well."

	In fact it's slightly different:  T&J started the violence.
They were created in 1939, at which point Tex's cartoons -- then being
done for WB -- had very little violence in them, just very fast and
silly gags.  The first really violent Avery cartoons were basically
the ones he did for MGM, starting in 1942.  BTW, he worked for Lantz
from 1930-1935 and 1954-1955.

	Tom and Jerry are violent, but please... they do have more
personality than the protagonists of Avery's later, more violent
cartoons.  The best example -- 1941's "The Night Before Christmas."

	Which reminds me:  Mattias Hallin's quote, "Come up and see me
sometime!  >HIC!<  Come up and see me sometime!  >HIC!<" is from the
1943 T&J cartoon "Mouse Trouble," in which Tom sets out a wind-up Mae
West mouse to lure Jerry, then accidentally swallows it...


	Changes in DD 286
	=================

	A change has been made regarding a project I have told all of
you I was involved with, so I'll tell you about it now so that you
aren't confused when it's published...

	The Federico Pedrocchi 1937 story "The Secret of Mars" is
still in DD 286, but as of right now will not have my American script
attached.  Although Gladstone did accept my script, they have since
decided that due to the importance of the story, the dialogue should
be as close to the original as possible -- whereas mine was a very
typical "Gerstein dialogued foreign story," with tons of wisecracks,
plot tweaks, and Barksish phrases and comments which weren't in the
original.  The upshot is that Bruce Hamilton has written a new American
script that's more like Fabio's translation.  As of right now that's the
version that will be used.  I'll be compensated for my attempt...

	I'm disappointed that my version, perhaps my personal favorite
among my rewrites, will not be used, but I can understand the current
decision, and I'm curious to see what Bruce's duck-writing is like.
In any event, though, I am still to write a text page about the story 
which will accompany it in DD 286.  At least Fabio and I succeeded in
getting this story into the 60th-birthday issue.

	My next dialog will thus probably be in USA 28, released a month
later (July), although I have no idea which one will be used.  I'll
tell you guys when I know...


	Upcoming Gladstones -- what are they?
	=====================================

	Well, Folks, does someone now have a Comic preview guide from
Diamond or Advance Comics?  Seems like we should hear what's gonna be
in DDA 27, WDC&S 592, and US 287 (issues in late May/early June).

	I'd also like to know what USA 26 is like.  It will be a
pleasure to finally see "Back to the Klondike" with computer color
like it deserves.  In Album #4 the fantastic barroom battle scene was
especially strangely colored -- EVERYONE but Scrooge was BLUE!!  I
guess that was supposed to draw our attention to full-color McDuck,
but instead, the blue characters were what I saw first...  I'm looking
foward to this.  BTW, is there anything else in there besides the Tony
Strobl story?


	My introduc(k)tion:  line missing!
	==================================

	Why did my introduction begin with Goofy laughing dumbly?  The
first line was supposed to say, "So you want my introducktion?  Here's
the dope!"  The idea being that Goofy was the dope... (sorry, Goofy...
I know, you've got a special kind of mind.)


	Banned Gottfredsons
	===================

	The recent discussion of "An Education for Thursday" being
reprinted in Norway, and of the Norwegian "big white books" containing
banned Gottfredson stories, leads me to offer this list of the
Gottfredson stories I know are banned.  I have put an asterisk * after
those which could perhaps be run with minor changes, and ** after those
for which changes would be more major.  I don't have any hope for those
which I haven't asterisked, although quite frankly I would not print
those in the comics myself, had I the power and the editor's job.  Of
course I would put them in a complete FG library.

	Anyway:

	** MM Lost on a Desert Island
	* MM vs. Mr. Slicker and the Egg Robbers (suicide sequence
required to be cut, but no changes to other strips)
	** MM and the Gypsies
	* MM and the Great Orphanage Robbery
	** MM Sails for Treasure Island
	* Dr. Oofgay's Secret Serum (yes, this is banned now because
Dr. Oofgay is German)
	* MM and the Sacred Jewel
	* MM in the Foreign Legion
	MM in Search of Jungle Treasure
	* MM Mighty Whale Hunter
	** MM Meets Robinson Crusoe
	An Education for Thursday
	? The Atombrella and the Rhyming Man

	A similar length to the list of Barks stories that can only be
reprinted with changes... BUT there is a major difference, that is
that Disney does not like to allow newspaper strips to be censored
out of respect to Gottfredson (although now and then, they will let it
be done) while they do not mind changes being made in Barks.

	I personally would rather see the above stories censored than
not at all.  In fact, I could argue that not letting them out at all
is far greater censorship than letting the comic appear with some
retouchings and rewritings.

	(I am only guessing at the "Atombrella" because Gladstone had
originally planned to print it way back in MICKEY AND DONALD 10 and it
didn't show up...)
	
	So long, gang.

	David Gerstein

	"I'm the Fuller Brush Man!  I'm givin' g'way free semple!"
	<David.A.Gerstein at Williams.edu>




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