The Spotlight: January 2003
1942, Looney Tune
Director: Bob Clampett
Animation: Virgil Ross
Story: Warren Foster
Music: Carl Stalling
This time we take a look at another slightly obscure Bob Clampett film, "Eatin On the Cuff". It's not near as well known as it should be. This innovative little cartoon takes the tale of "the moth and his flame" and exaggerates it to Clampett's zany style. While it is just as wild and crazy as most of this director's usual efforts, "Eatin' On the Cuff" is cuter and more traditional in its storyline. While film critics and historians tend to credit modern films such as "Who Framed Roger Rabbit?" (1988) and "Space Jam" (1996) with the invention of the live-action/animation blend, they are not the first. This isn't either. The idea originated a decade or more earlier than "Eatin' On the Cuff", with the Fleischer studio and Warner's own Harman and Ising, with films like "Bosko the Talkink Kid" and "Betty Boop's Rise to Fame" involving the title characters actually interacting with their creators. Still, this is one of the most creative uses of the technique ever filmed. The film begins and ends with a live-action piano player, his singing inexplicably voiced over by Mel Blanc and carried as narration throughout the cartoon, the moth character appears in both scenes, and in the final shot eats the guy's pants right off, sending him clumsily running off into the distance. Plotwise, a wiseguy moth is preparing for his wedding day ("Here comes the groom, straight as a broom, all purtied up with ten-cent perfume"!). He wakes up late, and after getting some breakfast at the bar (A few peoples' pant cuffs) he gets held up by a Black Widow spider, who seduces him with a cigarette lighter (moths are attracted to light, of course).A wacky chase ensues. His bride-to-be, a bee, thinks he's ditched her, and cries...until she realizes something might be wrong and comes to the rescue ("confidentially, she stings!) Also keep an eye out for another unique cartoon filming technique, the photographic backgrounds used for the moth's suit-pocket home and other key scenes.
