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Monday, October 18, 2010

Cousin Tex

A Pixie-Dixie cartoon and the first one I believe. This series reminds me of watching a Tom & Jerry cartoon. After all, the last cartoon of that series was released the same year this was made. Coincidence? Pixie and Dixie are cute but don't have much to offer. Mr. Jinks on the other hand, wow! Jinks was the real star of these cartoons. He's such a wonderful character and even has a distinctive voice. Creating such a character with limited animation is really hard to do, but Hanna, Barbera, and Daws Butler really pull it off. It's because of Jinks that makes this series my favorite H-B cartoons outside of Yogi Bear and Quick Draw.

Well, even if the story in this one isn't too far off from a T&J cartoon like "Pecos Pest", it's still very enjoyable. I liked Cousin Tex (after all, he is better than Cousin Batty. Ask Yowp about that one.) The branding iron joke was my personal favorite and the ending was pretty unexpected. Carlos Vinci and Mike Lah animate this cartoon. Kudos to H-B for this little gem.

1 comment:

Yowp said...

This was the first cartoon aired but Joe Barbera showed 'Judo Jack' when he took his demo reel around to sell it. The one that has the most T&J feel is 'Little-Bird Mouse,' despite the dialogue. It's unlike any other cartoon in the P&D series and I wonder if it was being developed for T&J at the time MGM shut down its cartoon studio.
Vinci was the most quirky of the three guys (not counting Lah) animating that first season. He had the funniest takes of anyone that year (George Nicholas came the following year). You can see the Terrytoon influence on occasion on frontal shots of his characters, though I can't really describe it.