Some years ago, when my children were younger, we had a little family joke about Tom and Jerry cartoons. They would be in the next room, watching them on television, and every now and then they'd run in to get me. "Hey, Dad," one of them would say. "Come and watch - it's an old one."
I trained them well.They could tell the difference between the short cartoons that were stiff, made-for-TV efforts from the classically animated shorts that had played in theaters a hundred years before they were born.
And they also knew - and still know - that I can't stand those television-style stiffs, though I do enjoy the oldies. And not for nostalgic reasons. The older 'toons really are better.
Back when I was growing up, in the Stone Age of the '50s and '60s, we looked forward to a cartoon preceding the movie in theaters, and Tom and Jerry shorts were so good that the ever-battling duo copped no less than seven Oscars in its prime, between 1943 and 1952.
Likewise, Popeye, the Disney characters (Donald, Mickey, Goofy, etc.) and the Warner Bros. clan (Bugs, Daffy, the Road Runner, etc.) all had wonderfully funny knockabout cartoons in the classical animation mold showing in theaters during this period.
But as television came along, gobbling up each 6-minute short all too quickly, these franchises turned to cheaper ways of turning out more, more, more. And then all of these cartoons were thrown together in the daytime TV mix.
Whether modern children notice the difference from cartoon to cartoon is questionable, I guess, but thank goodness we have the best of the oldies preserved on tape.
You might consider sitting down with your kids sometime and watching the oldies with them, pointing out how much more graceful and fully developed the classics are - not to mention funnier - than the more recent quick-and-dirty efforts.
- SOMEONE CALLED on the "FoodFlicks" sidebar I wrote to food editor Jean Williams' story in last Tuesday's Deseret News (July 27), to remind me of one I overlooked.
- Best Menu Substitution: "Five Easy Pieces" (1970, rated R). The classic scene where Jack Nicholson comes up with a creative way of ordering a piece of toast from an uncooperative waitress in a diner.
If there are any other favorite food scenes that slipped past me, your nominations are welcome and encouraged.
- RECENTLY THE new, 3-D, much more colorful logo for Columbia Pictures was under discussion, and I suggested that Sony Pictures Corporation also do something about that tacky TriStar logo, which has Pegasus leaping over the company name.
Little, did I know that Sony was in the process of doing just that.
Now, there is a new, 3-D, much more colorful Pegasus leaping over the TriStar logo, which you can see on the front of "So I Married an Axe Murderer."
On second thought, you may want to wait for some other upcoming TriStar picture.
Any other upcoming TriStar Picture.
- LAST WEEK A humor columnist asked this question of two current movie actors:
"Dermot Mulroney, Dylan McDermott. Is it all one person?"
And how about John Heard, John Hurt and William Hurt?
Not to mention those two black actresses named Vanessa Williams, both of whom are also singers?
- QUOTE OF THE WEEK: Robert N. Fried, producer of "So I Married an Axe Murderer," diplomatically commenting on reported problems in making the movie with reportedly volatile star Mike Myers:
"There were some difficulties in making this movie . . . but we don't have to leave the movie the best of friends."