Line #159 WesternAnimation/Puppetoons


1	[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/madacp-models-titles600_5183.jpg]]
2
3	Creator/GeorgePal's ''Puppetoons'' (also released under the name of ''Madcap Models'') was a series of StopMotion puppet films, made from 1932 to 1947, with several recurring uses of the name in George Pal's later feature film work. The series was initially made in Europe during the 1930's, but Pal moved to the US in the 1940's (just two months before his native Holland was ravaged by the Nazi regime) and got a contract with Creator/{{Paramount}} to produce Puppetoons there.
4
5	The films are notable not only for their ArtDeco aesthetic, but for their dynamic use of stop motion; mostly eschewing articulated limbs used in films like ''Film/KingKong1933'', Pal developed his own unique method; each individual movement or expression of a puppet, be it a walk, pose or expression change, required either a new part or an entirely new puppet to be made altogether for the film. As such, a single Puppetoon required thousands of custom made models for each scene. But as a benefit to the expensive, time consuming process, the Puppetoons achieved a cartoon like motion that would have been difficult or flat out impossible to achieve with standard stop motion effects, such as [[TheTwelvePrinciplesOfAnimation broad Squash and Stretch effects]], and this allows the characters to move very expressively and with vigor and vitality, and in very creative ways to boot.
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7	The initial batch of Puppetoons were very experimental fantasy pieces, centered around pop culture of the day or charming fantasy stories, and often featured advertisements for products of the time (such as Horlick's Malted Milk or a Philips Radio) but when Pal moved to the US, the pressure to make the Puppetoons more commercial prompted him to work with more recurring characters (and thus allowing the films to be made somewhat faster and cheaper), such as the recurring African American child named Jasper.
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9	The series concluded on a literal high note with an adaptation of the children's record ''WesternAnimation/TubbyTheTuba''. George Pal went on to work as a producer and director in live action films, directing among other works the iconic 1960 adaptation of ''Film/{{The Time Machine\|1960}}''. The Puppetoon process would find work in other films, such as Pal's "The Great Rupert" (1949), ''Film/TomThumb'' (1958) and ''Film/TheWonderfulWorldOfTheBrothersGrimm'' (1963).
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11	The series got back into the limelight again with the release of Arnold Lebovit's ''The Puppetoon Movie'', a compilation feature with a framing device guest-starring WesternAnimation/{{Gumby}}, in 1987. This has been released on VHS, DVD and a very limited Blu-Ray release in 2014 (the latter including several never-before-released shorts as extras). As of 2020, a sequel ''The Puppetoon Movie 2'' became available on DVD with plans for a third film.
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13	Suffice it to say, the series laid the groundwork for Pal's later film work (such as the esteemed 1953 adaptation of ''Film/TheWarOfTheWorlds''), and provided inspiration for many future greats in the field of stop motion animation.
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15	The series is also notable for adapting two of Creator/DrSeuss' early stories into stop motion (albeit without emulating his trademark art style); "Literature/The500HatsOfBartholomewCubbins" (1943) as well as "Literature/AndToThinkThatISawItOnMulberryStreet" (1944). Several shorts in the franchise have received UsefulNotes/AcademyAward nominations, including "Rhythm in the Ranks" (1941), the anti-Nazi war allegory "Tulips Shall Grow" (1942), "Jasper and the Beanstalk" (1945), "John Henry and the Inky-Poo" (1946) and "Tubby the Tuba" (1947).
16	----
17	[[folder: Filmography]]
18
19	!1932
20
21	* Midnight
22
23	!1934
24
25	* Radio Valve Revolution
26	* Ether Ship
27	* Philips Cavalcade
28
29	!1935
30
31	* Sleeping Beauty
32	* The Little Broadcast
33	* The Magic Atlas
34	* World's Greatest Show
35	* In Lamp Light Land
36	* Sinbad
37
38	!1936
39
40	* Ether Symphony
41	* Aladdin and the Wonderful Lamp
42	* Ali Baba
43	* On Parade!
44
45	!1937
46
47	* What Ho, She Bumps
48	* The Reddingbrigade
49	* The Big Broadcast of '38
50
51	!1938
52
53	* Southseas Sweethearts
54	* Hoola Boola
55	* The Ballet of Red Radio Valves
56	* Sky Pirates
57
58	!1939
59
60	* Love on the Range
61
62	!1940
63
64	* Dipsy Gypsy
65	* Captain Kidding
66	* Date with Duke: Featuring Music/DukeEllington as himself.
67	* Gooseberry Pie
68	* Friend in Need
69
70	!1941
71
72	* Rhythm in the Ranks
73	* Western Daze
74
75	!1942
76
77	* WesternAnimation/TulipsShallGrow
78	* The Sky Princess
79	* Jasper and the Haunted House
80	* Jasper and the Watermelons
81
82	!1943
83
84	* Bravo, Mr. Strauss: A follow-up to "Mr. Struass Takes A Walk", featuring the Johann Strauss puppet leading an army of Screwballs (read: Nazis) to their doom with his music.
85	* Goodnight Rusty
86	* The 500 Hats of Bartholomew Cubbins: Animated adaptation of the classic Creator/DrSeuss story.
87	* Jasper and the Choo Choo
88	* Jasper Goes Fishing
89	* Jasper's Music Lesson
90
91	!1944
92
93	* And to Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street: Another animated adaptation of a classic Creator/DrSeuss story.
94	* A Hatful of Dreams
95	* Jasper Goes Hunting: Notable for featuring a brief cameo appearance of WesternAnimation/BugsBunny.
96	* Jasper's Paradise
97	* Package for Jasper
98	* Two-Gun Rusty
99	* Little Black Sambo
100	* Wilber the Lion
101
102	!1945
103
104	* WesternAnimation/JasperAndTheBeanstalk
105	* Jasper's Booby Trap
106	* Jasper's Close Shave
107	* Jasper's Minstrels
108	* Jasper Tell
109
110	!1946
111
112	* Jasper's Derby
113	* Jasper in a Jam
114	* Together in the Weather
115	* WesternAnimation/JohnHenryAndTheInkyPoo
116
117	!1947
118
119	* WesternAnimation/{{Tubby the Tuba\|1947}}: The last short of the series.
120	* Variety Girl (cameo)
121
122	!1971
123
124	* The Tool Box Ballet (broadcast on Series/CuriosityShop)
125
126	!1987
127
128	* The Puppetoon Movie -- compilation film
129
130	[[/folder]]
131	----
132	!!Puppetoons with their own work pages:
133
134	* "WesternAnimation/JasperAndTheBeanstalk"
135	* "WesternAnimation/JohnHenryAndTheInkyPoo"
136	* "WesternAnimation/{{Tubby the Tuba\|1947}}"
137	* "WesternAnimation/TulipsShallGrow"
138
139	----
140	!!Tropes from other shorts in this series include:
141
142	* AnimatedAdaptation: Two Dr. Seuss stories, as well as the children's record ''Tubby The Tuba''.
143	* AnimateInanimateObject: Living radio tubes (also called "radio valves") appear in "Radio Valve Revolution" and then again in "Ballet Of The Red Radio Tubes." The Jasper 'toons have a fair few as well- "Jasper In The Haunted House" sees random objects from around the house come alive to dance along to the ghost's piano playing (with the possibility that the piano could actually be playing itself as well), while "Jasper And The Beanstalk" has a talking harp that begs him to rescue her from the giant. The harp's model is later reused in "Jasper In A Jam", where she is joined by a whole host of other living instruments who inhabit an old pawn shop.
144	** The "Tool Box" segment animated for Series/CuriosityShop features tools in a toolbox coming alive.
145	* TheCameo: "Jasper Goes Hunting" features an authorized cameo of WesternAnimation/BugsBunny (complete with Creator/MelBlanc voicing him for two lines) for several seconds when the Scarecrow aims his gun down a rabbit hole, which prompts Bugs' famous "What's up, doc?" line. It's justified due to the whole thing being part of a DreamSequence.
146	-->'''Bugs''': ''[[BreakingTheFourthWall "Hey, I'm in the wrong picture!"]]'' (dives back into hole)
147	* Music/TheCanCanSong: Featured in "Philips Calvacade".
148	* ClumsyCopyrightCensorship: There is a version of "Aladdin and the Magic Lamp" that is choppily edited to remove references to Philips and ends abrubtly.
149	* ColorFailure: The Scarecrow has this reaction to an elephant stalking behind him in "Jasper Goes Hunting".
150	* ComicBookAdaptation: The Puppetoons received a short lived comic tie-in during the 40's. It also gave the Scarecrow and Crow from the Jasper subseries names; Professor and Blackberry, respectively.
151	* {{Crossover}}: Besides Bugs Bunny's appearance in "Jasper Goes Hunting", the framing device of ''The Puppetoon Movie'' prominently features WesternAnimation/{{Gumby}} and Pokey, and the finale features cameo appearances by many other iconic stop-motion puppets including the original Alka-Seltzer mascot, the Pillsbury Doughboy, and even a [[Film/{{Gremlins}} Gremlin!]]
152	* DarkerAndEdgier: "Tulips Shall Grow", due to it being an allegory of the Nazis conquering Holland.
153	** The John Henry adaptation in contrast to the otherwise cartoony Puppetoons shorts. The designs are very naturalistic and the story is treated completely serious. The protagonist even dies at the end!
154	* DistressedDude: Jim Dandy in "Hoola Boola"; he's captured by natives and later rescued by a pretty hula lady he met earlier.
155	* EasternAnimation: Initially, until Pal moved to the US.
156	* FormerChildStar: "Jasper's Derby" features Jasper befriending High Octane, an old racing horse who was a racing star as young as being a filly.
157	* FramingDevice: ''The Puppetoon Movie'' involves a veteran puppet dinosaur named Arnie showing WesternAnimation/{{Gumby}} many of George Pal's old Puppetoons shorts, to show him why he was such an influential filmmaker.
158	* FreeRangeChildren: Jasper, especially in "Jasper in a Jam". That short has Jasper visiting a big city at night during a thunderstorm.
159	* GentleGiant: Arnie the T-Rex in the opening of ''The Puppetoon Movie''. He became a vegetarian and doesn't even have the desire to ''act'' scary in a movie after working with George Pal in the past. (Notably he's voiced by voiceover legend Paul Frees, who actually did vocal work on two of Pal's features, ''The War of the Worlds'' and ''Atlantis: The Lost Continent''.)
160	* HauntedHouse: Featured in the short "Jasper and the Haunted House", though it's apparently inhabited by an Invisible Man rather than ghosts.
161	* HarmlessVillain: The Scarecrow, who is a manipulative nuisance to Jasper, but isn't actively malicious and never tries to actually harm Jasper (other than going loony from telling a story and chasing Jasper at the end of one short).
162	* HistoricalDomainCharacter: The Johann Strauss II puppet character, who appeared in at least three shorts in the series.
163	* {{Irony}}: The companion of the Scarecrow is a crow who is almost perpetually mounted on his shoulder.
164	* KillerRobot: The Screwballs from "Tulips Shall Grow" and "Bravo, Mr. Strauss".
165	* MediumBlending: The shorts occasionally used hand-drawn animation alongside the stop motion in sporadic circumstances (i.e. effects animation of a cannon firing or a character smearing, a close-up of Jasper's hand "walking" across his violin in "Jasper's Derby", a painting falling asleep in the "Sleeping Beauty" short, WesternAnimation/BugsBunny's cameo in "Jasper Goes Hunting").
166	** The "Mulberry Street" adaptation notably features a live-action opening and ending.
167	* MeaningfulName: High Octane, an old racing horse who was once a champion, but has long since retired and is not in top shape. Jasper's violin unintentionally allows him to regain his old speed when it's playing.
168	* MotionBlur: In another rarity for stop motion, the animation sometimes employed the use of drybrush smears when a character moved particularly fast.
169	* TheMovie: ''The Puppetoon Movie'' is really just a feature-length anthology of some of the series' best shorts, all wrapped in a FramingDevice involving WesternAnimation/{{Gumby}} learning why George Pal was such an important figure in the history of stop-motion animation.
170	* ANaziByAnyOtherName: The Screwballs from "Tulips Shall Grow" and "Bravo, Mr. Strauss" are a very unsubtle jab at the Nazis, portraying them as mindless, robotic tools that carelessly destroy anything in their path.
171	* NoNameGiven: The Scarecrow and his companion Crow, a pesky recurring foe in the Jasper cartoons. However, a short-lived comic book adaptation of Puppetoons named them Professor and Blackberry.
172	* ProductPlacement: The '30s Puppetoons often feature these, such as ads for Horlick's Malted Milk or Philips brand radios. This ties into the Puppetoon concept being hatched when Pal was working on a traditionally-animated advertisement for cigarettes and came up with the idea for a stop-motion short that used the ''actual'' cigarettes.
173	* PublicDomainAnimation: Several of the shorts have fallen into the public domain.
174	* PublicDomainSoundtrack: "Mr. Strauss Takes A Walk" is based entirely around Johann Strauss II's "Tales of the Vienna Woods".
175	* RandomEventsPlot: Shorts like "Philips Broadcast" had no plot to speak of, and were basically showcases for music and ads for the Philips Radios of the day.
176	* RogerRabbitEffect: Used in the short "A Date With Duke" so the perfume puppets can interact with Music/DukeEllington.
177	* RubberhoseLimbs: Many of the Puppets featured these in addition to more naturalistic limbs. And unlike the otherwise wood-carved puppets, the limbs were often ''literally'' made out of rubber, with articulated joints.
178	* ShoulderPet: The crow that always sits on the Scarecrows shoulder.
179	* SilenceIsGolden: Many of the Puppetoons are dialogue-light, using the music and visuals to carry the action. "Tubby the Tuba" notably uses a narrator to speak for the characters, who otherwise only "speak" with their respective instrumental sounds.
180	* StopMotion
181	* SuperSpeed: High Octane the horse, from "Jasper's Derby", can reach impressive racing speeds that would otherwise be impossible for a horse of his old age, whenever Jasper plays his violin.
182	** Jasper sometimes pulls this off, although it's obviously for comic effect.
183	* TheTwelvePrinciplesOfAnimation: Due to the unique (but laborious) method of using individually carved puppets per frame, this allowed the series to use principles like Squash and Stretch to great (and hilarious) effect.
184	* UnusuallyUninterestingSight: Nobody in the "Jasper" shorts finds a walking, sentient scarecrow odd.
185	* WartimeCartoon: "Tulips Shall Grow" is a blatant allegory for the Nazis taking over Holland during UsefulNotes/WorldWarII.
186	** "Bravo, Mr. Strauss" features Johann Strauss taking on the Screwballs and leading them to their doom with his music.
187	* WesternAnimation: Became this when Pal moved to the U.S.
188	* WickedWitch: The villain of the "Sleeping Beauty" short.
189	* WoodlandCreatures: The animals that accompany Johann Strauss in "Mr. Strauss Takes A Walk".
190	* VisualPun / PunnyName: The Screwballs, portrayed as literal walking balls with a screw winding up and down in their heads. And while their leader is goose-stepping, the camera cuts to a duck following right behind it doing the same thing.
191	** The titles for "Jasper in a Jam" (which has Jasper getting caught up in a ghostly jazz jam session) feature Jasper popping his head out of a jar of Jam.

Context WesternAnimation / Puppetoons