History Creator / ArtDavis

* ProductionPosse: Was an animator for Friz Freleng during the '50s.

* ArtEvolution: Davis's unit was shut down in 1949, and he was absorbed into Creator/FrizFreleng's unit, where he stayed until the early '60s. However, he was given a chance to guest direct one more cartoon at WB, 1962's "Quackodile Tears". Unfortunately, due to the slimmer budgets by the '60s, not to mention using Freleng's animators rather than his team from the late '40s, the animation was much simpler and more rigid, and the designs far less conducive to rubbery movement. It was basically Freleng lite.

* OneShotCharacter: Many of his 1946-1948 cartoons starred one-shot characters. It's been theorized this is because he was the newest director and thus had to establish himself before being trusted with the major characters, although that theory falls flat because then you'd have to consider Daffy Duck and Porky Pig not major characters.

'''Arthur "Art" Davis''' (June 14, 1905 – May 9, 2000) was an animator and director who worked for a number of studios during his career, [[UsefulNotes/TheGoldenAgeOfAnimation throughout]] [[UsefulNotes/TheDarkAgeOfAnimation multiple]] [[UsefulNotes/TheRenaissanceAgeOfAnimation eras.]]

* PayingTheirDues: Want to know why Art only directed one Bugs Bunny cartoon? It's because there was an unofficial rule that new directors couldn't touch the studio's biggest star until they had proven themselves capable as a director first. Unfortunately, by the time Art was allowed to direct one ("Bowery Bugs"), the studio closed his unit.

* DerangedAnimation: As with his predecessor, Creator/BobClampett. Unlike Clampett, Davis'style of animation was more restrained in movement and focused more on the weirdness and lapses in logic.

* MimeAndMusicOnlyCartoon: "The Foxy Duckling", "Doggone Cats", "Odor of the Day" (aside from "Gesundheit!" at the end).

* OneShotCharacter: Many of his 1946-1948 cartoons starred one-shot characters. It's been theorized this is because he was the newest director and thus had to establish himself before being trusted with the major characters, although that theory falls flat because then you'd have to consider Daffy Duck and Porky Pig not major characters.* PayingTheirDues: Want to know why Art only directed one Bugs Bunny cartoon? It's because there was an unofficial rule that new directors couldn't touch the studio's biggest star until they had proven themselves capable as a director first. Unfortunately, by the time Art was allowed to direct one ("Bowery Bugs"), the studio closed his unit.

* Odor of the Day - Starring Pepe Le Pew ([[NotMakingThisUpDisclaimer yes, really]], though as a more standard screwball comedy character compared to Chuck Jones' take on him)

* ArtEvolution:
** Davis's unit was shut down in 1949, and he was absorbed into Creator/FrizFreleng's unit, where he stayed until the early '60s. However, he was given a chance to guest direct one more cartoon at WB, 1962's "Quackodile Tears". Unfortunately, due to the slimmer budgets by the '60s, not to mention using Freleng's animators rather than his team from the late '40s, the animation was much simpler and more rigid, and the designs far less conducive to rubbery movement. It was basically Freleng lite.

* DerangedAnimation: As with his predecessor, Creator/BobClampett, though, unlike Clampett, Davis' deranged animation was slightly more restrained in movement, focusing more on comic weirdness and lapses in logic. Justified as Davis worked at Fleischer Studios in the 1920s, so some of what he did there rubbed off on his later work.

* OneShotCharacter: Many of his 1946-1948 cartoons starred one-shot characters. It's been theorized this is because he was the newest director and thus had to establish himself before being trusted with the major characters, although that theory falls flat when you realize that Davis had some cartoons with familiar characters in them (mostly Daffy Duck and Porky Pig cartoons[[note]]mostly apart, though "Riff Raffy Daffy" has Porky and Daffy together[[/note]], but he had two Sylvester cartoons[[note]]"Catch as Cats Can" and "Doggone Cats"[[/note]], a Pepe Le Pew cartoon[[note]]"Odor of the Day", which had Pepe as a more standard screwball comedy character rather than the lovesick character that Chuck Jones made[[/note]], a Daffy Duck cartoon with Elmer Fudd in it[[note]]"What Makes Daffy Duck?"[[/note]], and a Bugs Bunny cartoon[[note]]"Bowery Bugs"[[/note]]).
* PayingTheirDues: Want to know why Art only directed one Bugs Bunny cartoon? It's because there was an unofficial rule that new directors couldn't touch the studio's biggest star until they had proven themselves capable as a director first. Unfortunately, by the time Art was allowed to direct one ("Bowery Bugs"), the studio closed his unit.

** Davis's unit was shut down in 1949, and he was absorbed into Creator/FrizFreleng's unit, where he stayed until the early '60s. However, he was given a chance to guest direct one more cartoon at WB, 1962's "Quackodile Tears". Unfortunately, due to the slimmer budgets by the '60s, not to mention using Freleng's animators rather than his team from the late '40s, the animation was much simpler and more rigid, and the designs far less conducive to rubbery movement. It was basically Freleng lite (though Davis' brief stint as director after Bob Clampett and Frank Tashlin left can best be described as Clampett-lite at worst[[note]]at best, Davis' cartoons from 1946 to 1949 can be described as Bob Clampett meets Robert [=McKimson=] when the latter started out in the mid-to-late 1940s[[/note]]).
** Davis would get an even later chance to co-direct two made-for-TV shorts "The Yolks On You" and "Daffy Flies North". Obviously being TV budget, these cartoons are simplified even further, though have odd flourishes of energy not even in "Quackodile Tears".

* SignatureStyle: Davis was arguably the director who ''most'' emulated Bob Clampett's rubbery style (though Davis' rubbery style wasn't like Clampett's. There were more airbrushed motions and wacky sight gags in a Davis cartoon somehow made less sense than something you'd see Bob Clampett do[[note]]cases in point: the wooden Porky head that Pierre the termite carved out the bannister coming to life to stick his tongue out at Porky in "The Pest That Came To Dinner"; Daffy's melodramatic monologue about getting shot at in "What Makes Daffy Duck?"; and the random voice who sounds like Yosemite Sam yelling, "That's you, fathead!" on "Bowery Bugs"[[/note]], which is no surprise, considering Davis inherited Clampett's unit after Clampett left the studio.
** Davis also used more black-outs to go from one scene to the next, and experimented with making the established Warner Bros. characters of the time act out of character. "What Makes Daffy Duck?" has Daffy as a Bugs Bunny-style trickster who manipulates both Elmer (who is smarter and more sane, but no less a comic foil, in this cartoon compared to the later ones, where he's dumber and more neurotic) and a fox into fighting over who gets to hunt him, Pepe Le Pew is still shown as a relentless pest on "Odor of the Day", but the romantic/sexual undertones have been removed, Sylvester had two distinct personalities in the two Davis shorts he was in ("Doggone Cats" had him as a silent trickster with a nameless orange cat as his partner in crime and Sylvester on "Catch as Cats Can" had a SimpletonVoice, no lisp, and took orders from a Bing Crosby-esque parrot who needed help killing a Frank Sinatra-esque canary), the Goofy Gophers, while still polite to each other, were more mischievous and destructive in "Goofy Gophers" and "Two Gophers from Texas", and, while Bugs was still a trickster (albeit a bit more murderous, in that he [[DrivenToSuicide drove a luckless man looking for a rabbit's foot to suicide]]) in "Bowery Bugs", his brief cameo in "Goofy Gophers" had him speak in a higher voice with no Brooklyn accent.

** Davis also used more black-outs to go from one scene to the next, and experimented with making the established Warner Bros. characters of the time act out of character. "What Makes Daffy Duck?" has Daffy as a Bugs Bunny-style trickster who manipulates both Elmer (who is smarter and more sane, but no less a comic foil, in this cartoon compared to the later ones, where he's dumber and more neurotic) and a fox into fighting over who gets to hunt him, Pepe Le Pew is still shown as a relentless pest on "Odor of the Day", but the romantic/sexual undertones have been removed, Sylvester had two distinct personalities in the two Davis shorts he was in ("Doggone Cats" had him as a silent trickster with a nameless orange cat as his partner in crime and "Catch as Cats Can" had a SimpletonVoice, no lisp, and took orders from a Bing Crosby-esque parrot who needed help killing a Frank Sinatra-esque canary) and the Goofy Gophers, while still polite to each other, were more mischievous and destructive in "Goofy Gophers" and "Two Gophers from Texas".

* SignatureStyle: Davis was arguably the director who ''most'' emulated Bob Clampett's rubbery style, which is no surprise, considering Davis inherited Clampett's unit after Clampett left the studio.

** Davis's unit was shut down in 1949, and he was absorbed into Creator/FrizFreleng's unit, where he stayed until the early '60s. However, he was given a chance to guest direct one more cartoon at WB, 1962's "Quackodile Tears". Unfortunately, due to the slimmer budgets by the '60s, not to mention using Freleng's animators rather than his team from the late '40s, the animation was much simpler and more rigid, and the designs far less conducive to rubbery movement. It was basically Freleng lite.

* DependingOnTheArtist: A number of the cartoons Davis directed at WB featured heavy airbrush effects when characters move quickly, most of them coming from animator Don Williams.

* DerangedAnimation: As with his predecessor, Creator/BobClampett, though, unlike Clampett, Davis' deranged animation was more restrained in movement and focused more on comic weirdness and lapses in logic. Justified as Davis worked at Fleischer Studios in the 1920s, so some of what he did there rubbed off on his later work.

** "Bone Sweet Bone" is mostly this, though there is some dialog in a few moments.

* DerangedAnimation: As with his predecessor, Creator/BobClampett, though, unlike Clampett, Davis' deranged animation was more restrained in movement and focused more on the weirdness and lapses in logic. Justified as Davis worked at Fleischer Studios in the 1920s, so some of what he did there rubbed off on his work.