01-08-2010, 06:49 PM
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#47 (permalink)
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The Reforms
Location: Rarely, if ever, here or there, but always in transition
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Red Hot Riding Hood
Directed by Tex Avery
Music composed by Scott Bradley
Released on May 8, 1943
Distributed by by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM)
{If the above embeddable should break, a redirect link:red hot riding hood}
The story begins with the standard version of Little Red Riding Hood until the characters suddenly rebel at this done-to-death staging and demand a fresh approach.
The annoyed narrator accedes to their demands and starts the story again in a dramatically different arrangement.
Now the story is set in a contemporary urban setting, where Red is a sexy adult nightclub entertainer, and The Wolf is a debonair skirt chaser.
Tex Avery was obviously fascinated with this fairy tale, as he made at least three different re-tellings of it, as well as letting it intrude into some of his other cartoons.
Fun Stuff click to show - According to several accounts, upon the opening night of this film, it caused such an acclaim and commotion, that audiences demanded it be played again. The theater personnel were more than glad to oblige.
- This cartoon (along with all other subsequent cartoons featuring "Red") was initially banned from television, judged as being too provocative.
- Director Tex Avery was famous for his off the wall cartoons, which were aimed more toward adult audiences than children. Here, however, he pushed the limits of what was considered acceptable, and in several places the film was toned down in order to satisfy the U. S. censors.
- The wolf's reaction to Red's nightclub routine ran afoul of censors thanks to the Hays Code. Avery got around this by including scenes which were even more over-the-top, which he knew would get cut, leaving him with the ones he wanted in the first place.
- A US military officer asked for and received uncut copies of the short to show to his overseas troops; this version of the film has rarely been publicly released outside of animation festivals and events.
- The short’s original ending was ultimately rejected by the Hays office on the grounds of bestiality. In it the Wolf ends up marrying Grandma at a shotgun wedding (in both the defined and literal sense) and then in the last scene, he, Grandma and their three wolf-cub children are seen attending Red’s show. Only publicity stills of this original ending exist today (even the ending that exists in the short today is often censored by networks).
- In animation historian Jerry Beck's 1994 poll of animators, film historians and directors, this cartoon was rated the seventh greatest cartoon of all time.
- Contrary to popular belief, Red Hot Riding Hood was not rotoscoped - she was drawn from scratch.
- Throughout the production of this short, the MGM animation department had an ongoing problem with storyboard sketches and even finished cels mysteriously disappearing - appropriated as souvenirs by Red's more brazen admirers.
- June Foray's first voice project.
- Daws Butler's film debut.
- The speaking voice of Red Hot Riding Hood is an imitation of Katharine Hepburn.
- The title card that declares "Something new has been added" is borrowing a catchphrase from Jerry Colonna.
- Grandma's neon sign that says "Come up and see me sometime" is borrowing a famous line from Mae West.
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As human beings, our greatness lies not so much in being able to remake the world (that is the myth of the Atomic Age) as in being able to remake ourselves. —Mohandas K. Gandhi
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