Elmer Fudd Itch

Today’s stretch in-betweens are brought to you by the unit of Bob Clampett, who seems to have given animation credits only to Bob McKimson and Rod Scribner around this time (1943).

“An Itch in Time” is best-known for two things—the song ‘Food Around the Corner’ (even sped-up, you can tell Sara Berner is singing as the flea), and the dog’s hyper remark to the camera as he stops dragging his butt for a moment. But there are a couple of animation effects that I like. One is how the dog turns becomes brushed lines of colour between two drawings, and another is the bit near the end when the flea has evidently jumped from the dog to Elmer Fudd, judging by the way Elmer is scratching and twists from pose to pose (being a Clampett cartoon, a butt is involved in this as well).

This is where the stretch in-betweens come in to make the movement quick and fluid. Observe.















And then the dog when he realises he’s no longer flea-bitten.





I’ll leave it to the experts to suugest who was doing this type of drawing for Clampett about this time.