What's Clobberin'

“Inconsistency” describes the Walter Lantz cartoons of the early ‘50s. Even within a cartoon, characters can be rubbery in one scene, drawn with thick ink-lines in the next one and rendered fluidly in the next one. None of them are animated as well as the cartoons before Lantz closed his studio temporarily at the end of the ‘40s and lost great talent like Ed Love, Fred Moore, Pat Matthews and Ken O’Brien.

One somewhat rubbery scene is in “What’s Sweepin’,” directed by Don Patterson, where Woody clobbers a shop owner and Wally Walrus (both voiced by Dal McKennon). Here’s an in-between before Wally’s hit. No speed lines or smears; just Woody stretched a bit to indicate speed and gravity.



Here’s an extreme from a little bit earlier in the scene. Wally’s off-balance and cross-eyed in the background, like something out of a Terrytoon.



The scene’s partly animated on twos. Paul J. Smith, La Verne Harding and Ray Abrams get the animation credits.