Best and Worst of Jack Hannah

Hello, there was a person by the name of Jack Hannah who mostly tentured at Disney and later directed Lantz shorts that were like Dick Lundy's shorts (the Woody Woodpecker he directed was sort of like how Lundy treated the character, tamed but still loony, again above that annoying, artless, bland and pesky chattering bird from Paul J Smith that never shuts up.) but to 1960s standards, first teamed up with the just as talented Carl Barks (it's a shame that guy didn't direct, it'be amazing to see a Donald Duck short directed by him, that would have been miles better than DuckTales ever would) as storyman (and did that entire rejected short were Donald was a spy, it was rejected due to a scene that involed female abuse) and eventually got his director stripes in 1944 beginning with Donald's Off Day.

His Best:

Lambert the Sheepish Lion (1951)



Really touching short, got me right here... oh and Milt Kahl is uncredited by the way, the only scene i'm aware of that he did was the very first scene of Lambert being grown up at the river.


No Hunting (1954)



here, we see Hannah going all kooky- really Tex Avery like in this bizzare cartoon, and John Sibley is said to do practially all the animation here, but in the final few scenes it looks like Volus Jones is uncredited in some parts, confirm the true correct answer if there were a few more uncredited animators on this short or that Sibley himself did indeed do all of the animation in this short, anyway, this is an extremely good cartoon, it proves that Walt Disney could be exactly just as wacky, wild and kooky as Tex Avery, just in their unique own way.
On the other hand, this defiently looks like it could be exactly made as early as defiently in 1944 even, seeing that a few things (inculding the hunt playing like semi-army warfare fight) wouldn't be all that out of place to WWII, in fact Donald's reason and pushed into hunting could be all because of ration meat shortage had this had been animated and drawn in the early to mid 1940s, in fact if it was, then you would exepect to see some refences to the enemy at time, such as the Japs and the Nazis (if it was made today, it'be all this jabs to Osama Bin Laden and Al-Quaeda stuff, but, personally, i despise politics and seldom mention it as i make sure), OTHER than that, imangine if the storyman who wrote this instead took this to MGM in the 1940s and what if this REALLY was directed by Tex Avery, now there's a thought.


Bearly Asleep (1955)



Al Coe did a lot of extensive animation here , including the famous Humprey butt feet walk, and his scenes are hillarious and laugh out loud funny, it just tells that he was actually a really crazy and funny animator in it's own right ever, Volus and Bill also do some powerful scenes as well, but they can not come close to the extremely breakneck sharp animation that Al Coe provides here.

I can think of some more to name too, such as The New Neighbour, but this is just to name a few.


His Worst:

Hook Lion and Sinker (1949).



All i can say in this one is this is one of Disney's more pointless and stupidly idiotic cartoons, the characters (save the lion cub) are extremely heartless and pretty retarded, with Donald Duck being at his worst (i.e extremely even more malicious than he is in other cartoons) in this cartoon, the acting here is extremely harsh and painfully unpleasant, the animation here is extremely stiff, really cheap and pretty ugly, obviously it's the really bad part of the limited animation of the Jay Ward's cartoons (Gamma stuff) taken and extremely and noticeably altered signaficiantly with the gloss and polish that should be expected of Disney and also changed to fit into Disney standards, i mean come on, the animator styles (only just in case if you don't know how general raw material works) being really much close to non-existaint (which is regular at Disney and pretty much most of the studios in the west coast , even inculding that of Terrytoons at the east coast with Bill Tyla, Carlo Vinci and Jim Tyer being the execptions, not the rule.) seems to be at an all time high at this cartoon, in fact, the story direction in this cartoon is also really Made-for-TV like and has a really strong linkeage to that, this exact story would defiently work like this: replace the Mountain Lions with Snaglepuss and a Snaglepuss Jr, replace Donald Duck with Huckleberry Hound and clean out all of the wax and polish and leave everything truly raw as it perfectly looks on the inside (including the entire animation here) and you have a cartoon whose animation and practically everything is perfect as a 1960s Made for TV cartoon, this could also work with Deputy Dawg too, the only good thing about this cartoon was Paul Smith's music, who is not to be confused by the crappy rotten director who created badly animated (Les Kline's scenes are really corrupting and haphazardly vile to boot ) junk at Walter Lantz Studio.

Clown of the Jungle (1946)



Good timing and sharp layouts, but will kills this is the extremely sloppy, nasty lifeless animation in some parts, especially the scenes including the intro scene by Volus Jones and one camera scene by Bill Justice (but there is some good and slick and powerful animation in a few; in the parts around 2:19 - 2:26 and an entire sequence from 4:17 - 4:30, i wonder WHO actually animated those scenes? i think it's Hal King, the talented Bird animator at Disney, and those scenes are distinct enough and scenes by Andy Engman are as good as well.) and the painting technique is really stilted and extremely bland and artless as well (by Thelma Whitmer), and the Aracuan Bird (from the Three Callbareros) in this cartoon, is susposedly Disney's answer to Woody Woodpecker, but here the Aracuan Bird's voice and everything comes off as tastless, grating, annoying and unlikeable here, whereas Woody Woodpecker's laugh (by Mel Blanc) is wild, kooky, funny and stylish all in a good way, on the other hand the Grace Stafford Woody Woodpecker laugh is pretty much in the boat as the Aracuan Bird in this cartoon, both rather tasteless, bland and kinda annoying at times, however, i like the Aracuan Bird better in the Blame it on the Samba cartoon than in this one.

Squatter's Rights (1946)



This is the second appearnce to feature Chip and Dale and Mickey Mouse's character design in this cartoon is extremely mushy and deformed in this cartoon to borderline hideous, that aside, this is pretty much where the entire rot to everything (specficially the stories, animation etc.) was beginning to set in, and also budget cuts were starting to storm in as well, because Mickey's line that he can't be mad at Pluto was directly taken from Playful Pluto (1934), and then this turns into a Dog vs Chipmunk chase where the ending is extremely predictable that Mickey thinks Pluto is bleeding (when really it's just ketchup) and rushes him out the house and Chip and Dale just laugh at the end, what kind of ending is THAT!!!??, I think this should have been in the middle of the cartoon, and speaking of which, the timing in this cartoon is just plain awful and the story is just one big lag, the problem is that it just seems that they had this unnecceasry fear for Walt Disney and all treated him like he was some sort of Deity (God) or something, i can NOT argue with that seeing that it was technically , defiently and of course it was all Walt's studio in the very first place, and to his defense there are many more good things that can be said than there are the bad things that can be said, but i have to say this, was Disney out of his mind to have his vision allow something so artless and something extremely super crummy and tasteless like this cartoon? something like this? anyway, they should have kept the design that had true floppy Mouse ears that also kept his shorts, and they should have changed Mickey's personality to make him more of a diffrent kind of mischevious and more of a real mouse than he was in the late 1930s, i know that he had a reputation with children, but come on, even the children that had his reputation were well aware of the personality of characters such as Bugs Bunny, Woody Woodpecker, Screwball Squirrel, Blackie Lamb (from the first Noveltoon entry from 1943), Herman the Mouse (from the Henpecked Rooster, circa 1944), Wolfie, Daffy Duck and yes, that of Droopy, so actually there was no real reason whatsoever to keep Mickey like that in this cartoon, they also should have changed Mickey's voice from that crappy falesto to something that is more distinct and indicates him as a character, to their defense, it took them years untill they got to Wayne Allwine, who's vocal portrayal WAS distinct and did suggest his character and was much more than a dumb lame falestto, aplogies to Walt Disney and Jimmy MacDonald, both whom had truly great voices.

And again, this is just to name a few, really the rest are all this Vs. Bee/Chip n Dale junk that's all alike, there is MUCH worse of Disney, namely you guys are extremely lucky that i haven't covered that of Charles August Nichols who had a reputation of being one of the worst directors in the golden age, at least to guys like Thad of the GAC forums and also Woolie Rethierman who had this fetish of re-use and not because of budgets at all (just like Bob Clampett, check Thad's video of that on his blog about re-use and you'll see what i mean), and oustide of Disney, be lucky that i haven't covered that of Allen Rose (don't think i want to) , Burt Gillet (this guy had a really bad disorder that led him to hurting his fellow alumni, Shamus in patculair), Sam Singer (i'd actually like to know stories about the studio condition and what the people working for him thought of him) , Alex Lovy (actually, this guy wasn't that bad a director and defiently not bad a person seeing how he did many fine Walter Lantz cartoons, patcuarillary in the 1950s with Woody Woodpecker, seeing how he was practially the only director that made Woody truly Woody, but he eventually wound up doing so much Daffy/ Speedy crap and cartoons with really terrible, amateruish, and hideous designs and animation with stuff like Cool Cat, Merlin Mouse, and other terrible Made-For-TV style junk *shudders*), Bobe Cannon (unbeliviable, since this guy was a wacky and kooky and pretty funny animator considering his short lived work for Tex Avery and his later stuff for John Hubley, yet his films as a director at UPA were too obviously stagnant, artless, amateur and pretty rotten), Seymour Knietel (come on, just like Bobe Cannon, a good animator but not really decent as director), Izzy Sparber (that i can understand, seeing that he wasn't an artist and had that crappy 1-2-3 timing) and the really big stinko Paul J Smith who directed the most horrific and disgusting cartoons to ever come out of the Walter Lantz studio.

So, what do you guys like and don't like about Jack Hannah as a director, let's hear your self titled opinions