Warner Brothers Cartoon Quotes

it has left a neat bomb-shaped hole in the deck, just like a panicky Warner Brothers cartoon character passing at high speed through a planar structure such as a wall or ceiling.

The ever-reliable Bill Thompson filled the gap with a new character, Wallace Wimple. Wallace gave new meaning to the word “wimp,” for this was the nickname pinned on him by Fibber McGee. Wimple was terrified of his “big old wife,” the ferocious, often-discussed but never-present “Sweetie Face.” Also in 1941 came Gale Gordon as Mayor LaTrivia, who would arrive at the McGee house, start an argument, and become so tongue-tied that he’d blow his top. A year later, all these characters disappeared: Gordon went into the Coast Guard, and when Thompson joined the Navy, four characters went with him. With LaTrivia, Boomer, Depopoulous, Wimple, the Old Timer, and Gildersleeve all on the “recently departed” list, Fibber found a new devil’s advocate in the town doctor. Arthur Q. Bryan, who had played the voice of Elmer Fudd in the Warner Brothers cartoons, became Doc Gamble, continuing the verbal brickbats begun by Gildersleeve. Their squabbles could begin over a disputed doctor bill—McGee always disputed doctor bills—or erupt out of nowhere about anything at all.

Commercial firms turned out Claghorn shirts and compasses (the needles always pointed south, son); Delmar cut two Claghorn records, I Love You, That Is and That’s a Joke, Son, and Warner Brothers pirated the concept for use in a series of cartoons. The strutting cartoon rooster, Foghorn J. Leghorn, was an obvious steal from Delmar: the cutting irony, he said years later, was that the cartoons were copyrighted, so that, from then on, “in order to do Claghorn, I had to ask permission from Warner Brothers.

We had wanted to use a final sample to finish the twelve-inch track off, “That’s All Folks!” from the Warner Brothers cartoons. But we were quoted $30,000 for one use. And we were on their label. Just shows you . . . no favouritism.