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thebrownssociety · 3 years

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i noticed that in a past post you had mentioned daffy was in the front lines of world war 2. how was that like? how did toons particularly handle war?

Not particularly well. Toons are not designed for war, they're designed to make people laugh. Added to that that most of the toons were very young [under 15] when they were sent to the front and the story gets sadder.

Warnings: Mention of War and descriptions of PTSD [I have done research, but this is Toon version, so it's not going to tally exactly with humans]

Disclaimer - this is a headcanon. I have mentioned the companies here and Walt Disney [briefly] stating the obvious, it's all made-up.

All of the companies involved did there best to help/protect the toons as best they could. None of the female or children toons were allowed to go and there was a limit on how old the 'adult' toons had to be before they could go. That ended up being 5. The companies wanted 10, the Military wanted three, five was a compromise - although the companies had to fight hard to get that. In the end it boiled down to 'Either five, or they don't go at all'. The companies also re-negotiated the initial year the toons would be away down to 6 consecutive months. The companies wanted three months, so it was another compromise.

Stating the obvious, none of the toons enjoyed it much. Even the ones who thought they would thrive [Like Donald, Yosamite Sam and other 'tough' toons] found it difficult. Not to say they don't remember some bits of it fondly, mainly the comradeship they found, but for the most part it was hell on earth. After the first lot of Toons who's gone in the first month [about 30, mainly background toons, Prince Florian and Sylvester] came back from the front they looked so pale and ghostlike [visually, a shell of there former selves] that none of the others wanted to go and the companies tried to pull them out of it. [This being near the end of 1943] But they weren't allowed to, so the toons had to go.

The time the toons were fighting was 'only' Jan 1943 - end of war, Sep 1945, and the toons were only there for 6 months, but it was a long, terrifying 6 months.

The weird thing was that after the first initial couple of months while there coulor came back and they looked more life-like again, they seemed okay. Really! They could still act - and act well - they joked with each other in a normal manner and they talked to people. Sure, there were a few of them showing more difficulties adjusting - like Daffy who was acting paranoid and was constantly on the edge and Donald who's already-existing anger issues went through the roof, not to mention Elmer who was mute for a few months after coming back and Pete [Disney] who locked himself away and wouldn't come out, not to mention the at least 30 of background toons who were all showing extreme level of difficultly, but, hey, that was only a couple of toons, right? In the grand scheme of things. The rest of them were fine.

They were not fine.

It took a good couple of years [between 5-10] But eventually the cracks started showing. The Toons who had fought in the war started reacting weirdly to loud noise. Jumping onto the ceiling and refusing to come down, hiding under things and in things [like jugs and cups and cracks in the wall] whenever they thought they were under attack. They were having frequent, intense nightmares and a lot of the toon were displaying mental health issues like paranoia and splitting themselves in two [literally. It depended on the toon as to what exactly the personalities looked like, but as a general guide they'd be one 'young' one from around the time they were first created and another one that was closer to there normal age, but looked and acted completely different. Doctor Scratchesniff theorised it's what the toons worse fears about themselves are, visualised and brought to life.]

The toons were also having flashbacks to the war, which is bad enough on its own, but because they're toons the flashbacks literally engulfed them and whoever was near, drawing them into a world that they hadn't been in for about five-ten years. This, as you can probably imagine, was quite a major problem so the three major studios - Disney, Warner Bros's and Hanna-Barbera - put there heads together and came up with a solution, and that solution came in the form of Doctor Scratchensniff. [I do have a separate headcanon on him, covered in my 'Mental-Health' headcanon] The idea was that D.S. would work across all three studios and have enhanced toon powers.

While it's well known that a lot of Toons have been affected by the war, I'll go through a few of the toons that [I headcanon] have had the most noticeable difficulties after the war.

Daffy - He now goes back and forth between his 40's characterisation [screwball, Clampett version] and his greedy-jerkass characterisation in later years. The way it works is he will be the 'sensible' persona of the Greedy Daffy for most of the year [who, for all his faults, does care about his friends/family and can take care of Plucky easily], then he will suddenly switch back to his 40's persona. [Who, although he does still care for his friends/family, he can't express it as well and he has NO IDEA who Plucky is.]

After a bit of help and counselling from D.S. he has identified his major triggers [and Daffy has informed the rest of the LT's so they're aware of them]. For example, flying a plane will instantly put him back in the 40's mindset. For a time it was flying in general that put him in the mindset [which was fun when the LT's went to Australia] but now Daffy's okay with it and can manage small journeys easily. Longer journeys he struggled with, but he simply doesn't go on long plane journeys.

He also doesn't like Toons taller than himself getting in his face, [much taller, I mean. Bugs is alright.] He'll go into 'Fight' mode and try to attack them. Non-expected loud sounds like a car backfiring or fireworks can also remind him of war. Daffy's reaction when he hears something that he's not sure of what it is, it to try and find it and attack it. Either that or he would teleport away to a small space [like a jug, under a staircase or a crack in the wall] and not come out until Avery/Elmer/Porky calmed him down. [Bugs does try, but Daffy tends to get more wound up whenever Bugs tries anything, so the rabbit had to stop.]

Donald - I'm not going to spend long on Donald, mainly because his issues have [I'm fairly certain] been touched on in canon? His triggers are a lot like Daffy's except that Donald is MUCH more likely to try and attack anything he thinks is a threat rather than run away from it. He has inadvertently hurt [both physically and mentally] people he cares about by doing this, but they understand the reason why. Doesn't necessary make it easier, but they understand.

The main difference between him and Daffy though is that Donald has always wanted help. Ever since he realised he was hurting the people he loved, he wanted help. He had time off from work, Scrooge stepped in and insisted Donald and the boys move in with him so he didn't have to worry about a roof over his head and getting food and stuff. [Unfortunately this genuine well-meant, kind act only added to Donald's general feeling of uselessness]

The good news was that not only did Donald have extended family support, but he was best friends with Mickey and Goofy. Mickey was able to lean in Walts ears and convince him to treat Donald more leniently than he might have other toons, he also did his best to help Donald come to terms with what had happened to him during the war. Goofy could - in theory - do a lot less than Mickey, but he WAS more available and completely willing to take the boys off him for a couple of hours/days/weeks if needed. Goofy can cook - and cook well - so he'd bring food over for Donald so that if [as happened often] he didn't feel like cooking he'd have something ready to heat up/put in the oven.

Elmer - Some of the toons when they were put in charge of there units got on quite well, in that they had men who were willing to listen to them, and treated them kindly. Elmer's troop wasn't like that. He was very young when he was sent there [8] and was still more like Egghead. A bit silly, a bit hyper and not as hard as he needed to be. He cried the first time he went into battle and had a lot of trouble trying to gain the respect of his men. This has had a knock-on effect in that he thought everyone around him hated him and didn't like him. Even when he went back to Toontown, he just thought all his friends/family were being nice to him because they had to, not because they genuinely liked him.

Over many years Elmer has come to accept this isn't true and has been in therapy with D.S. in order to discuss it further. On a different note the main immediately noticeable difference upon coming back from war [aside from the fact he was mute for about two months] was that he started sleepwalking. His sleep had never been great at the best of times, but the war gave him such bad nightmares that he hardly ever slept. When he did eventually get to sleep, he started sleepwalking. Elmer being Elmer somehow didn't notice this at first? He thought it was completely normal [?] to start the night in your bed and wake up in Toon-World Australia having somehow swam his way across the ocean and hacked his way through the Australian outbacks to the middle off Australia, while asleep. He then had to spend several days trying to get back to Looney-Tune Street. With this in mind, it was really only a matter of time until it was noticed by the others.

They do there best to look out for him, if one of the LT's see Elmer sleepwalking, they will follow him/go with him and try to look after him. It should be noted though that despite the fact Fudd is clearly asleep, he is somehow aware of his surroundings and should someone attack him he will fight back and, most times, win.

#Looney Tunes Ask #Looney Tunes #Donald Duck #Daffy Duck #Elmer Fudd #Yosemite Sam #Headcanons #Mickey Mouse #Goofy #Disney Headcanons #Looney Tunes Headcanons #PTSD #Scrooge McDuck

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monstersandmaw · 4 years

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Female vampire x female hunter (sfw) - Streaming story

Edit which I’m including in all my works after plagiarism and theft has taken place: I do not give my consent for my works to be used, copied, published, or posted anywhere. They are copyrighted and belong to me.

Hey folks! Here’s the edited version of the story I wrote with your input on my Twitch writing stream. Names were suggested in the chat for Olena (the vampire), our huntress, and the black cat, so thank you! I hope you had fun watching the stream and watching how I write and work, and maybe we can do another one in the future if there’s enough interest.

This feels like a part one to me, so maybe we can continue it together? Also Olena is basically Striga from the Netflix Castlevania series...

Content: (POV vampire) snow, scheming cats, grumpy lesbian vampire, slightly daffy huntress, and a teeny bit of sass. Wordcount: ~2.7k

She’d seen a hundred winters like it, but the sight of dancing snowflakes as winter really sank its teeth into the landscape never failed to ease something inside her. The summers here were intense and hot, but in the dead of winter the sun barely managed to haul itself above the tall row of looming elms on the horizon and everything lay muffled beneath dense blankets of pristine snow.

Her breath fogged against the leaded panes of the mullioned windows as snowflakes flailed around the dark courtyard beyond and she found her thin, dark lips tugging into a wry, private smile. Yes, winter was her time; it was a time of wolves and hunting; of long nights, solitary stars, and gusting winds.

As she shifted her weight - on the point of turning away from the worsening storm - her light, soft-soled fur boots sounding barely a whisper on the smooth, time-worn flagstones of the bastion which she’d called home for the past two centuries, a movement in the barbican gate caught her sharp eye. Scowling, she focused her gaze on the distant, shadowed arch below. Squinting past her own severe, pale reflection and the flickering of the fire behind her, her heavy, dark brows knotted a little more tightly together when she figured out exactly what she was seeing.

“No,” she breathed, astonished. “No fucking way. A human? Out in this weather?”

Easy pickings, perhaps.

It had been long enough since her last feed that the thought of hot, fresh blood straight from the vein enticed her out into the cold.

With a grunt, she turned away from the window and stalked through the castle on long, lean legs, fur-trimmed cloak swirling behind her like pirate’s sail. It didn’t take much effort to haul open the monstrous, iron-studded castle doors, and the blast of icy air that hit her in the face barely registered. Narrowing moss-green eyes against the biting wind, she stepped out into the drift-riddled courtyard.

Up ahead she thought she could make out the figure of a young, human leading a horse. “The fuck?” she snarled. While her body didn’t particularly need blood at the moment - no burning thirst prickling the back of her throat - as she neared the human and caught the faintest traces of her scent on the wind the instinctive urge to feed sparked a dull throb in her canines. It didn’t help that the woman’s pulse was rabbiting, but she could ignore that for now.

The next scent she caught was the sour tang of horse, and she wrinkled her nose in disgust. Still, the human seemed to have noticed her at last because a voice that would have been too faint for human ears rose above the yowling of the wind a moment later.

“Oh by the gods,” the young woman practically whimpered, staggering a little into the body of her chestnut horse who seemed to be a little lame on the nearside fore, head nodding with each step. The syncopated motion set a nicely-made, tooled leather quiver rocking on the saddle, revealing a decent number of arrows. The woman was a hunter then, and either her horse had gone lame before she’d managed to shoot anything, or she wasn’t very good.

Olena stilled and let them approach her, a single, incredulous eyebrow raised.

“I know it’s late!” the woman continued, tugging fruitlessly on the reins of the mare who had planted her feet and refused to take another step.

Animals could usually sense the supernatural, and this mare clearly had more sense than her owner when it came to marching up to a predator uninvited and introducing itself.

“But, Buttercup here threw a shoe about half a mile back and it’s twisted the clenches a bit, and I didn’t want to keep riding her with one shoe off, so I got off and walked, but then it got late, and dark, and the snow started to worsen and…”

Olena remained perfectly still, wondering how the woman’s mouth could be moving so quickly when the rest of her seemed half frozen.

“So… uh… any chance we could find some help here? At least a roof over our heads til tomorrow? I don’t mind sleeping in the stable with Buttercup. Well,” she added tilting her head a bit and patting the mare’s shoulder, “Maybe not with with, because I don’t want to get crushed, but… you know… On a hay bale or something.”

After a brief pause while Olena’s brain tried to catch up with the sheer speed of the woman’s speech, she said, “I think we have a spare trough for you.”

For a split second, the human didn’t react and Olena wondered if she had, finally, frozen in place. Her eyes were wide and brown, somewhere between the colour of honey and hazel, and she blinked a few times before spluttering, “Wait, are you serious? You’re gonna offer me a fucking trough?”

A tiny smile played at the corner of Olena’s mouth but she resisted the urge to let it blossom into something more expressive. With a quick jut of her chin, she indicated the stable block - mostly disused these days - and muttered, “Stable the mare in there. When you’re done, come up to the castle.”

Without checking to see if the human had any more questions or spontaneous monologues to spout, Olena turned on the spot and left her to it.

As she paced steadily through the falling snow, the vampire’s keen ears caught the soft sounds of the hunter nattering on to the horse - something about creepy castles and grumpy noblewomen - followed by the raucous squeak of the stable door as it opened, the clop of the mare’s hooves on hard stone, and then she was back at the castle doors herself and passing beneath leering carved gargoyles and grotesques.

She debated fleetingly with herself as to whether she should close the doors again, partly so that the drifting snow didn’t pile up in the hallway again, but mostly so that Luna didn’t decide she wanted to go out all of a sudden, and then disappear for hours, only to turn up in the middle of the day, mewling to come in with something unmentionable dangling from her needle-sharp teeth.

“Bloody cat,” Olena muttered fondly.

It had been a while since she’d been in any real position to gauge a human’s strength - in any context - but she had the feeling that this woman was probably stronger than her slim build suggested. Perhaps she was wiry rather than slender. A life where someone needed to come poaching deer in the forest, rather than having fine meals made, had a tendency to tip a person towards a leaner constitution. It was a build that had always appealed to her, despite certain expectations that someone as tall and muscular as Olena would prefer someone softer and altogether more delicate. Not that she’d given herself the slightest occasion to sample any kind of pleasure from any kind of woman in the past century or so, but that was on her.

Despite the thickness of the castle walls between the entrance hall and the kitchens below, Olena could still make out the stump of the woman’s boots as she kicked off the worst of the snow before slamming the doors closed behind her with an echoing boom that shattered the stillness of the castle. The vampire only realised once she was standing in the empty kitchen that she had no food fit for humans whatsoever. Perhaps there was a solid wheel of what had once been cheese lurking in a far corner of the cellars, but other than offering her a freshly-caught mouse, courtesy of Luna, there wasn’t much to bring up other than a pitcher of water.

She shook a jar of something that could have been black tea a hundred years ago, but given that it resembled little more than mouse droppings, she returned it to the shelf and left the kitchens with the jug of water and a small earthenware cup. The human would have to be grateful for the fire and the shelter, if not the food.

With footsteps quieter than even the cat’s, Olena’s progress along the stone corridors was unmarked by any eyes, save for perhaps a stray spider lurking in the vaulted ceilings. It hadn’t been until the strong heartbeat of another being had entered the halls that she’d appreciated quite how alone she was here. Memories, distant and dusty, of parties and gatherings filtered back to her through the layers of dust that seemed to cling to every surface of the castle, and something old and stale and painful stirred inside her at the sound of that new, fresh heartbeat.

Mixing gradually with the steady rhythm of the new heartbeat came another sound. A soft voice, hoarse from the cold, hummed an old melody from the region that Olena was certain no one alive still knew, and the force of it hit her squarely in the chest. The last person who had sung that in her presence had been gone for nearly two centuries now.

From her abrupt halt in the corridor, she caught the faint thrumming of another heartbeat. A moment later and Luna coiled softly around her ankles in silent greeting before fluffing up her tail and pricking her black ears forwards, suddenly alert. Then, bold as brass, she trotted into the drawing room, taking a direct path over the rug in the centre of the room, and introduced herself to the hunter without preamble.

The human’s gentle warbling cut off the moment she spotted the cat, and she let out a little chuckle, crouching down into a childlike pose that almost drew a smile from Olena. She’d clearly been drying her russet-brown hair in the heat blasting off the fire in the grate, and Olena’s green eyes darted instantly to the soft curve of her now exposed neck.

Unconsciously, she licked her lips.

The colours of the flames glimmered enticingly on the sliver of bare skin, dancing first gold then to a deeper amber.

Her pulse beat steady and strong.

Olena blinked and licked her lips again.

Concentrating harder on her senses, she realised that the ferrous tang of blood tinted the air, and she deepened her habitually stern scowl. The hunter hadn’t seemed hurt. Honing her focus still further, it was with a strange sense of relief that she realised that the blood was not human. A second later, she spotted the source. A tiny mouse had been deposited on the hearth rug, and she grimaced. Luna had clearly been hunting and had left a present there for her on her return.

The human, upon spotting the grim little offering, pulled a face and then, to Olena’s surprise, laughed. “Well, you did better than me,” she said, scratching the cat under the chin as Luna tilted her dark, fluffy face upwards for a moment before coiling languorously around the stranger’s ankles like a shadow come to life. “So far I’ve caught absolutely nothing.”

It wasn’t until the raucous purring of the traitorous cat reached her ears that Olena realised she’d been standing there staring like a suit of armour for too long.

The human finally noticed her presence, jumping quietly and gasping, which startled Luna a little. In rebuke, the cat bristled and stalked away. She was acting as if this new arrival to the utter stillness of their castle meant nothing at all to her, though Olena could see that she was secretly fascinated with the human. Remembering how long the cat had taken to warm up to her in the first place brought a fresh sting to her chest and a bitterness to her mouth.

She rolled her green eyes and shot the cat a look, but Luna just ignored her.

“Cute,” the human grinned, and Olena frowned, swivelling her gaze to the human and pinning her to the spot with a well-practised glare.

“Excuse me?”

“Your cat,” the hunter said with a surprisingly girlish giggle for someone dressed like a soldier in supple leathers. “She’s cute.”

Olena had only the merest grunt in answer to that. “I can’t offer you anything to eat, but if you’re thirsty, there’s water. Or wine.”

The hunter tilted her head slightly, more curious than offended. “No servants to cook for you?” she asked archly. “Did you send them all away for the winter festivities and now have no one to feed you?”

She felt her features tighten in response - the urge to flash her fangs at the sheer audacity of this frail little human surged hot and bright in Olena, almost blinding her for a second before she reined herself in.

The human, however, was apparently not finished. “Or perhaps you rely on the scraps your cat brings you?”

She was the next thing to letting her eyes flare red. Instead, she ground her jaw and set the pitcher of water down on the table near the fire without a word, and left the room.

Luna, clearly unused to all the drama, let out a soft ‘mrrrp’ from the depths of the squashy chair where she’d apparently set up camp for the evening, and the hunter looked over at her. “I know,” she grinned. “These aristocratic types are so touchy.”

Olena’s last thread of patience snapped and she whirled on the spot. “What would you know?” she hissed, voice low and dangerous, and for the first time, she saw the spark of apprehension begin to kindle in the human’s eyes. The reason this castle was echoing and empty made her insides ache. “Perhaps you should have stayed in the stables if you’re so picky…”

The hunter’s mouth opened and shut a few times before she finally croaked, “Look, I’m sorry. I was out of line. You didn’t have to let me shelter here for the night.” She tucked a wayward strand of hair behind her ear, Olena’s eyes instantly tracking the movement, before adding, “I’ve got some supplies in my saddlebag. I can eat those.”

And with that, the human turned on her heel and left the room.

The absence of her heartbeat in the vacuum left behind left Olena reeling.

In the days of the castle’s former life, no one would have dared to speak to her like that, and yet, in the snows of winter, a desperate and chilly huntress had just talked back at her like they were village teenagers scrapping over nothing at all, and had abruptly flounced out. If she’d known what Olena was - who Olena was - would she still have been so bold?

Feeling petulant, Olena just let her go, but once she’d heard the doors slam, she slumped down into a fire-warmed chair and let out a long breath and did her best to ignore the nagging sensation at the back of her mind, and forget about the human altogether.

Luna, however, had other ideas.

The cat refused to settle, and eventually she trotted from the room and disappeared with a flurry of her black, fluffy tail. “Oh you too, huh?” Olena growled at the cat’s retreating back. The wind had picked up, tugging at the turrets of the castle and battering the glass of the windows with a steady hail of ice and snowflakes, and with a deep, regretful sigh, Olena stood.

“You’re right,” she grumbled to the memory of the cat who was now nowhere to be seen. “I wouldn’t leave a dog out in this weather…”

The wind caught her full in the face as she cranked the castle doors open one more time, and almost all evidence of their earlier journey across the courtyard had been obliterated by the fresh, gusting snow. The main doors to the stable block had been battened down against the weather, but she had no difficulty in opening them.

A warning whicker from the mare - who names a horse like that Buttercup anyway? she mused - alerted the human to her approach, and Olena caught the rustle of straw as she stood, heartbeat ticking faster. She could taste the woman’s fear on the air now.

By the time she reached their stall, the human was on her feet, expression set in a wary glare.

“You shouldn’t sleep out here.”

The hunter blinked. “Where else am I supposed to sleep? I’m not staying up in that creepy castle with you.”

Olena almost admired her guts. “Well, it’s that or frostbite. Your choice.” And with that, she headed back to her ‘creepy castle’ alone. Let the stubborn human freeze if she wanted.

However, she was gratified to hear a short squawk a few seconds later, followed by the crunch of boots in the snow as the human barrelled after her at an unsteady run. “Wait!” she yelled over the fierce wind. “Wait…”

Olena’s footsteps halted and she half turned to look over her shoulder. The human’s cheeks were flushed with the cold, and her breath swirled upwards like campfire smoke before the wind whisked it away.

“Wait,” the human panted, heartbeat thundering out now despite the noise of the wind. “What’s your name?”

“You can call me Olena,” she replied, setting off again.

She didn’t have to ask for the human’s in return because the audacious young woman just blurted, “I’m Annika. Please don’t call me Anni though. It’s just Annika.”

“Annika,” Olena murmured, finding that she rather liked the shape of the name on her tongue. “Annika.”

—

I really hope you folks enjoyed this one! Don’t forget to let me know if you did enjoy it by leaving a like and/or reblogging it!

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#exophilia #wlw #wlw exophilia #sapphic exophilia #female vampire #female vampire x female hunter #<-- not that kind of hunter though #writing stream #3rd person

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ducktracy · 4 years

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bob clampett’s daffy

i hated daffy as a kid. i thought he was annoying, unnecessarily rude, bitter, and mean. and he was. and now i’m going to preach to you about why he’s my favorite character in the franchise, and how bob clampett totally changed my view of him.

although tex avery was the father of daffy, bob clampett was the first director other than tex to use daffy in a cartoon. clampett’s 1938 “what price porky” pins daffy as the dictator and leader of a group of ducks who are currently in a war with a group of chickens, with porky in the crossfire.

daffy’s head is a perfect circle with no feathers, and he’s considerably taller than other appearances. he’s a bit more rotund too, making him seem more malleable and easier to manipulate with gags. notice how his eyes seem like they could continue to wrap around his head. we start to see what will stay in his design for years to come and what will go, such as lacking the trademark white ring around his neck. what he DOES have, however, and for the first time, is his trademark lisp.

his next appearance in a clampett cartoon is “porky and daffy” (1938). this is truly where his daffiness is allowed to shine. porky enters daffy in a boxing match against a burly, undefeated chicken. the match includes (but is not limited to) daffy acting like a lion tamer, riding an invisible bicycle, and hiding in the beak of a pelican. the short is really just daffy being daffy, but we get to see how he interacts with porky.

his eyes are much taller and skinnier than they were in “what price porky”, and his head and body have been slimmed down. the ring around his neck is jagged, something that would make a few appearances in his design for the next 2 years.

in around 1939-1940 daffy was drawn with a light colored “mask” around his eyes and the ring around his neck a zig zag. there’s a definite difference between these two pictures (left: wise quacks, 1939, right: porky’s last stand, 1940). on the left daffy’s eyes are rather skinny and tall like the rest of him, the mask around his face taking up half of his face, whereas on the right daffy’s eyes are shorter and wider (again, like the rest of him) with the mask taking up less room. interestingly to note, porky’s last stand would be the last short to feature daffy looking like that, aside from a few advertisements in the early 40s.

both continue to prominently feature daffy as unhinged, off the handle, giddy, and, well, daffy. he was truly the epitome of ignorance was bliss. he was oblivious and didn’t have a clue, but he didn’t care. he had such an energy to him that’s so addicting to watch. of course, nothing but screaming HOO HOO! CAN get old over time, but the way clampett just makes him so enthusiastic and such a firm believer in whatever he’s currently preoccupied with is contagious. it’s hard to be in a bad mood when daffy’s jumping around all corners of the screen screaming in your ears.

clampett’s “the henpecked duck” (1941) is really the first short that would dictate how daffy would look in the rest of clampett’s cartoons. his eye mask is gone and the ring around his neck isn’t jagged, and he’s considerably taller and skinnier. his head is still rather short and round, but he’s really starting to take shape.

daffy’s personality also changes in this short. previously he was just a prop, truly a daffy duck. but now “the henpecked duck” opens with daffy and his wife (yes, he has a wife in this short) in the courthouse in front of a judge porky, with his wife angrily demanding to get a divorce. daffy is depressed and devoid of energy, not for a quick, breathless joke, but for suspense. in his previous shorts he’d shown bouts of anxiety or anger, but typically they blew through for a punchline. now something serious is going on, he’s actually depressed, he’s something other than wacky.

the majority of the short is a flashback. daffy is supposed to be laying on an egg as his angry wife is out for the day. because he IS daffy, boredom strikes and he eventually does magic tricks with said egg, making it disappear, reappear, disappear, reappear, disappear..... disappear. the egg is gone and he freaks out, and suddenly we’re back in the courtroom. all eyes are on daffy as he does one last cautious “alakazam....” and the egg is back in his hand and his marriage is saved.

it’s a strange and goofy premise, sure, but it’s surprisingly riveting, primarily because this is when we really get to see daffy express some real emotion. he’s a very versatile character. clampett prioritizes his daffiness, but that’s not to say he’s purely daffy. he can be angry, anxious, upset... he expresses such a wide range of emotions which is what i love about clampett’s characterization. he’s so versatile and UNPREDICTABLE. you don’t know what you’re going to get. it’s an element of surprise. it’s formulaic, but at the same time it isn’t at all.

two years later in 1943 we have “the wise quacking duck” with daffy taking on a role he hadn’t assumed for quite awhile: prey. in it, we have “mr. meek”, a dopey, meek, balding man who tries to appease his “sweetiepuss”’s hunger by serving her duck for dinner. daffy, of course, is said duck.

the short is just daffy teasing mr meek (quite literally, there’s an infamous scene where he does an actual strip tease) by throwing eggs at him, pretending his head was cut off, hitting him in the face with pies and coffee creamer, etc. it’s another “daffy daffy” short, but it’s so energetic and fun. there’s a method to daffy’s madness, and at the same time there isn’t one at all. you know he’s going to do some crazy stuff, but you don’t know what exactly he’s going to do.

daffy’s appearance is pretty solid from here on out. skinny, oval shaped head, long, slender bill, pear shaped body. i really like this design to him, he still looks like a duck. chuck jones draws a great daffy, but i just like clampett’s daffy more. it might be the bill. clampett’s cartoons make a point of daffy’s lisp, making him spew spit everywhere and his tongue has a life of its own. it’s great. they really took his physical qualities and had as much fun with it as they could.

in 1945 we have “draftee daffy”, about daffy getting drafted into the war and frantically trying to evade it. this is a personal favorite of mine, the energy is boundless. in a matter of seconds daffy is happily marching around, singing about how he was drafted, and all of the sudden he screams and breaks down into sobs. what an unpredictable mess! that’s why i love clampett’s daffy. he’s messy. a matter of seconds and facial expressions later he can act like a totally different person (or duck). again, he’s a firm believer in whatever scheme he’s riding the high on currently, whether that’s one-upping bugs, seducing his way out of becoming a roast duck dinner, or trying to dodge the draft. not much to note on his design here.

you knew this was coming! 1946 gives us “book revue” in a slew of continuous great shorts just before clampett left WB. i love how ridiculous daffy is in this. he’s not even in half of the cartoon, maybe topping out at about 3 minutes max, but he’s what makes it so memorable.

the short is another “books come to life” cartoon, a theme that had been popular in the late 30s and early 40s (another clampett cartoon starring daffy and porky was 1941’s “a coy decoy”, pertaining to this theme). as various book title pun related characters are playing a rousing rendition of frank sinatra’s “it had to be you”, daffy pops out of nowhere and throws on a zoot suit, wig, bad russian accent and danny kaye impression, and suddenly has disconcerting teeth. he screams at everyone to shut up, demonstrates his poor vocabulary by talking about sitting on balalaikas (a guitar like instrument), and sings “carolina in the morning” while rolling every “r” possible.

basically he encounters little red riding hood, warns her about the big bad wolf (by scatting), and the cartoon ends with the wolf chasing daffy around until the cops book him and the wolf, wooed by frank sinatra, passes out and literally goes to hell and tells everyone to stop celebrating his departure.

daffy’s just so good in this. he’s so in character and out of character. yes, i could see bugs putting on the same costume and same shtick, but it would be a bit predictable. funny? absolutely, but bugs is known for his costumes. what costumes has daffy ever worn? his wardrobe isn’t nearly as expansive as bugs’. it’s a nice surprise. just how out of character he is proves how in character he is.

“baby bottleneck” (1946) is next, one of my all time favorite cartoons. porky and daffy make such a great pair, they’re so different. daffy’s just completely off the handle in this one. i’ve rambled about this one a lot and repeated myself many times, so i won’t go too in depth here, but daffy’s unpredictability really carries the cartoon. he says he’ll sit on the egg. he doesn’t. he fights porky in a battle of strength and (lack of) wits. you just don’t know where the cartoon is going to head next, it’s packed with gags and so much action, i definitely recommend it. the jokes are nonstop.

and finally, saving the best for last... 1946’s “the great piggy bank robbery”, possibly my favorite clampett cartoon (just above baby bottleneck by a frog’s hair) and really one of my all time favorite cartoons in general.

the short starts off with daffy pacing around his mailbox impatiently (to the tune of raymond scott’s “powerhouse”—maybe that’s why i like this short and baby bottleneck so much, anything that uses powerhouse is automatically great to me) until exploding “WHY DON’T HE GET HERE!”

his attitude changes from pissed off to eager as the mailman arrives, slowly puts whatever daffy’s expecting in the mailbox, and walks away. we never see the mailman’s face or what it is that daffy is expecting, furthering the suspense. daffy tears through his mail and grabs what he was looking for and dashes over hill and dale before hugging his package, a comic book, and throwing himself upon it.

it’s a dick tracy comic, to which daffy declares “i LOOOOVE that man!”. what’s funny is that after this short i was watching frank tashlin’s “porky pig’s feat” (1943) and the antagonist gets his face pushed in by daffy, to which daffy looks at the camera and says “look, a dick tracy villain! pruneface!”. foreshadowing? 🤔🤔🤔

daffy reads to us the comic in excruciating detail (or lack thereof. he’s just manically sputtering out words. the change in emotion is what makes it so funny, from celebration to apprehension to despair, all in a matter of seconds). he celebrates the victory of dick tracy, saying how he’d love to punch those goony criminals, before punching HIMSELF in the face.

this is how we meet duck twacy, on the hunt for a case of stolen piggy banks (“it’s a piggy bank crime wave!”). daffy finds the case juvenile and a waste of his time... before he finds that his OWN piggy bank was stolen. he goes on a hunt for the culprit, kicking sherlock holmes off the streets, riding a trolley driven by porky for about 5 inches before arriving to the gangster’s hideout. he encounters a barrage of weirdly awesome villains, complete with a manic, breathless, and spitty narration of who is who. even though he thinks he’s about to be killed, you can tell that he’s totally eating up the fact that he’s in dick tracy’s shoes, that he recognizes all of these villains. after shooting all of the villains, he finds his own piggy bank and caresses it and kisses it. we’re now back in the real world where he’s kissing a barnyard pig who kisses him back and bashfully declares “i just love that duck!”, with daffy HOO HOO!ing off screen.

i should add, aside from the pig saying “i just love that duck!” and one of the villains grunting “guess who?”, no one in this short talks except daffy. and that’s why i love it so much. he carries the WHOLE thing. it’s all him and him alone. no one for him to upstage, no plans for him to ruin, we get to see his own motivations and his own personality.

i could ramble on forever about bob clampett and daffy, but i’ll try to summarize it the best i can here.

i love bob clampett’s daffy because he’s predictably unpredictable. his zaniness is prioritized above all else, but he’s able to feel emotions other than daffiness. he CAN be cynical, he CAN be depressed, he CAN be anxious, he CAN be happy... his emotions feel very believable, as zany as he is. you can go into each bob clampett daffy short knowing that he’s probably going to do something wild, but that’s it. you don’t know what he’s going to do. clampett keeps you on your toes with how he portrays daffy. daffy is TRULY unhinged in the best way possible.

thank you for reading! i’m sure i repeated myself and even contradicted myself dozens of times, but i love daffy and i love bob clampett. the best way to see for yourself how great he is is to watch some of these shorts. (i recommend the great piggy bank robbery, baby bottleneck, book revue, draftee daffy and the wise quacking duck, and the daffy doc and the henpecked duck are some really entertaining black and white shorts)

#analysis #long post #lt

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hollywoodhangar · 4 years

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Anonymous said: 🍯💕🌼 for Elmer! (tbqh I'd put in all emojis because Elmer's my favorite and I love how you play him but you know... 😔 besides, I really don't want you to feel uncomfortable or something similar so I chose just these)

* talk about your muse!

send 🍯 for a food headcanon

Elmer loves to cook, he loves being busy in the kitchen and he loves being the person others can rely on to make any sort of meal course, from something small like breakfast to a banquet. People don’t go to Granny [ as they shouldn’t! respect the woman please ], they go right to Fudd and it’s been & stayed that way since the late 40s when he brought a basket full of fresh baked bread and an enormous [vegan] potato stew to a company outing. It was a hit!

Also, did you know one of his top favorite dishes is Pasta Salad?

send 💕 for a love headcanon

Elmer’s favorite genre is Romance. Casablanca, Carol, The Shape of Water, Titanic.. those movies will always yank on his heartstrings and get him teary-eyed every single time. He never expected something like TSOW to even come to existence and he’s thrilled about it, and he wants more! And as for television, since 2001 he’s recorded TLC’s “A Wedding Story” and “A Baby Story”. Fudd’s a hopeless romantic with the heart of a family man.

send 🌼 for a happiness headcanon

The quickest way to cheer Elmer up is by burying him in baby animals, it’s a cure every single time. Kittens, puppies, bunnies, gerbils.. You name it! Any hot-blooded temper blasting through his nostrils will steam out and he’ll be a chuckling, happy Fudd all over again.

[ and since you wanted all of them! I honestly don’t mind going the whole way, haha. I got the power of readmore on my side so I don’t flood the dash! ]

send🥛for a drink headcanon

When it comes to alcohol, Elmer prefers the very fruity, sweet drinks that are nice to the throat and the stomach. He’s tried hard liquor but he just can’t develop the taste for it, especially regular beer and whiskey. Vodka straight up terrifies him lmao. Give the man a pineapple margarita [his favorites are anything pineapple flavored] any day and he’ll be quite happy!

send 🐢 for a mental health headcanon

Besides a fear of clowns, Fudd has extreme Nosocomephobia. He can take a loved one to the ER and won’t hesitate, but he’d rather wait outside than wait in the lobby or else he’s liable to fall into a full on panic attack. He won’t be admitted for anything, he will fight the entire way and every flight-or-fight instinct will kick in. Forcing him to a hospital will end.. badly. It’s best to keep the man at home and let a doctor come to him, that’s how he prefers it.

send 🦄 for a physical health headcanon

He’s stronger than he looks. He looks like a weak, pudgey thing, but the man’s lifted pianos and anvils and pianos off of toons and humans before. It’s not easy, but he can do it all on his own. Definitely stronk.

send ⌛for a sleep headcanon

Elmer’s sleepware always matches from cap to slippers! They’re usually soft powder blue with darker blue or white stripes, but he has different pastel color variations of the same set, from yellow to pink to green. He likes to make everything match. :)

Also, he always wears his cap to sleep! His poor head gets so cold so very easily at night!

send 💣 for a stress headcanon

He’s a nail-biter when he’s stressed. He usually goes very, very quiet as he fixates on whatever is the task at hand, but it’s so easy to see when he’s on the breaking point. Nail clippings are flying and sweat is beading down the side of his head, and you take one close look at his eye and you’ll see red spirals at the center slowly growing larger.

send 😵 for a sickness headcanon

Elmer is a weird one because he does not get dizzy or even motion sick. Like, at all. He ACTS like he does because he’s yet to a find another toon whose immune to either of those things and he’s way too embarrassed to be the single-one out. He’s very, “I’d rather be part of the crowd because I’m too shy to stand on my own”.

send 🤲 for a religious headcanon

He respects all religions and doesn’t believe in muting ones belief system. While he’s not devoted to any religion, he’s highly respectful for the traditions of others and welcomes all customs into his home - so long as it won’t lead to drawing in negative energy or abstract horror and sacrifice. Do what ye will but harm none, please!

send 🏡 for a home headcanon

He made his home with his own two hands. It took him four years to complete it from top to finish, but he did it! He bunked with Porky until then, and they were very sweet roommates. He helped Porky around the house, made sure the dishes were clean, prepared dinner, cleaned the clothes, made the bed.. It was half his payment agreement he insisted upon himself. That led to a very personal and tender little bond between the two that lasts to this day!

send 🍬 for a family headcanon

He’s been considering adoption for quite some time now. Since he’s going to be a single father, he wants to be absolutely prepared and be well-versed in child-rearing before he adopts. Most fathers really drop the bomb when it comes to raising daughters and leave it up to their wives and that is just not going to fly with him.

send 💼 for a work headcanon

Relating somewhat to the above, he’s actually a really good babysitter! Since he was out of work for a while, he was usually one of the names in the company address book to call on if a toon has little ones that need to be taken care of, or pets. He happily petsits and babysits! He’s made good money off it, too!

send ⛈️ for a sadness headcanon

His heart and soul has gone into his home and his garden, destruction of either is going to break his heart on a very, very deep level. He’s likely not to recover from that heartache for a very long time. Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck both know this fact about him and make it a point to let others know to leave the poor man’s house alone, and whether they know that because they’ve both wrecked his home by accident or not and had it quickly rebuilt remains a mystery.

send 😡 for an anger headcanon

When the man has a bad day, it’s a bad day. The rule of comedy is one thing smacking him in the face over and over again until the sun sets and he just blows up every single time LMAO. It’s never just one bad thing - it’s all or nothing and it’s been that way since his creation! It’s wise to just stay the heck away from him or else he’ll blow up on you too, no matter how innocent and harmless you are!

send 💩 for a ridiculous headcanon

He can walk on rope AND walk on his hands for like an hour and not get tired or thrown off balance. If it weren’t for being an actor, he’d probably be a pretty decent trapeze artist! And he does love the circus, sooo..

#(( thank you!! :D ))#♓ [ ELMER FUDD; HC. ] ━ 『 that’s Elmer Fudd for ya! 』#♈ [ BLOG; ASK. ] ━ 『 letters to hollywood. 』#long post

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bewareoftrees · 7 years

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Babylon 5 Watch (Season 1, Episodes 1-3)

With @jenniferstolzer a season deep into Buffy the Vampire Slayer already, it’s time for me to hold up my side of the trade by starting Babylon 5. Like with Jen, I’m going to be sharing my thoughts as I go through the episodes.

Pre-show Apology: I’m going to go ahead and say sorry now for the nicknames I give people. It’s a new show and names are hard for me anyway, but I’m sure I’ll remember who everyone is at some point. Maybe…

Episode 1.1 “Midnight on the Firing Line”

I’ll do my best not to laugh at the CGI too much. You’ve seen them, you know. Side note: I really want to play Star Fox 64 now! Yay old space graphics!

So, Babylon 5 is like the Citadel, right? Wonder what store Commander Shepard would recommend.

I do hope that at some point they’re able to open up the sets a bit more. Right now everything is too claustrophobic, making this feel like it takes place on a ship and not a space station.

Centauri = space vampires? Between Londo’s accent and his assistant’s fangs a strong argument is forming and my mind refuses to avoid running with it. Also, why the “Centauri”? What’s he got going on under those pants? Upper body of a man, legs of a vampire. Whatever their legs look like, one thing is for sure: they’re sure making me feel better about the size of my eyebrows and forehead.

Don’t trust someone with a name that sounds like Jafar. I’m calling it now!

Also, maybe don’t upset a telepath.

I will say her inability to talk to this Braided Brunette is pretty ridiculous. She gives up the chase super easily. At one point BB suddenly leaves the room and the telepath just doesn’t know what to do. I guess changing directions mid walk was just too much for her.

Commander: “Ignore the propoganda, focus on what you see.” What if I see propoganda?

Did Sounds-Like-Jafar just say he was eating spoo? I’m gonna go ahead and say that a good rule of thumb is to not eat anything that is just one letter away from being excrement.

Sounds Like Jafar: “Sleep well, Ambassador. Sleep lightly.” Well which is it!?

Don’t let the O2 fool you. Those are definitely hot dogs on those oxygen masks, which seems inadvisable. Breathe now, snack later.

“Afterward, if you like, you can stop by my quarters and I can show you my favorite thing in the whole universe. Ok ok my second favorite thing in the universe.” I don’t care if you can see into his mind and know he is talking about Daffy Duck cartoons. Don’t smile at that!

Man I really want to know more about human history in this universe. At one point the Commander mentioned Pearl Harbor, the terrorist nuking of San Diego (RIP SDCC), and destruction of the first Mars colony. And later some history of the response to telepathy developing in humans comes up. Color me intrigued.

One thing that hasn’t changed is politicians still suck.

Man, all the alien races are designed to look so angry. No wonder there’s so much drama between the races, they’re always glowering at each other. Well, except for camo guy. Who knows what he’s thinking.

Apparently those gloves the telepath wears are just a fashion choice? I assumed they were to block seeing images and thoughts through touch like it is in most cases, but nope.

I do not appreciate the look she is giving that piece of popcorn. (No commentary or drawings on this image, just distrust.)

Episode 1.2 “Soul Hunter”

No… Follow the wizard! Who cares about a stupid doctor…

Oh… I thought those were just intense clubbing stamps on the back of everyone’s hands. But no, comms makes more sense…

I actually fully listened to the opening this time and at one point Babylon 5 is described as a place “where humans and aliens can work out their differences peacefully.“ Technically humans are aliens too… This is the type of deep thinking commentary you can expect from me.

I am starting to worry that Daffy Duck and the Commander are the only pilots on this whole station.

Is that a headdress Delenn (had to look up her name, couldn’t come up with a nickname for her) takes off at night, or is it as permanent as the vamp brow?

Brunette Braid shall now be known as The Russian.

He may look silly, but this Soul Hunter dude is a pretty cool villain when it comes to his backstory and how he was pushed towards joining the dark side by his inability to capture the souls of the recently departed. Failure sucks, dude, I get it. But that just made me a procrastinator, not a murderer.

New favorite head decorations = his mud flaps. Fashion or function? Who know!?

Also, biggest surprise of the episode is that the souls aren’t stored in that thing in the middle of his forehead. Guess it’s another fashion over function choice.

This isn’t Sunnydale and that dude isn’t as stupid as Xander. Stop trying to put the moves on everyone!

Commander: "Two soul hunters. Did someone book a convention without telling me?” Too soon! I just learned about the loss of SDCC one episode ago!

Daffy Duck: “I really hate it when you get heroic. Cuts into my business. Man’s gotta earn a living, you know.“ Seriously, hire other people to do stuff on this space station!

Quick force pull a lightsaber to you and kill him!

Looks like someone accidentally brought their glue gun to the real gun fight.

Did she just go full Gollum on the souls?

Episode 1.3 “Born to the Purple”

Wait, wasn’t Sounds like Jafar the bad guy in episode 1? Was there no punishment for what he did? Short memories on this space station I guess, cuz now Space Vamp is all buddy buddy with him like he didn’t just threaten to kill Space Vamp’s nephew. He’s even smiling as he’s watching his UV Blue get stolen!

You’d think they’d break out the nicer tables for important talks. At least put a tablecloth or a centerpiece on it! Something!

Commander to The Telepath: “You are my peeler. You’re going to peel away their lies until they’re left with that inescapable truth.” Whoa you sweet talker. That’s on par with “You are my sunshine.” (Oh, and The Telepath is now The Peeler and everyone should get on @jenniferstolzer‘s case until she draws us some fan art!)

Oh no! Sexy Time Lady has an evil pimp! …Or a master? Slavery is apparently still a thing. Yay…

Centauri = Space Vampires Exhibit C: “I long to sink my teeth into something.” Only a vampire would talk like this about eating!

The Russian is about as possessive of her computer as I am. I like to imagine Daffy Duck had Cheetos fingers one time years ago and she has never forgotten or forgiven it.

Sexy Time Lady, no!!! Space Vamp loves you enough to forget about his hatred of Sounds Like Jafar and this is how you repay him!?

Wait, Daffy Duck’s real name is Garibaldi? That’s just cruel, what with the Garibalding.

#Babylon Party of 5 #Babylon 5 #Babylon 5 Watch #Midnight on the Firing Line #Babylon 5 Season 1 #Soul Hunter #Born to the Purple

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mastcomm · 4 years

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Jennifer Lopez at the Super Bowl? It’s the Role She Was Born to Play

Some time in 1998, riding high on critical acclaim for her performance alongside George Clooney in Steven Soderbergh’s sultry crime thriller “Out of Sight,” the rising actress Jennifer Lopez approached her manager with an unconventional idea: She wanted to make an album.

Lopez recalled his response was not encouraging in a recent “CBS Sunday Morning” interview: “Well, you know, you won’t be taken seriously as an actress now if you make a record, so how about we just stick to the acting right now?” That was not an option. The experience of playing the Tejano singer Selena Quintanilla-Pérez in a 1997 biopic had reignited a fire. “Once I did the movie ‘Selena,’ I was like, No, I’m doing it,” she said with a flash in her eyes.

On Sunday, Lopez will headline the Super Bowl halftime show with Shakira, joining the recent ranks of Beyoncé, Lady Gaga, Madonna and Katy Perry. Her status as a triple-threat pop cultural polyglot by now feels so inevitable that it can be easy to forget what she risked in 1999 when she released her debut album, “On the 6.” A Los Angeles Times profile from that May — headline: “It’s Not ‘La Vida Loca’ to Her” — wondered why she would “put her red-hot film career on hold for more than a year to make an album.” (It’s hard to think of a contemporary equivalent to this surprise: Perhaps if Timothée Chalamet announced a break to focus on his rap career?) Even in the waning boom days of the recording industry, J. Lo’s music career was far from a guaranteed triumph.

But the gambit worked, of course. Her debut single, “If You Had My Love,” held No. 1 on the Billboard chart for five weeks that summer; “On the 6” went multiplatinum and was nominated for two Grammys. Her 2001 follow-up, “J.Lo,” fared even better, and its debut atop the album chart made her the first person in history to score a No. 1 album and a No. 1 movie (“The Wedding Planner”) simultaneously.

In some sense, though, that manager’s prophecy came true. “The Wedding Planner” was not exactly “Out of Sight”: The daffy, predictable rom-com that asked its audience to believe that Jennifer Lopez was Italian currently holds a 16 percent rating on Rotten Tomatoes. “Gigli” would soon follow — and that’s all that needs to be said about that. In pursuing a pop career, and thus a less solemn and obedient identity as a Serious Actress, Lopez telegraphed early on that she was a bit too restless to play by Hollywood’s rules. Pop music offered Lopez more flexibility anyway: Leading roles weren’t exactly flowing to Latinas, and meaningful conversations about diversity in the movie industry were more than a decade away.

Now, over 20 years after her first pivot to music, a jilted Hollywood seems once again to be thumbing its nose at Lopez. Though she was widely expected to receive her first Oscar nomination for her complex, defiantly unsentimental performance as stripper-turned-grifter Ramona Vega in the hit movie “Hustlers,” the Academy left her in the cold. (“First of all, ‘Hustlers’ is not an Oscar movie,” one 91-year-old Academy voter recently told Page Six.) The supporting actress nominees are all white.

It does not feel entirely coincidental that this rebuke happened on the heels of yet another year when Lopez worked overtime to remind the world that — far from a side-hustle or a part-time vanity project — she is still very much an active musician. In April she released a new single, “Medicine,” which features the rapper French Montana and has a surreal, Busby-Berkley-meets-haute-couture music video. Then, following a successful Las Vegas residency that ended in 2018, last summer Lopez embarked on the 38-date (and $54.7 million-grossing) It’s My Party arena tour; her performances were an entertaining and impressively athletic blend of showgirl glitz and South Bronx grit.

The tour was also evidence that Lopez is particularly well-suited for the Super Bowl halftime show — an event that calls for a glitter-encrusted ringmaster’s charisma, a catalog of hits that anyone can sing along to, and a kind of professionalized sass and sex appeal that does not quite veer into the territory of an F.C.C. violation (as Janet Jackson and M.I.A. can attest). It should be an especially fitting display of her talents: The quintessential Jennifer Lopez experience is an audiovisual one, allowing her to glide fluidly between music, movement and the theatrical star-power that can keep an audience riveted. And given both Justin Timberlake’s somnolent 2018 performance and Maroon 5 and Travis Scott’s haphazard, cringe-inducing celebration of Adam Levine’s chest tattoos, the past few halftime shows have offered plenty of room for improvement.

Lopez’s musical career has not been without its misfires, but she has remained tenaciously committed to it as a necessary creative outlet. Its duration alone, in the fickle and ageist world of pop, is staggering: The 50-year-old Lopez has stuck around long enough to ride the wave of two different “Latin booms,” from “Bailamos” to Bad Bunny. She’s moved relatively nimbly with the changing tides, from the airy confections of the “TRL” era to the harder crystalline beats that accompanied the EDM-crazed 2010s. One of the most successful singles of Lopez’s career, the driving, sing-song-y Pitbull collaboration “On the Floor” came in 2011, a full 12 years after her debut album.

But from “On the 6” to her recent Oscar snub, Lopez seems to have found, in her pop career, a sense of freedom and validation that has eluded her in Hollywood, where she continues to vibrate at a slightly different frequency. She founded her own production company and in 2016 starred in one of its creations, the network cop show “Shades of Blue,” while others were leaning toward prestige TV. The figure of the Serious Actress is still cut from a stiff, restrictive cloth. But if you know one thing about J. Lo, it’s that she has an innate desire to move.

At least in the pop-cultural consciousness, Lopez was first known as a dancer. There she is grooving in the video for Janet Jackson’s 1993 hit “That’s the Way Love Goes,” and backing New Kids on the Block in an American Music Awards performance that screams 1991. (Even before then, she’d cut her teeth in musical theater, appearing in regional productions of “Oklahoma!” and “Jesus Christ Superstar.”) In 1992, she bested 2,000 other hopefuls when she snagged a coveted spot as a Fly Girl on the sketch comedy show “In Living Color.” But Lopez didn’t want to be hemmed too tightly into that role either: She turned down an offer to be a backing dancer on Jackson’s tour because she wanted to act.

By the time she’d established herself onscreen — “Selena” was her breakthrough — and finally got around to giving pop stardom a go, Jenny had been around the proverbial block. On the Billboard charts and MTV, Lopez suddenly found herself competing with upstarts nearly half her age. Remember that 1999 marked not just the year of “On the 6,” but also the arrival of “Baby One More Time” and “Genie in a Bottle” — by 17-year-old Britney Spears and 18-year-old Christina Aguilera. Lopez turned 30 that July.

Especially for women, pop is often considered the domain of the almost criminally young. But in her most iconic music videos, Lopez’s age actually gave her something of an edge. Compared to the nymphets sharing her “TRL” airtime, Lopez projected a grown woman who was in full control of her image, at ease with her sexuality and confident in her incessantly Googled body.

On an episode of the podcast Still Processing, the New York Times writer Jenna Wortham suggested that Lopez’s music videos created a space in which she could express more of herself than she could in almost any of her movie roles — whether it was the bumbling and questionably Italian rom-com heroine, the cat-fighting rival (“Monster in Law”) or the tragic victim (“Enough”). “You see this woman who knows exactly where she is, in space and time,” Wortham said. “She’s not tripping over things, she doesn’t have to fight with anybody, she’s paying her own bills, her life is not in danger. She is exactly where she’s supposed to be, and she looks like she’s loving every minute of it.”

Perhaps because of her varied resume, Lopez isn’t always thought of as a pop superstar. But when she’s good, she is better than she gets credit for. The pulsating “Waiting for Tonight” remains a Y2K dance floor classic; her brassy 2004 single “Get Right” is an eternal fan favorite; even “Dinero,” her playfully raucous 2018 collaboration with Cardi B and DJ Khaled proves she can ham it up with a new generation of kindred spirits. She has admitted recently that she accepted the gig as a judge on “American Idol” in part to garner a little more respect in the music world. “I don’t think I had been taken seriously up until then for what I knew about music,” Lopez told Variety. (She was a judge on the show from 2010 to 2016.)

Plenty of Hollywood types told her that job might jeopardize her film career, too — but Lopez had heard that one before. “I was like, ‘The truth is, I’m not getting offered a whole bunch of movies,’” she said, “so what are they not going to offer me?”

The major cultural events of the next two weeks will once again draw attention to the duality of Lopez’s stardom. That will probably be to her advantage. The Oscars are poised to be especially bland this year, with their lack of diversity, predictable narratives and old-fashioned reverence for movies about white male rage. It would have been an honor to have been invited, sure, but that’s not J. Lo’s kind of party anyway. Maybe the greatest gift the Oscar ceremony can offer her is the opportunity to upstage it the weekend before.

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stormyrecords-blog · 7 years

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new arrivals 4-7-17

FATHER JOHN MISTY - Pure Comedy ON THE SHELVES NOW~~

deluxe lp $39.99 (also comes with 7" bonus single and sticker)

reg lp $23.99

cd $13.99

cassette $7.99

Father John Misty presents a sprawling double-feature: the skewering of an infantile generation, and the self-skewering of its author. From the mind of an apocalyptically inclined neurotic, who reads Žižek and Freud and believes humanity is condemned to moral chaos, comes Pure Comedy, a grueling, often inspired odyssey that screams to be taken as art. Across its 75 minutes, humility is scarce. In one song, having indexed the species’ flaws, he reprimands God: “Try something less ambitious next time you get bored.” It is intense, fatalistic, exhausting, and grandiose—sometimes devastating, sometimes pretentious. (Regarding love—he’s not really doing that anymore.) So yes, it is a Father John Misty album, and Josh Tillman still excels at tormenting those unlucky souls who enjoy his music. in MONDAY!! APRIL 10TH LILES, ANDREWDiario De Un MonstruoLP $27.99Diario De Un Monstruo is an homage to the 1981 album Diary Of A Madman by Ozzy Osbourne (1981). It is another - and some might argue, inevitable - addition to the ongoing monster series of releases. To say Andrew Liles's recording is a cover version of the original Ozzy album is far too simplistic and misleading. This recording adapts motifs and hooks from the original music but is in no way similar. It is a complex tapestry that is woven from many fine threads and at times, it is a confusing and incomprehensible monstrous interpretation of the classic album. Anyone expecting a hard rock LP will be sorely disappointed. Liles has been obsessed by the original album since its release 36 years ago and he has been collecting various LP pressings and ephemera associated with Diary Of A Madman for many years. Packaged in a high gloss laminated sleeve; Includes printed lined inner. Edition of 500. STROTTER INST.Miszellen2LP $42.99After more than ten years of making music with turntables, tapes, and loops, the Swiss based musician, artist, performer, and architect Christoph Hess started the project Strotter Inst. in 1998 to concentrate just on the manipulation of turntables, not using any records or sounds made by someone or something else. The anachronistic machineries have dual roles as objects and as instruments. The first live impact was as installations, then the sounds start to grab the listener's attention. The auditory level surpasses the visual one. Therefore, the optical comprehension of how the sound is generated plays an important role. Hardly using sounds from LPs - if used, they are cut or scotched - the main source of sound are the prepared pick-ups (i.e. sewing needles or strings instead of the diamond or the extended use of rubber bands). The treatment involves the unclean nature of the sounds as part of the music. Besides the work as a musician, Strotter Inst. creates sound objects and installations out of turntables. The abbreviation "Inst." can both mean "instrument" and "installation". Comes on white vinyl. "Absolutely fantastic stuff!" --Aquarius Records SAIZ, SUSORainworks2LP $32.99Following 2016's compilation of archival recordings by Suso Saiz titled Odisea (MFM 009CD/LP), Music From Memory mark their 20th release with an album of new works by the Spanish electronic music pioneer. Recorded in Madrid between January and February 2016, this is Suso Saiz's first release of new music in nearly ten years. Titled Rainworks, this double LP release was originally part of a commission from a Canary Islands water company. The first ideas for the compositions developed from a documentary that Suso had seen suggesting the possibility of water molecules having their own memory. As Suso himself explains, he became fascinated with the possibility of an eternal being, changing its cyclical condition from solid to gaseous state, travelling through and between the Earth and the Sky, as a witness and keeper of the true history of Earth and Mankind. Suso, his son Emil Saiz, and pianist Raph Killhertz set out to explore this metaphysical process of cyclical movement through music in Rainworks. Developing from the original commissioned tracks into a much more elaborate project, the album's process became something of a mystical journey, drawing on aspects of minimalism and modernism. The music is also embedded in textured natural soundscapes and spoken word passages which were recorded and processed by Suso himself. Despite having the immediacy of an improvised piece, Rainworks was in entirely composed by Suso. Whilst on one hand it appears very much as an electronic album there are in fact many acoustic elements to the recording. A resonant piano (a grand piano re-amplified using its resonant box and harp to generate effects) as well as guitars (with simple effects) are played in Suso's inimitable hypnotic way, slowly drawing the listener into a transportive state or lucid dream SCOTT, RAYMONDSoothing Sounds For Baby, Volumes I-III3LP $44.99"American composer Raymond Scott (1908-1994) had a long career as an innovator in the field of music. He formed the Raymond Scott Quintette in the 1930s, writing jazz novelties like 'Powerhouse' and 'Dinner Music for a Pack of Cannibals,' which are familiar to every earthling from their use in Warner Bros. cartoons. Though not composed specifically for cartoons, Scott's music has also been used in The Ren & Stimpy Show, The Simpsons, Animaniacs, and various films. Scott had a big band during the 1940s, and led the orchestra on TV's Your Hit Parade from 1950-1957. Along the way, Scott invented electronic instruments and developed pioneering studio techniques. He recorded Soothing Sounds For Baby in 1963 using electronic devices such as the Ondioline, homemade rhythm and tone generators, and tape echo. This series of 'aural toys' was designed for babies in three age groups (1-6 months, 6-12 months, and 12-18 months). The simple rhythms and melodies were intended to be 'pleasantly stimulating,' while providing a 'quieting' atmosphere of relaxation, warmth, and contentment. The original releases did not generate much interest in 1963, but in hindsight they are the undiscovered roots of ambient minimalism, predating works by Eno, Fripp, Steve Reich, and Philip Glass. These reissues, carefully remastered from the original tapes, were lovingly restored and include an informative insert by Raymond Scott archivist Irwin Chusid. 'Astoundingly ahead-of-their-time examples of inspired and impeccably recorded electronic music. Predating by more than a decade such innovators as Brian Eno and Kraftwerk, Scott's work exhibits impressive sophistication, both conceptually and in terms of the performances.' --Paul Verna, Billboard '[Scott's] endlessly pinwheeling, trance-inducing grooves were far ahead of their time: we suspect that more than a few techno artists heard these records in their cradles, and though they're playful, pretty and simple, they have a depth and peculiarity that prefigures minimalism as well.' --CMJ Music Report 'Sounds like Kraftwerk for the kiddies; for adults, it can function as hip ambient music... a major find for Raymond Scott fans and for those ambient/drone fans interested in precursors to Eno and Neu.' --E-Pulse! (Tower Records online) 'This once-neglected rarity... should be welcomed by fans of esoterica and hardcore electronica alike. Far from being soothing, Scott's electronic lullabies are often skull-splitting, a mixture of high frequency easy listening and sonic space-pop that, when cranked up, would keep not only the baby awake and bawling, but half the neighborhood, too. Beware, warped genius at work.' --Edwin Pouncey, Vox (UK) The Soothing Sounds For Baby series were pressed in limited quantities and have been out of print for almost over a decade. Due to high demand, Music On Vinyl in cooperation with Basta Music pressed a limited edition of 1.000 copies on silver colored vinyl. The 3 records are housed in a thick cardboard jacket and the package includes a download coupon containing all the tracks of the albums + an insert with credits and detailed information about this extraordinary release. 180 gram audiophile vinyl includes insert/free download." SCOTT, RAYMONDManhattan Research Inc. 3LP $52.99"Raymond Scott (1908-1994) was a renowned bandleader, composer and pianist from the 1930s to the 1950s. Many of his playful riffs, originally recorded from 1937 to 1939 by the Raymond Scott Quintette, are genetically encoded in every earthling, having been adapted by Warner Bros. music director Carl Stalling in over 100 Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck cartoons. (These themes were later featured in The Ren and Stimpy Show.) The rediscovery of Scott's original novelty jazz recordings led to a belated reappraisal of Scott's timeless and long forgotten genius in the 1990s. These early works were covered by the Kronos Quartet, Don Byron, the Metropole Orchestra, the Beau Hunks Sextette, and countless other admirers. Scott's 1937 rave-up 'Powerhouse' has been nicked by Rush, They Might Be Giants, Devo, and countless others, as well as being used thematically in The Simpsons, Animaniacs, and Duckman. During Scott's career as a popular bandleader, there were reports of an alter ego -- inventor, professor in the lab coat, electronic music pioneer. But little of this work received public exposure. That changed in 1997 with Basta's CD reissue of Scott's 1963 Soothing Sounds for Baby (SSFB) trilogy. These albums, largely overlooked upon their original LP release, contained gentle, all-electronic sonic companions designed to calm and delight infants. In retrospect, however, Scott's pioneering and little-heard explorations of synthesized rhythmic minimalism and low-key ambience foreshadowed the subsequent conjuring of Terry Riley, Phillip Glass, Kraftwerk, and Brian Eno. Most of Scott's works were performed on vacuum tube- and transistor-rigged music machines which he designed and built. But SSFB couldn't prepare the world for the exotic artifacts found on Basta's 2-CD set, Manhattan Research Inc. MRI, first issued on Basta in 2000, contains 69 tracks recorded from 1956 to 1969 - over two hours' worth of Scott's groundbreaking electronic work in adult dimensions. Forays into abstract musique concrete are heard alongside film soundtrack collaborations with a young pre-Muppet Jim Henson, and pan-galactic sonics seemingly beamed down from hovering UFOs. In addition, MRI presents some of the first TV and radio commercials to feature electronic music. Now, Music on Vinyl presents a new edition of MRI in a 3-LP set, including full track notes, a historical overview, and newly designed covers. The package contains an 8-page booklet, printed inner sleeves and a free download coupon for the complete album. The first 1.000 copies of MRI are individually numbered and pressed on red, white & blue colored vinyl. The 'personnel' on MRI consists of such Scott inventions as the Clavivox, a keyboard Theremin that was later modified to produce an array of sounds similar to a synthesizer; the Electronium, an instantaneous composition-performance console (conceived in the '50s, and developed in the '60s, used at Motown in the '70s); polyphonic sequencers, including his 'Circle Machine'; the Rhythm Modulator; Bandito the Bongo Artist; and the Bass Line Generator; along with existing sound devices (e.g., the Ondioline and tone generators). 'Raymond Scott was definitely in the forefront of developing electronic music technology and in the forefront of using it commercially as a musician.' --Robert Moog." OMARI, ABDOU ELNuits De Printemps LP $29.99First issue of this previously unreleased Oriental psych monster from the organ king of Casablanca, combining traditional rhythms with spaced out modern sounds. Nuits De Printemps is the third part of Abdou El Omari's Nuits-trilogy. This album contains dazzling instrumentals, spiced up here-and-there with some traditional vocals. While playing his fine melodies, Abdou switches swiftly from his Farfisa Professional mothership to an analog ARP synthesizer. This new sound and some funky wah guitar riffs give his music an extra cosmic touch. Includes download code. NITSCH, HERMANNStreichquartett In 4 Satzen CD $18.99First recording of Hermann Nitsch's original 60 minute version of this new composition for string quartet in four parts. Recorded at the Nitsch Foundation in Vienna, 2016. Full-color, six-panel digipak; Edition of 300. BILLOW OBSERVATORYII: Plains/PatternsLP $32.99LP version. Milky transparent vinyl. Edition of 300. Includes download code. Billow Observatory is the trans-Atlantic duo consisting of Detroit's Jason Kolb (Auburn Lull) and Danish producer Jonas Munk (Manual). II: Plains/Patterns departs from their self-titled debut's (2012) amorphous ambient haze with a more rigid, albeit subtle, underpinning of rhythm and pulse. Traces of shoegaze, modern minimal electronica, and kosmische appear on every track, but are mutated into something mysterious and new. "Pulsus", for example, opens the album with a driving Teutonic stutter and washes of serene guitar loops that are punctuated by bursts of filtered synth patterns. Centerpiece, "Plains", expands the ambient formula into an inspired epic in three parts, where swells of processed guitars, distant voices, and faint echoes of Detroit techno are weaved together to form a kaleidoscopic whole. "Vex" and "Plum" seem to pay as much homage to Slowdive and Eno's Harold Budd collaborations as to the modern minimalism from Cologne or Berlin. For ambient aficionados, II: Plains/Patterns is a gorgeous sounding full-length not to be missed. WIRE, THE#399 May 2017 MAG $10.50"On the cover: Royal Trux: Tony Rettman meets and greets the returning avant rock outlaws... Meanwhile, inside the issue: Making the improve scene in Buenos Aires, DIY enthusiast Matt Loveridge, Polish guitarist Raphael Rogiński, plus: Invisible Jukebox: Strange U; Epiphanies: Endless Boogie's Paul Major; Inner Sleeve: Susanne Kirchmayr (aka Electric Indigo); Global Ear: Garage rock in Durban; Unofficial Channels: Cadabra; Bites: Giant Swan, Midori Takada, Tony Conrad: Music and The Mind Of The World, Wu Tiao Ren; and more..." CLUSTERII LP+CD $26.992017 repress. Originally released in 1972, this is the second album by legendary German ambient pioneers Dieter Moebius and Hans-Joachim Roedelius. Moebius and Roedelius essentially create ambient electronic soundscapes that ebb and flow, droning on in a suspended world of anti-gravity where machine has conquered man. Includes bonus CD of the album. DERDIYOKLAR IKILISIDisco-Folk LP $29.99Pharaway Sounds present a reissue of Derdiyoklar Ikilisi's Disco-Folk, originally released in 1984. More demented, brain-damaging Turkish electro-saz and synth drums galore by the mighty Derdiyoklar duo. Anadolu pop doesn't get weirder than this. These two Turkish guys armed with electro-saz, guitar, drums, and synthesizers were hitting the Turkish market in Germany where they lived, playing their sets of traditional flavored electro-folk in weddings and circumcision feasts for Turkish emigrants in Germany. That crazy is the story, that crazy is their sound.

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thebrownssociety · 4 years

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More Space Jam Headcanons

1. It was quite hard to mix filming toons with filming humans. The scene where the Nerdlucks steal the Basketballers talent was particularly challenging. The poor women who first sees the Nerdlucks...all she was told was that she was to watch the game and at some point someone was going to come and sit next to her. They would behave strangely but they wouldn’t touch her or talk to her and her job was to just do what comes to her naturally. Now, Being as she was acting in a WB film she guessed it would be something to do with the LT’s but wasn't expecting what actually happened. I.E. - The Nerdlucks.

2. The scene where Stan is digging to try and find Michael Jordan? There was an actual hole dug on the golf course but Wayne Knight didn't dig it. It took two and a half hours for four crew members to dig said hole and a solid fifty-five minutes for a different four crew members to put all the soil back.

3. In the scene before where Michael Jordan first winds up in toontown he did actually go to toontown making him one of the very few humans to go there. Initially WB were just going to draw the setting and have the toons act in ‘ 3D Land’ which, to be fair, is something they were used to already. Eventually though that was scrapped because it was deemed the scenes didn’t look as ‘real’ as producers wanted. Before he went M.J. had a thorough discussion with the producers about how to act when he was in Toon Town. They also sent him to speak to Bob Hoskins [Who Framed Rodger Rabbit?] to get tips from him about it.

4. The scene with Daffy, Bugs and the Michael’s dog was done with the toons being drawn into the scene because it was deemed to risky to have the dog be that close to WB’s star. [And Daffy]

5. The toons liked and admired Wayne Knight [Stan] especially his willingness to go the extra mile for laughs [like when he hung from the rafters to speak to Michael during the basketball scene]. They speak about him fondly even now.

6. At the very beginning of the film when Elmer is humorously crushed by the Nerdlucks ship you might have noticed that he disappears from the scene after the line “And one whopper headache for Elmer Fudd”. This is because the scene took a few days to film [the Nerdlucks kept getting things wrong. Mostly it was their lines but on one memorable occasion it was FORGETTING TO CRASH THE SHIP. Elmer and Bugs did their little intro bit and then...nothing. The director was not happy.] Anyway. They kept getting things wrong and eventually it was decided that it was cruel to have Elmer squashed under their spaceship all that time. Cause the thing is even though the toons are well, toons, it’s quite painful to have a spaceship land on top of you and STAY on top of you for, like, four hours at a time.

7. In the beginning of the scene when Lola first turns up the toons were allowed to pick their own partners and choregraph their own little segments to show just how badly the training was going. Most of them did what you might expect and chased/annoyed each other but if you watch closely you’ll see Bugs and Elmer are legitimately passing to each other and actually making an effort to play. This is because when they were discussing what there ‘thing’ was going to be during the scene Bugs came up with several wacky and brilliant idea’s [Elmer chasing him with his gun, him throwing Elmer into the ceiling, things like that] But after Bugs suggested that they had a conversation that went:

Elmer: “Weww...that sounds Gweat Bugs, but...”

Bugs: But what?

Elmer: Weww...I’d just wike to actuawwy wearn how to pway. Aftew all everyone ewse is going to be doing cwazy stuff...can’t we just actually pway a bit?

And so that’s what they did.

8. For the stinger at the end when Michael Jordan picks up the WB logo at the end and asks “Can I go home now?” M.J. was very nervous about picking up the logo. [”Are you sure I can touch it?” “Yes Michael, you can touch it.” “It looks like it’s gonna dissaparate or something, are you sure it won't dissaparate?” “YES Michael, I’m SURE it won’t dissaparate!”] Eventually he managed to do it, and when asked he said it felt ‘silky’ afterwards.

#Space Jam #Headcanons #space jam headcanons #michael jordan #Elmer Fudd #Bugs Bunny #Daffy Duck #Wayne Knight #Nerdlucks #Who Framed Rodger Rabbit?#Lola Bunny #Warner Brothers #looney tunes #looney tunes headcanons #stan podark #space jam stan

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mastcomm · 4 years

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Jennifer Lopez at the Super Bowl? It’s the Role She Was Born to Play

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