He prances around, gibbering about a secret, and his pent-up psychosis occasionally explodes. One of Clampett’s strangest characters is the blue-skinned Sloppy Moe, who keeps popping up in Wagon Heels (1945). Daffy’s frantic attempts to escape from the little man from the draft board keep escalating in feverish delirium. Manny Gould animates the desperate horse.Īny clip chosen at random from the WWII cartoon Draftee Daffy (1944) could qualify for this list, as it’s essentially a seven-minute anxiety attack. The idea that a horse would turn completely inside out to change direction mid-air feels both totally ridiculous and completely natural. This short bit from Buckaroo Bugs (1944) is a prime example of Clampett’s talent for expressing emotions in terms that would only be possible in a cartoon. You can’t beat the combination of visual fireworks and Mel Blanc screaming his lungs out on the soundtrack. One of the great Clampett freakouts shows up in The Wise Quacking Duck (1943), where Daffy acts out an aerial battle for no apparent reason. This explosive Scribner bit from Tortoise Wins by a Hare (1943), in which Bugs Bunny unusually loses his cool, perfectly showcases Scribner’s eccentric approach look for the weird wrinkles, excess teeth, and rubbery elasticity (animator Robert McKimson takes over at the end for the “and I will, too” line). Clampett wildly distorted his characters’ bodies to express their warped emotional states, particularly in scenes animated by the brilliant Rod Scribner. Armed with a team of animators that could keep up with the hysteria going on in his brain, Clampett developed a totally new approach to animation that he called the “Lichty style” (named after cartoonist George Lichty, whose comic strip Grin and Bear It was noted for its loose, spontaneous drawing style). I have no idea what audiences made of it in 1938.Ĭlampett’s early black & white shorts are overflowing with youthful enthusiasm, but he really hit his stride when he took over Tex Avery’s unit in 1941. This scene is a clear predecessor to the unsettling freakouts in The Ren & Stimpy Show. His complete nervous breakdown is so hilariously intense that it borders on disturbing, aided by impassioned voicework by Danny Webb (who deserved an Oscar nomination for best supporting actor). One of my favorite Clampett moments comes from Porky in Egypt (1938), where Humpty Bumpty the camel flips his lid in the desert heat.

It would be horrifying if it weren’t so funny. In the film, Daffy Duck goes ballistic in a hospital and finally chases Porky with a giant saw, all without any clear goal or motivation. His early short The Daffy Doc (1938) is a masterpiece of bad taste. directors injected their own personal brand of insanity into their works, but Clampett took things a step farther than the rest his cartoons aren’t just insane, they’re dangerously insane. In this sequence, a fourth-dimensional do-do bird goes absolutely bananas on Porky Pig, with delightfully zany results.Īll of the Warner Bros. This all-time classic is a dizzying burst of defiant nonsense, loaded with surrealistic imagery, off-kilter backdrops, and wacky visual puns. Clampett hit the ground running with Porky in Wackyland (1938), one of his earliest directorial efforts and a complete break from the prevailing Silly Symphonies style. His cartoons are truly unforgettable for their deranged spurts of hysteria, so to celebrate his 110th birthday, we’re taking a look at the fifteen greatest freakouts in his filmography.Īt a time when cute fantasies in the Disney vein were the order of the day, Clampett – along with his fellow Termite Terrace collaborators Tex Avery and Chuck Jones – changed animation forever by pushing cartoons in a faster, funnier direction. Bob Clampett – the looniest of the Looney Tunes directors – was born on May 8th, 1913.

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