Afterlife of the The Dover Boys part 7---All About the Animation (thanks to Mark Kausler)

I would have described the animation in this short but Mark Kausler tells it better. Here is some moments of the smear and important iconic peaces of The Dover Boys.


Mark Says:


"The Dover Boys is fundamentally a parody of 1890s melodrama. Nearly every cartoon studio, and even some live action, found this a rich source of material ripe for mockery. Chuck Jones took this kind of story to the next level by employing John MacLeish (sp?) to do the narration in his very dry fashion, and to use Horatio Alger type broad characters such as Tom, Dick and Larry, to be the heroes. Dan Backslide and Dora Standpipe fill out the cast as the villain and the heroine. Bobe Cannon experimented notably in this cartoon by using "stretch" inbetweens to fill in the gaps between extremes of an action, such as when Dan Backslide works on his jalopy with tire irons by stretching across a wide expanse of scenery to get his tools and quickly change a tire on his car. The fight sequence with Dora Standpipe walloping Backslide and tossing him out of the shot is handled with stretch inbetweens as well. A weakness in animation is that extremely fast motion of a character running, for instance can have a great deal of strobe, resulting in double images on the screen.Bobe Cannon and later, Manny Gould and Don Williams under Art Davis at Warners, developed stretch inbetweens or good drybrush blur effects into a new visual language. They looked great on a movie screen, and nearly eliminated the strobe layering that was a problem in older animation. The way the stretches looked on screen had a bold, graphic design which eventually led to UPA and more stylized characters and backgrounds. That's what makes The Dover Boys a curiosity, the extremely old-fashioned story, pared with the modern, super stylized look of the characters in action that Bobe Cannon drew. That makes The Dover Boys a real breakthrough in design and the approach toward animated motion on screen. "

Here are a few scences of smear art.

Photo of Bobo Cannon

Afterlife of the The Dover Boys part 6---I'll Steal it, No One Will Ever Know!

One year after The Dover Boys, Columbia made a short entitled The Rocky Road to Ruin. This short is extremely similar to The Dover Boys. The damsel in distress looks sort of like Dora. Handsome Harry looks remarkably similar to Tom. The villian's name is Snievley Whiplash. The name is sounds remarkably similar to Snidley Whiplash but he looks exactually like Dan Backslide. John McLeish wrote the story. McLeish was also the narrator in The Dover Boys a yearlier so he clearly was aware of it.



He looks remarkably similar to Dan Backslide.

Here is Tom- I mean Handsome Harry and the heroine. 

Afterlife of the Dover Boys Part 5---Other Dover Boys (No Relation)

The Dover Boys isn't a common name. There are many other names of things called The Dover Boys. Note: This has  absolutely no connection to The Dover Boys. I don't think anyways.


Here is a comic book featuring the adventures of The Dover Boys!

Afterlife of The Dover Boys part 4--The History of This Short

         The Dover Boys is a classic short. The Dover Boys was an experimental film, which pioneered the use of limited animation. It used smear drawings from each position. Chuck Jones directed the short. The story was by Ted Pierce who also voiced Tom. This was a parody of the books Jones read as a kid. Chuck Jones was an avid reader and his father made sure he read a lot. This was a parody of The Rover Boys as well as homage to other books such as Tom Sawyer. The animators included Phil DeLara, Rudy Larriva, Ken Harris, Robert Cannon, and Ben Washam.


           According to Tom Sito, this short was Chuck Jones and Ted Pierce's joking about two popular trends in the 1940s. Young men's adventure fiction and the nostalgia wave for the Gay Nineties. In World War II, people yearned for when life was simpler and more polite which was the case in The Dover Boys. 

      This cartoon was the first modern cartoon, which pioneered limited animation. It is a clear that this short probably influenced the UPA-style. In fact, Chuck Jones directed the first UPA short. That isn't even the major UPA connection though. Another animator on this cartoon is Robert Cannon. Cannon would later become most known for his work at UPA. He is one of the major studios of UPA. He directed all the Gerald Mcboing-Boing shorts, as well as the TV show. He also directed Madeline and several Magoo cartoons. 

       John McGrew did the backgrounds on this cartoon. You can read an interview with him here. Mcgrew did the backgrounds for many of Chuck's early cartoons. This short had a much larger cast then most Warner Bros Cartoons. Ted Pierce voices Tom. John McLeish voices the narrator. Mel Blanc voices Dan Backslide. According to Tom Sito, Dan Backslide was a caricature of Ted Pierce. Marjorie Tarlton voices various characters and Bea Benadaret was the voice of Dora.

       Leon Schlesinger wasn't a fan. Neither were Warner executives. They weren't a fan of the extensive use of limited animation. The executives were going to fire Jones and were in the process of doing so because of his previous shorts, which extensively used Disney-like characters and stories. They couldn't find a better replacement so they kept him around.

Special Thanks to: 


Jerry Beck

Tom Sito

Mark Kausler

The Afterlife of The Dover Boys Part 3--DVD Commentary

Commentary with Michael Barrier

The Afterlife of the Dover Boys----The Dover Boys (The Original Short)

The Dover Boys in Pop Culture part 1

The Dover Boys is one of the most recognizable Chuck Jones cartoons. It helped define limited animation. 90+ animators came together to animate this short. Here it is. I think it looks really good. Not as good as the original but is still a great tribute. This is my next series for this september. I will also be doing monthly top 15s.