Screwball Squirrel

Love animation, it was a big part of my life as a child, particularly Disney, Looney Tunes and Tom and Jerry, and still love it whether it's film, television or cartoons.

Also have much admiration for Tex Avery, an animation genius whose best cartoons are animated masterpieces and some of the best he ever did. 'Screwball Squirrel' signals the first appearance of the short lived character of Screwy, and of his five cartoons it's one of his best. Despite being a compelling, much more anarchic than his sweet appearance and funny character, as well as being charismatic enough to carry his cartoons as a lead character (as he does here), it is somewhat easy to see why Screwy didn't click and didn't last long, being a brash character with few sympathetic qualities.

Tex Avery does a wonderful job directing, with his unique, unlike-any-other visual and humour style all over 'Screwball Squirrel'. The cartoon is wonderfully over-the-top, very creative in its violent nature and some of it is hilarious, avoiding the potential trap of being too cutesy despite the opening.

'Screwball Squirrel' as always with Avery is beautifully animated. The character designs are unique, Avery always did have creative character designs, and suitably fluid. The music, courtesy of Scott Bradley, is lushly and cleverly orchestrated, with lively and energetic rhythms and fits very well indeed.

Voice acting is very good. The ending is a little too sadistic for my tastes, one really hates the uncalled for treatment of the cute squirrel at the hands of Screwy and the dog.

Otherwise, this is great. 9/10 Bethany Cox

MGM asked Tex Avery to develop a running character to rival Bill Hanna and Joe Barbera's Tom & Jerry, and Avery, who was gag-oriented as a director, developed a character suited to his style of animated comedy, Screwy Squirrel.

The cartoon features Avery's brand of superbly-timed and edited gags revolving around the chase theme universal to cartoons, but two gags display Avery's aversion to running characters and also hurt the cartoon's quality. Both involve a saccharine-sweet squirrel straight out of Disney central casting who is viciously pummeled to death, first by Screwy, later by both Screwy and the dog who's been chasing him throughout the short. The gratuitous nature of these assaults is repellent and unfortunately common to cartoons of the 1940s; unlike the physical gags elsewhere in the cartoon, these scenes are not done for laughs, but for sadistic joy and as such are unnecessary and ugly.

This is not the best entry in the five-short series for Screwy Squirrel, but it is a good start.

Screwball Squirrel (1944) has to be the greatest single cartoon character ever created. If Tex Avery is forever to be remembered for one thing, it's this creation. He stretched the bounds of decency (and sanity) with this cartoon. No matter what came beforehand or afterwards, animation was never the same again.

This was the first in several animated shorts based upon Screwy a.k.a. Screwball Squirrel. The cartoon opens up with a thumper like character frolicking through the woods. He happens to come across the title character. He takes the rabbit by the hand and cold cocks him offscreen and hijacks the show. A collection of sight gags, pratfalls and a lot of physical abuse takes place during the rest of the show. A real funny short that has to be seen to be believed.

Take note that the show was created during the height of World War II so a lot of humor from that era is worked into the short. But besides the nitpicking it's truly a classic character and an extremely funny one at that. Watch Tex Avery change the face of animation forever.

Highly recommended!

A+

It's going to be real hard to find an unedited copy of this short. Just keep your eyes open and you'll find it!

This was the first effort of Tex Avery to give us the character, "Screwy Squirrel." Reportedly, it was the answer to the popular Tom and Jerry cartoons at the time.

Man, this squirrel is a mean rodent, almost sadistic. His pleasure, apparently, is to torment this dog called "Meathead." This poor mutt takes a bad beating, time after time, and Screwy delights in doing whatever he can to him, followed by a sadistic laugh. I could see where that laugh could become annoying if you heard it often enough, but I don't remember much of it in the other SS cartoons I saw. I can also see why Screwy didn't become a hit, even though he was funny. As a leading cartoon character, he's just a little too nasty. However, Bugs Bunny inflicted a lot of pain on others, too, but they often - at least Elmer Fudd - started trouble. Plus, there was something lovable about Bugs. Here, this dog was just minding his own business when Screwy called him on the telephone and used some psychology to get him to come over.....only so he could abuse him. Now, that's mean!

As in most Tex Avery cartoons, the jokes are more adult-oriented and the director emphasizes, through another Thumper-like "Bambi" squirrel early in this cartoon, that is is not going to be a cute and fuzzy story. Avery once said he was "the anti-Disney" type and preferred his cartoons with an edge. Screwy beats up Thumper right away, just to emphasize the point.

Avery and his main writer, Heck Allen, also were good at having the main characters stop the story and talk to us - the audience - a number of times. That, or they would hold up a sign telling us something like, "Stupid, ain't it?" These "asides" to let us know what the characters are thinking are almost always clever and add to the cartoon's humor. I particularly thought it was neat when the character would comment that he knew all of this baloney that was happening on screen was just a cartoon anyway, so he'd make some wisecrack about "this cartoon this and that." Supposedly, this was the first time this sort of thing had ever been done in a cartoon. It must have really surprised audiences in the theater. That's how inventive Mr. Avery and Mr. Allen were with their animated short features. Their "Droopy" cartoons featured a lot of those "asides," too.

After watching this, I viewed two other "Screwy Squirrel" episodes and found them spectacular.

This was the first appearance of Screwy Squirrel, and like most of Tex Avery's animated shorts for Fred Quimby at M-G-M, filled with sight gags aplenty,along with the usual kinetic pacing that put Avery on the map. Screwy wasn't as popular as some of the other cartoon characters of the period (let's face it---Screwy is little more than Avery's answer to Bugs Bunny,like Woody Woodpecker was Walter Lanz's answer to Bugs). This short begins looking like it's going to be yet another 'Happy Harmony' short (M-G-M's answer to Disney's 'Silly Symphony' shorts,complete with cutsy woodland creatures & plots that can bring on diabetic shock),but this is flushed down the crapper fast, once Screwy makes his debut. Screwy manages to taunt a bloodhound (known as Meathead)for almost all of the short (with some pretty sadistic,but funny results). Toss in a sprinkle of Avery's use of surrealism, and you have yourself a laugh fest. Aired at various times on Cartoon Network's sister station, Boomerang, or on one of several early M-G-M Avery DVD's.