Symphonie argotique

Tex Avery is my all-time animation writer & director. Symphony In Slang is my all-time favorite cartoon. If I could , I would rate it one-hundred stars. Cartoon writer, Rich Hogan done the best work in Symphony In Slang, putting together at least sixty slang clichés & the animation that shows as the voice, John Brown, perfectly said numerous slang terms, throughout this all-time classic cartoon. Tex Avery's mind of continuous & numerous creations throughout his career, at any studio, is definitely that of an animation genius. Tex Avery's works & animation creations are extremely unique, especially during his fourteen plus years at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. In my dictionary, Symphony In Slang is Extremely & Hysterically Humorous, from beginning to end!

More cleverness from Tex Avery, this one involving wordplay. After a brief setup that has a hipster showing up at the Pearly Gates in Heaven and speaking in a way that makes St. Peter seek out Noah Webster for help, a string of roughly 95 visual puns follow, a breakneck speed of one every four seconds or so. The man tells his life story and in every clause of every sentence we see a clip of what the words could mean if taken literally. "I was beside myself with anger," he says, and we two of him sitting there, with a fiery red fellow labeled "anger." Some of them are pretty corny but there's no time to groan because it's on to the next one, something I liked about it. Light and playful fun.

Rich Hogan and Tex Avery took on cliches and catchphrases in this highly stylized 1951 short on a happy-go-lucky guy who must explain his life story to Angel Webster before being admitted to the hereafter.

The humor comes from the hipster's use of cliches and catchphrases that are hilariously given literal illustration by Avery and company, from getting up with the chickens, slinging hash, being shorthanded, and so forth. The cartoon is not only a masterpiece of visual description, it is a landmark experiment in limited animation, uncharacteristic of Avery for that time as he uses still poses to extract laughs, notably the shorthanded cook, chewing the rag, and going through red tape.

You'll be beside yourself with anger at first, but hotfoot it to see how slang will make you die laughing, even if the cat has your tongue.

Rich Hogan was hugely underappreciated as the hidden fuel to Tex Avery's fire. Here, he proves himself to be George Carlin's comedic father, with his schizoid tribute to our mangled "mother tongue". The images that come to mind every time I hear "She sent me a cable, so I sent her a wire"; or especially "I was up against it, but I carried on" will delight me forever. A visual triumph, but mostly because Hogan's turn of a phrase works so well. Indescribably essential viewing.

This is a great Tex Avery cartoon that suffers slightly from its age. That's because the film creates literal representations of all the "hip slang" that the main character says--and I mean LITERAL! The problem is that this guy died and is trying to explain his life to the guys at the Pearly Gates but they have absolutely no idea what he's saying. Phrases such as "chew the rug" and "cat got your tongue" are completely beyond these heavenly beings. And these hip phrases (for the early 1950s) come one after another after another. So much that you barely have time to even think about them because the next one comes so quickly. A few modern kids might be stumped at what these phrases actually mean, so I advise kids to watch this with an old person to act as translator!