Famous Studio's Little Lulu cartoons--a different world from John Stanley's comics version

As I've said before, this is not a "Little Lulu" blog. Aside from John Stanley's interpretation of the character, in his 14 years as writer-layout-cartoonist for the Dell Comics adaptation, Lulu rather leaves me cold.

The background story of the creation of Marjorie Buell's "Little Lulu" is far more interesting than her actual work. She is a poor cartoonist, and a poor gag-writer, in my opinion.

Despite the contemporary popularity of her magazine cartoons, time has not been kind to Buell's work. Her sheer lack of skill as a cartoonist and drafts-person gives the work a cheap, amateur-hour feeling. The character of Lulu never evolves beyond that of a one-dimensional prankster imp, whose misdeeds hide under a tin halo of childish innocence.

Little Lulu was created as a replacement for Carl Anderson's "Henry," which departed the Saturday Evening Post in 1935 for a long run with King Features Syndicate. (Some poor soul still continues his mute, anus-faced adventures, which run, among other places, in the online Seattle Post-Intelligencer.)

John Stanley worked a small miracle in his rethinking of the "Little Lulu" character and universe. He gave each character a highly developed, believable and rich personality. He also clearly defined their habitable world. The Northeastern landscape of his "Lulu" is, itself, a major character in the Dell series.

Marge Buell cared for nothing more than a quick laugh, dusted with a little bit of cloying charm. It was enough to delight the 1930s reading public. For the character to exist beyond the pantomime plane of the gag cartoon, Lulu needed substance in the worst way.

The first major adaptation of Buell's character precedes John Stanley's first Little Lulu comic book by almost two years. She appeared in 26 animated cartoons, produced from 1943 to '47 by New York-based animation house Famous Studios. These cartoons clearly occupy a warm, nostalgic place in the hearts of many folks.

They compare and contrast with the greatest iteration of the Marge Buell characters--those done, in Dell comic books, by John Stanley, Irving Tripp, and others, from 1945 to 1959.

Those with starry-eyed fondness will not like much of my comments and reactions to the Famous Studios cartoons. Had Stanley not done the subsequent comic book version--the iteration of Lulu with which I'm most familiar and grounded--perhaps these cartoons would seem less strange and off-kilter to me.

That said, I am an admirer of the Famous Studios output. At its best, particularly in the time-period of the "Lulu" animated shorts, Famous offered a refreshing, often visually spectacular counterpart to the West Coast animation houses. They carried on a hint of the vibe of the original studio, headed by the Fleischer brothers (Max and Dave). Highly recommended is a new DVD from Thunderbean Studios that contains ravishingly restored prints of 20 early Famous Noveltoon cartoons.

Many of these early Famous shorts fell into the public domain, and, until this DVD, have only been viewable in dreary, color-faded and corrupted TV prints. Seeing the cartoons via this DVD gives you a much clearer impression of how they looked when they were new--and what a curious, distinct flavor Famous' early output has to offer 21st century viewers.

The first few "Little Lulu" shorts were among the last cartoons produced at the studio's Miami, Florida outpost--the last bastion of the flagging Fleischer studio. Most of the screen "Lulu" cartoons were created in New York, near to where John Stanley wrote (and drew) his entirely different take on the Marge Buell character for Western Publications. Though Famous had a two-year head start on the Buell property, it is fascinating that, in the same general area, at the same general time, two different creative teams were at work on their interpretations of a popular pop-culture figure.

That such different results should emerge from these two factions says more about the different dynamics of animation and comics than anything else. Famous' version of Little Lulu is not at all like John Stanley's. A comparison reveals some self-evident but important truths about what John Stanley brought to the table as a writer and cartoonist.

Thanks to YouTube provider Kevin Martinez, you can watch all 26 of the Famous "Lulu" shorts online, for free. He's gone to the trouble to restore original title sequences, when the elements were available. Though most are sourced from retitled 1950s TV prints, they're nice-looking versions, and offer a generally very good way to assess this large chunk of animation product. You can view a playlist here (updated link added August 3, 2024).

The biggest flaw of the Famous "Lulu" cartoons reflects the studio's most telling problem, which grew larger as the 1940s ended. Famous' reliance on stock formulas and scenarios slowly drained the life out of a promising cartoon studio. As characters such as Little Audrey, Casper the Friendly Ghost, Baby Huey and Herman and Katnip dominated the Famous output, so did recycled plots, gags and story arcs.

Thus, when you've seen one Herman and Katnip, you've really and truly seen them all. Famous picked up some steam in the later 1950s, largely thanks to the innovative writing and design of Irv Spector, whose mordant wit and angular draftsmanship pushed Famous into the cartoon modern world. Resulting cartoons like Finnegan's Flea, Cool Cat Blues and Chew Chew Baby (the latter not currently viewable on YouTube, alas) offered a low-budget, eerie and comically vibrant alternative to the generally flagging state of theatrical animation.

The Famous Studios of 1943 was feeling its oats, and with such high-profile licensed properties as Popeye, Superman and Little Lulu, had considerable commercial clout.  The series launched with impressive color ads in the movie trade magazines:

Famous was never 100% sure what to do with Little Lulu. She was too low-key a character for wild exaggerated slapstick; she was too earthy for saccharine-sweet cute cartoons (thank the deity of your choice). Their initial impulse was to make Lulu a seemingly oblivious, understated trouble-maker. Charmingly voiced by Cecil Roy (a female voice talent who did several Famous characters), the animated Lulu was, initially, fairly close to the early John Stanley version.

Less impish than Stanley's first iteration, the early Famous Lulu identifies herself as a child who's just curious about the ways of the adult world--and a bit baffled as to why her innocent actions make her parents, and other adults, so angry and perplexed.

Like Stanley's Lulu, she is subject to frequent spankings. Like the Buell original, she is a subdued trouble-maker--an agent of chaos who is rarely aware of the effect of her actions. She innocently heckles the circus acts in Hullabalulu (1944), aggravates a train porter (1947's Loose in a Caboose), a department store manager (Bargain Counter Attack, 1946), a sleazy press photographer (1945's Snap Happy), a nearly sociopathic golfer (1947's Cad and Caddy) and, most frequently, her long-suffering father.

These male adult characters, usually voiced by Jackson Beck (best-known as the voice of Bluto in the Famous Popeye cartoons), tend to look, think and act alike. In some instances--particularly the Lulu cartoons directed by Bill Tytla--the angered adult's pursuit of Lulu becomes nightmarish, more akin to the notorious 1964 classroom scare film The Child Molester than to light-spirited cartoon hijinx.

Lulu's early companions in the Famous series are a stereotyped black maid, Mandy, and a cartoon mutt who resembles an escapee from the Friz Freleng stock company at Warner Brothers' cartoon studio. Despite Mandy's horrifying dehumanized appearance--a black button nose and lips akin to Fred Flintstone's five o' clock shadow--she is a strong character, and one longs, in later cartoons, for a less offensive variant of her.

Similarly solid characters are sorely lacking in the Famous Lulu cartoons. Stock figures are in great supply, and, as the series progresses, so are stock situations. The finest Lulus come early in the series. Hullabalulu is a beautifully timed, amusing cartoon, with a simple situation milked for all it's worth. Lulu in Hollywood, the fourth cartoon in the series, achieves moments of deadpan brilliance. 1944's I'm Just Curious offers a charming original title song, a strong, unusual structure, and the most vivid sense of the Lulu character in the Famous films.

Speaking of theme songs, the series' theme tune boasts a unique distinction; it was the only theatrical cartoon theme to be recorded by a modern jazz artist. Pianist Bill Evans recorded "Little Lulu" with his trio in December, 1963; the live performance kicks off Evans' Trio '64 album. (I still hold out hope for the discovery of an unissued Sun Ra Arkestra rendition of the Herman and Katnip theme.)

Rather than examine each cartoon for its relation to John Stanley's work, let's focus on the one Famous Lulu short that comes closest to the resultant comics version. Beau Ties, released in April, 1945, concurrent with Stanley's first Lulu comic book (itself cover-dated June, 1945), is the only short in the series to play off the relationship between Lulu and Tubby Tompkins (called "Fatso" in this animated cartoon).

Tubby makes minor appearances in a few other Famous cartoons, but Beau Ties marks his only significant role in the series. Voiced by Arnold Stang, "Fatso" shows some of the Quixotic self-assurance and duplicity of Stanley's Tubby. Though he quickly turns coward, and is physically dominated by Lulu, "Fatso" is an eerie prediction of the Stanley character.

Famous' failure to seize upon the natural relationship between Lulu and Fatso/Tubby is the series' greatest tragedy. Although the cartoon traffics in the super-exaggerated, larger-than-life action available to 1940s animated cartoons, it is careful to focus on the relationship of the two characters. They are not stock antagonists, as are the menacing, burly adult men who frequent the series. Their relationship has some real human stakes, and though it's all played for laughs, the viewer leaves with the impression that these two children genuinely like each other.

As the Famous Lulus degenerate, predictable and highly moralistic fantasy sequences become part of a joyless routine. Lulu's lack of interest in music practice, in 1947's Musica-Lulu, sends her to a nightmare world of judgment and menace. Her attempted truancy in Bored of Education (1946) climaxes in a pro-education fantasy sequence set to the jazz standard "Swingin' on a Star." Lulu's banishment from comic book reading, in 1947's Super-Lulu, sets off a dream sequence that mashes up "Jack and the Beanstalk" and the tropes of super-hero comics.

This lapse into formula was, alas, SOP for post-war Famous Studios. Though the cartoons are beautifully animated, and have moments of mild inspiration, their cessation of original themes, approaches and ideas become stultifying.

There are exceptions to this rule. Bargain Counter Attack is hard-edged chase comedy worthy of Warner Brothers' Friz Freleng. The penultimate Lulu cartoon, The Baby Sitter, captures some of the vibe of Robert McKimson's early directorial efforts at Warners. Such cartoons show that Famous still had some comedic cojones, despite the falling-apart of their original high ambitions.

When Famous' five-year license on Lulu expired, in 1948, the studio, in an eerie reprise of Lulu's own creation, slapped together a simulacra called Little Audrey. Audrey immediately went to bed with the Famous formula machine. With her horrifying, mechanical laughter and the cloying morals of her fantasy sequences, the Little Audrey cartoons are, to quote Thad K., "funny as AIDS or nuclear war."

By this time, John Stanley and his crew really and truly owned Little Lulu and her world. Famous would attempt two more "Lulu" cartoons in the early 1960s--each adapted from a John Stanley comic book story. You can find posts about those cartoons--with links to the films themselves--elsewhere on this blog.

My experience of viewing these 26 cartoons gave me an important insight re John Stanley's work. His sense of humor, his characters, situations and stakes are entirely earthbound and capable of happening to you or I. Stanley siphoned off an evident interest in the supernatural into the series of on-the-fly stories Lulu tells to her bratty next-door-nabe, Alvin.

Ghosts tiptoe into some of the early Stanley Lulu stories, most notably 1946's "The Haunted House," also readable elsewhere herein. By 1948, Stanley is careful to couch such incidences in a cloud of ambiguity. In one of his masterworks, 1954's "The Guest in the Ghost Hotel" (Tubby #7), the vagary of events is handled with great narrative skill. Did the events of this story really happen, or did Tubby's runaway-train imagination cobble them together? Multiple readings of the story fail to ease its lovely ambiguity.

Because John Stanley's comedy is possible in our own world, it carries more weight. The high energy and wild exaggerations of the Famous Lulu cartoons work perfectly in that context. As Carl Barks understood about his "Donald Duck" stories, such cartoony impossibility would not work on the printed page, or in an extended narrative with stakes. (Floyd Gottfredson also grokked this in his newspaper Mickey Mouse narratives, from 1932 onward.)

Are Stanley's "Lulu" stories superior to Famous' cartoons because they're more earthbound? Yes and no. They work because you give a damn about the characters. Over the course of reading Stanley's "Lulu" stories, you get to know the characters, for good and bad. All their flaws and virtues are laid out. Their shortcomings become part of who they are, and we accept them because we know them.

In comparison, the Famous Lulu barely exists. Missing is that inner fire that makes a fictional character believable and engaging. We enjoy seeing her frustrate the ringmaster of the sleazy circus in Hullabalulu because she's absolutely right in her chorus of "it's a fake!" We like her in Beau Ties because she clearly cares for Fatso, despite himself. But she ceases to exist the moment her cartoons end.

Other animated characters, especially Warner Brothers' Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck, were given rich shadings of character and motivation. Like Stanley's Lulu, they achieve a sense of relatable personality.

Stanley's Lulu, in contrast, stays alive in the reader's thoughts. She exists as a possible human being, and the events of her life are similar to ours. The darkness of her world also reflects our own experiences. In this regard, John Stanley's depressive vision worked a positive effect. Outcomes in his "Lulu" universe are often miserable, disappointing or deflating. When things work out, we share in the characters' joy. Their victories are hard-won, as are our own.

Thus, John Stanley's body of "Little Lulu" stories remain accessible, affecting and have currency, half a century (or more) since their creation. Famous' 1940s Lulu cartoons, though vivid, often charming and funny, fail to realize the potential of their character or her world, and substitute cheap laughs for moments that matter. As animated cartoons, they succeed, on a lesser level than the Warners output, and are worth seeing, warts and all.

To compare them to John Stanley's version of Little Lulu is, perhaps, unfair. But the geographical proximity of Famous' cartoons and Stanley's emerging version remains fascinating. They deserve at least footnote status in the John Stanley story.

Famous Funnies: An Early Stanley Trifecta from Animal Comics 10, 1944

As John Stanley learned comics writing on the job, he took on several licensed properties. Among them were a suite of characters from the newly-formed Famous Studios' attempt at a Technicolor roster of animation stars.

Famous (formerly the Fleischer Studios) tried hard to create a hit in their early, lavish Noveltoons. None of the characters really stuck, save for the Brooklyn-voiced Herman Mouse. The cartoons themselves are curiously compelling, and show a certain promise never quite fulfilled.

Western Publications apparently got a one-year lease on the rights to the Famous "stars." They plopped them into the random mix of Dell's Animal Comics, which played host to Walt Kelly's "Albert the Alligator" (later Pogo) and, in its last issues, to an early John Stanley comic-book original, "Jigger and Mooch."

Stanley cut his comics-writing teeth on the Famous characters, alongside MGM's "Tom and Jerry" and Walter Lantz's "Andy Panda," "Woody Woodpecker" and "Oswald the Rabbit." Here, he formulated his writing style, sense of dramatic narrative stakes, and first played with the three archetypal characters that dominate his finest work.

These Famous-derived stories were completed by moonlighting Famous animators. While they're hardly masterworks, they're of interest as examples of Stanley's early work and emergent sensibilities as a writer and cartoonist.

A helpful tool for identifying these Famous Studios-employed artists is the Nedor funny-animal title Ha-Ha Comics. Several Fleischer/Famous staffers have signed work in the early issues of this magazine--including Jim Tyer, who designed the title's distinctive logo. Thanks to recent access to the first seven issues (via the remarkable Digital Comics Museum), Thad Komorowski and I have been able to put some names to the art of these three stories.

Stanley appears to have lettered the first of today's three stories--all from a single issue of Animal Comics. I didn't spot any artist signature, but the layouts are recognizable as Stanley's work. Who knows? It appears that he had some hand in the finished artwork. I'd wager the inker was Bill Hudson.

This "Hector" story, easily the best of today's offerings, is infused with knockabout low comedy and jaunty chatter. It contains many examples of Stanley's windmill motion, lots of loud SFX and one well-placed YOW. Its dialogue is crisp and witty; Stanley seems to have enjoyed writing this story.

"Blackie Lamb" never really registered with movie audiences. This blatant Bugs Bunny knockoff has a certain horrifying wise-ass charm. Stanley's few stories with this character show more interest in the villain, Wolfie, than in the ostensible protagonists. This is a weak story, but Wolfie's self-absorbed musings show us an early glimpse into the "Tubby Type." Thad K. has IDd the artist as Gordon Sheehan.

In the manner of Carl Barks' earliest "Donald Duck" short stories, this ain't much to write home about. More vivid physical comedy keeps the pace lively, and, as said, Wolfie's desperate ramblings and ravings are always of interest.

Stanley lettered this story, as well. The artwork doesn't reveal as much of his input as does the "Hector" story.

The last, and shortest, of today's offerings riffs off one of Famous' most accomplished and atmospheric one-shot Noveltoons. 1944's Cilly Goose. Thanks to the doings of Thad Komorowski, you can see this little masterpiece HERE.

Western did a few "Cilly" stories, at least one of them written and drawn by Walt Kelly, who inherited the Famous characters once Stanley had either tired of them or was otherwise forced to remove them from his workload.

This story, according to Thad K., is inked by Otto Feuer--later a mainstay of DC's generally lack-luster funny animal titles.

This four-page story doesn't amount to much, but the anxiety of its title character, as she attempts to transport her goose-fruit to market, and to grapple with common superstitions, is at least peppy. It has that unmistakable "Uh oh! Four pages still open! An' we go to press tomorrow morning!" feel to it. Stanley also lettered this story. It looks remarkably like the "Hector" story, so I'll wager that he laid it out as well.

This is a one-pager's worth of material s-t-r-e-t-c-h-e-d into four.

Via stories such as these, John Stanley learned how to write for comics. His enthusiasm often outweighs his ability in these early pieces, but the potential that would come to fruition by 1945 is already visible.

High Stakes and Hassled Hubbies: "Hector the Henpecked Rooster" from Animal Comics 12, 1944

Finding material for this blog has become an increasing challenge this year. More of John Stanley's comics are in print in 2010 than at any time in the past 60 years. Stories I featured here in 2008 and '09 have since been officially reprinted in books like The TOON Treasury, Art In Time, The Golden Treasury of Krazy Kool Klassic Kids' Komics and Dark Horse and Drawn + Quarterly's ongoing Stanley reprint projects.

Aside from a few still-elusive issues of New Funnies, and the archaeological comix digs I still do through Dell Comics' back pages, there's fewer stories for me to choose from. I could, of course, run Little Lulu and Tubby stories, which are proven crowd-pleasers, but most of those are in print--or will be by the end of 2011.

So I sift through the remaining nooks and crannies. Occasionally I still have the good fortune to unearth stories such as today's humble offering.

John Stanley was about a year away from his first "Little Lulu" stories when he wrote a short batch of stories for the Dell anthology Animal Comics. Best-known as the birthplace of Walt Kelly's "Albert the Alligator" (retitled Pogo for its newspaper version, starting in 1948), Animal Comics was a hodge-podge of original material and licensed entities. The latter included Howard Garis' "Uncle Wiggily" and, for a year, newly-born characters from Famous Studios, the surviving entity of what had once been the Max Fleischer Studios.

Famous' "Noveltoons" series provided a fairly good simulacrum of the West Coast cartoons of the MGM and Warner Brothers studios, with flowing, full animation, lush Technicolor and striking musical scores by Sammy Timberg and Winston Sharples.

They struggled to create star characters. Blackie Lamb was the studio's attempt at a Bugs Bunny. A darker, more interesting series starred a feathered victim of spousal abuse, Hector Chicken. His bull-dozing, hyper-masculine wife runs and ruins his life. Only via the assistance of street-wise Herman Mouse, who scares the battle-axe $h!tless, is Herman ever briefly re-acquainted with his testicles.

Coincidentally, Famous also produced a series of Little Lulu animated cartoons, some of which are pretty good, tho' they take a far different path with the characters than the John Stanley version.

Stanley wrote a handful of these Famous-derived stories before the studio revoked their license. The Famous characters eventually wound up at Harvey Comics. Harvey bought the rights to all the Famous characters in the late 1950s. By this time, they'd been dumbed down almost to oblivion.

The early Famous Studios cartoons have much to offer, and have undergone a critical rediscovery over the past decade.

Famous' material was always dark. At worst, it was merely brutal and cruel. The underlying bleakness of their characters and scenarios somehow aligned with similar tendencies in John Stanley's writing.

This "Hector" story riffs off the Famous cartoon The Henpecked Rooster (1944). It does much more with the set-up than Famous ever managed. It also offers this first acknowledgment of a vital element in John Stanley's writing:

Stanley's characters almost never address the issue of stakes, but stakes-raising is the backbone of his narrative skill. He excelled at the creation of a problematic situation which gets increasingly worse--usually from the actions of his stories' self-obsessed, deluded protagonists.

Hector is a far cry from Tubby Tompkins, John Stanley's finest realization of this essential archetype. In this story, Stanley raises the potential for stakes-raising in his narratives, while effortlessly blending storytelling with incisive comedy. 

The plot of this story is similar to the 1935 W. C. Fields comedy Man on the Flying Trapeze. Stanley followed in Fields' footsteps in his depictions of enmeshed, co-dependent and deeply unhappy unions.

Like Fields, Stanley sided with the underdog in these effed-up relationships--which is most often the male. These unfortunates have let themselves settle for a bad situation. They're stuck with a disagreeable, inflexible mis-match, and do nothing to extricate themselves from the engulfing mire of their dilemma. They sigh, tuck their chins in and resign themselves to a lifetime of bickering and nit-picking.

Stanley's start for this story is remarkably like Fields' Trapeze. Though these stories part ways rather quickly, the obvious influence of the Fields movie is fascinating here.

For that matter, it's likely that the Famous Studios story men knew and liked the Fields films, and swiped their basic set-up from Trapeze, It's A Gift, You're Telling Me or The Bank Dick. All these movies feature Fields' grumbling, long-suffering anti-hero trying to cope with an impossible spouse. Fields' cinematic wives are hectoring, ranting killjoys. Simply by staying true to himself, even in these lessened circumstances, Fields' character wins in the end of these movies. Hid triumphs are tenuous, and it is painfully clear that he's doomed to quickly return to the ruts of bad behavior they have dug for himself.

Hector's married life is nightmarish.  His wife owns his cojones--and she's also a cannibal!

Through the smart-ass assistance of Herman and his mice brethren, Hector turns the tables on his trouble-making spouse--but the stakes are rather extreme. Chances are she'll be angrier--and meaner--than ever, upon her release from the mental hospital!

Corrosive relationships abound in Stanley's work; Loo and Sid, the candy store owner, in Dunc 'n' Loo, the pre-teen triangle of Tubby, Gloria and Wilbur in Little Lulu; Jimmy Fuzzi and Judy Junior in Thirteen Going on Eighteen and most of the character relationships in Nancy and Sluggo and Melvin Monster have something askew--or harmful--at their core.

The finished artwork for this story may have been drawn by a moonlighting Famous Studios staffer. The layout and staging are clearly of Stanley's hand. His 1940s comics are mostly set in home interiors. These settings are quite familiar to readers of his Little Lulu or New Funnies material. Whereas Carl Barks took his characters to exotic, far-flung settings for his comic book stories, John Stanley stuck close to home. No research was required, and the familiarity of the settings makes these stories still resonate with 21st-century readers.

Why circle the globe for trouble when it's all found in your living room, kitchen and bedroom? The dark domestic comedy of John Stanley offers us a reasonable world, and relatable human struggles and failings. Even in a minor work such as this, Stanley's vision is evident.

Alvin's Solo Flight--thanks to CARTOON BREW!

Remember my semi-recent post on the second of the two early '60s "Little Lulu" animated shorts?

Here's the first (and better) one, based on an early John Stanley "Lulu" story, "Alvin's Solo Flight."  This story appeared in the last of the "Four Color" try-out issues of Little Lulu (#165) in 1947.

The Paramount cartoon crew scuttled a great deal of Stanley's original story. Admittedly, at 22 pages, it's a bit long for a six minute animated short. What they kept stays surprisingly faithful to Stanley's work.

Of course, being Famous Studios, they just had to make the balloon vendor into a stereotyped-a Italiano-a kinda-a fella-a. As in Stanley's original story, Lulu is topless at the beach. I find it amusing that Seymour Kneitel and staff chose to put a shirt on Tubby. One just shakes one's head in silent wonder at such artistic choices.

Still, this adaptation works a whole lot better than Frog's Legs, which you can see (and compare the original story it's based on) HERE.

I'd "reprint" "Alvin's Solo Flight" in this post, but, as said, it's 22 pages. It can found in the fifth volume of Dark Horse's black and white Lulu collections, Lulu in the Doghouse.

"Alvin's Solo Flight" was also the lead story in the breathlessly titled 100-page 1953 best-of set Little Lulu Tubby Annual. You can download a decent digital scan of this great mega-comic HERE, if you'd like to see it in living color.

Thanks again to Jerry Beck, co-moderator of the internet's leading newsblog on animation, Cartoon Brew. I check CB daily, and I hope you do, too.

Famous Studios louses up Stanley's "Lulu:" Frog's Legs [1962]

Before John Stanley established his superior versions of Marge Buell's Little Lulu characters, New York-based animators Famous Studios (formerly the Fleischer Brothers' company) brought her to the screen.

Their series of Lulu animated shorts ran from 1943 to 1948. They made 26 cartoons. Some are quite good, if you are willing to accept their extremely scaled-down version of Lulu, and can abide a world in which Tubby is called "Fatso."

Famous lost the licensing rights to Buell's characters in 1948. In Lulu's place, they created the truly unbearable Little Audrey. Thad Komorowski, youthful animation historian, has aptly described the Audrey cartoons as being "...as funny as AIDS or nuclear war."

At their best (such as the frenetic 1946 short, Bargain-Counter Attack), the 1940s Famous Studios Little Lulu shorts succeed, in spite of missing the boat on how to make the most of the themes and characters. It remained for John Stanley to flesh out Buell's stick figures, and give them compelling, distinct personalities. The cartoon series' theme song, however, stayed alive, and was pleasantly recorded by modern jazz pianist Bill Evans on his Verve album Trio '64.

In the late 1950s, Famous Studios sold the rights to all their series characters (which included Casper the Friendly Ghost, Herman and Katnip, Baby Huey, Buzzy the Crow and the dreaded Audrey) to Harvey Comics. By this time, they were renamed Paramount Cartoon Studios. At this time, they also ended a long series of cartoon adaptations of E. C. Segar's Popeye the Sailor. This series began with the Fleischers, in 1933, and lasted 'til 1957.

This brilliant career-move left them with no recognizable characters. This was a blessing in disguise. Paramount/Famous' series cartoons had gotten steadily more mechanical, and less interesting, in the 1950s. Their forte was in a series of edgy, bleak one-shot cartoons--the best of which were written by Irv Spector. These "Noveltoons" and "Modern Madcaps" are among the starkest, creepiest animated cartoons ever made. (If you don't believe me, watch THIS!)

Paramount/Famous struggled on into the late 1960s. They were one of several studios who contracted with King Features Syndicate to crank out a series of suicide-inducing TV cartoons, based on the syndicate's newspaper comic strip characters. Believe me, you don't want to put yourself through any of their Beetle Bailey, Snuffy Smith or Krazy Kat cartoons! (To say nothing of the made-for-TV Popeyes of this period, which appear to have been made by schizophrenics for manic-depressives...)

Like Dell Comics, Famous Studios' meat and potatoes had been doing licensed adaptations. It made sense for them to fish around and find another hot property to bring to the screen--be it small or big. Thus, they returned to the past. One of their graspings-at-straw was to revive the Little Lulu cartoon series. Two were made; both are adaptations of John Stanley stories.

These appear to have been made for TV consumption. Paramount elected to release the Lulu cartoons theatrically.

I have not been able to view the first of the two 1960s "Lulu" cartoons, Alvin's Solo Flight. I assume it is based on Stanley's story, of the same name, that appeared in the final one-shot "Four Color" Little Lulu (#165).

"Frog's Legs" is based on the John Stanley story "Froglegs," from Lulu #21, 1950. Here's the original version:

Here's the heartbreakingly poor cartoon version:



The cartoon follows Stanley's published story rather slavishly. It would appear that the Paramount/Famous staffers used the comic book as an ersatz storyboard.

You'll note that no story credit is given on this cartoon. This would indicate that they did just use a copy of the story in lieu of sketching it out schematically. This might have been part of the cost-saving appeal of doing these adaptations. No story team needed--just transfer the comic book panels to animation!

Much is lost in translation. The original story is a charming piece of Stanley sitcomix. It doesn't blow a wild note, or challenge the medium of funnybooks in any big way. It's just a good story, with solid characterizations, an amusing situation, and a riotous comedic denouement.

The cartoon deletes the episode of the camouflaged raft, which, with director Seymour Kneitel's maddeningly even pacing, would only slow things down further. Otherwise, the cartoon follows Stanley's story almost verbatim. Eliminated, tellingly, are the more colorful and Tubby-centric bits of dialogue, such as his enraged call for the restaurant's manager, amidst the chaos of panicky diners and agitated frogs.

They make one major change to the ending--instead of Lulu responding to Tubby's plan with righteous anger, she is surprised, and then chuckles.


Part of the flaws of the animated Frog's Legs lie in the cheapness of the animation.

By the ate 1950s, Paramount/Famous had abandoned the flowing full classic animation styles, as had most other studios, for a simpler, more stylized kind of post-UPA movement.

If you watched Chew Chew Baby, you saw a more inspired example of Paramount/Famous' stylized limited animation. Broad poses that avoid subtle in-beween animation, strong character design and better choices of extreme poses work wonderfully well in that cartoon.

Here, all the life has been beaten out of a reasonably good story, from the flaccid voice-work to the blah pacing. The animation has no spark to it. Not that a frenzy of movement was needed, or would be fitting. Lulu is a bland cipher here. In the 1940s cartoons, she was a bit of a hellion.

The characters of Tubby and Lulu seem heavily medicated in Frog's Legs. The reader of Stanley's version is compelled to see what they do--and why they do it. In the animated version, the kids don't act or think in any vivid way. It's pretty obvious that Paramount's cartoonists just didn't grok the charm of Stanley's writing or characterization.

Chalk up another X on the Lost Opportunities chart!

The two Famous cartoons wouldn't be the last time John Stanley's Lulu was animated. Japan's Nippon Animation studio did a 26-episode Lulu series in 1976. These were dubbed into English and briefly shown here in 1978. They're currently quite hard to see. I don't know if any of the Nippon episodes keyed off Stanley's stories.

A HBO series of the 1990s, produced by Canada's Cinar animation studio, used several classic Stanley stories as the basis for its episodes. UK comedienne Tracey Ullman supplied Lulu's voice in its run of 52 half-hour shows.

Cinar treated the original texts with a bit more reverence than did Paramount, but they tinkered with story details. The series was well-received by the general public.

It says much for the quality of Stanley's Little Lulu that its static, page-bound images resound with more life than any of the animated incarnations. Frog's Legs is a curiosity piece, and a valuable how-not-to lesson in turning comix into animated cartoons.

P.S. Thanks to Jerry Beck of Cartoon Brew for offering a superior print of "Frog's Legs" for this post. He's also provided access to the other Famous/Paramount Lulutoon, Alvin's Solo Flight. This cartoon fares better in comparison with the original comic-book story, so check it out, too, if you're digging through the past posts on this here blog.