The Warner Brothers Cartoon Companion: N, O

WARNER BROTHERS
CARTOON COMPANION

by E.O. Costello

Introduction

Alphabetical Listings

A / B / C / D / E / F / G / H / I / J / K / L / M / N / O / P / Q / R / S / T / U / V / W / X / Y / Z

Introduction

Alphabetical Listings

A / B / C / D / E / F / G / H / I / J / K / L / M / N / O / P / Q / R / S / T / U / V / W / X / Y / Z

Introduction

Alphabetical Listings

A / B / C / D / E / F / G / H / I / J / K / L / M / N / O / P / Q / R / S / T / U / V / W / X / Y / Z

Introduction

Alphabetical Listings

A / B / C / D / E / F / G / H / I / J / K / L / M / N / O / P / Q / R / S / T / U / V / W / X / Y / Z

NASTY CANASTA: Thuggish villain faced by Dripalong Daffy in two Chuck Jones cartoons: Dripalong Daffy (1951) and My Little Duckeroo (1954). A less menacing and more comic version of Nasty is seen in Barbary Coast Bunny (Jones, 1956), in which he makes the mistake of cheating Bugs out of some gold, and pays for it in a series of gambling losses that defy logic.
NAZARRO, CLIFF: Personality best known for a jaw-busting double-talk routine which he performed himself in The Penguin Parade (Avery, 1938) as the emcee penguin, and which is parodied in Fifth Column Mouse (Freleng, 1943) by a mouse planning a mission against a cat. Nazarro also provided the voice for Egghead, the forerunner of Elmer Fudd. The voice was, in part, based on Joe Penner’s.
NEIMAN, FRED: Story writer for Warner Brothers circa 1938, whose sole on-screen credit is Now That Summer Is Gone (Tashlin, 1938).
NIXON, RICHARD: What appears to be a contemporary newspaper photo of Nixon shows up in the mock newspaper which announces Bugs Bunny’s “volunteering” for a mission to the moon in Haredevil Hare (Jones, 1948). Nixon appears to be the second figure on the right. At this time, Nixon was a freshman congressman from Orange County, California who would likely have received publicity in local Los Angeles newspapers.
NOBLE, MAURICE: Layout artist who worked for Chuck Jones’ unit in the 1950s, responsible for some of the remarkable graphic effects that that unit produced in that period. Notable examples would have to include Hare-way to the Stars (1958), What’s Opera, Doc? (1957), and Duck Dodgers in the 24 1/2 Century (1953). Noble was closely associated with Jones, receiving co-director credit on a number of cartoons in the late 1950s and early 1960s. He continued to work with Jones at MGM in the 1960s.

Noble is also responsible for some of the background work in Disney’s Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937).
NON-STOP CORRIGAN: At one point in A Feud There Was (Avery, 1938) a warring hillbilly has an unseen person cornered in a cellar. His inquiry of “Who’s that down thar in the cellar?” is met with a reply to the effect that the person is Non-stop Corrigan, who is lost.

This refers to a well-known event of the time in which Douglas G. Corrigan of Los Angeles flew across the Atlantic from Brooklyn to Dublin without permission or passport on July 17, 1938. Corrigan was immediately hailed as “Wrong-way Corrigan” and honoured with a parade in New York, the New York Post printing its front-page headline of the event in reverse. Considering the cartoon was released on September 24, 1938, this was fast work on the part of Avery. Note that Stalling plays “Wearing of the Green” on the soundtrack.

OLDFIELD, BARNEY: Famous racing-car driver of the first few decades of the 20th century. Hence the snide reference the motorcycle (?) cop makes to the speeding motorist (?) in The Weakly Reporter (Jones, 1944).
OLIVER, EDNA MAY (1883-1942): Katz describes May as an eccentric, horse-faced character actress who usually played droll or sarcastic spinsters, memorably as Aunt March in Little Women (1933), Aunt Betsey Trotwood in David Copperfield (1935), Miss Pross in A Tale of Two Cities (1935), the nurse in Romeo and Juliet (1936), and Widow McKlennar in Drums Along the Mohawk (1939).

Warner Brothers cartoonists caricatured Oliver a number of times, most notably in The Hardship of Miles Standish (Freleng, 1940) opposite Hugh Herbert, and in Porky’s Road Race (Tashlin, 1937) in which Oliver wins the race in her drawers.
OLIVER OWL: One of the group of Our Gang-like critters created in 1935 in an effort to build some lasting stars, along with Ham and Ex, Kitty, Beans, and Porky Pig. Oliver only really had a role in one cartoon, the first of the Gang’s pictures: I Haven’t Got a Hat (Freleng, 1935), in which he played a stuck-up know-it-all opposite the wiseguy cat, Beans.
OSCARS: The ultimate prize in American film-making, very much desired by movie moguls like J.L., supposedly, and absolutely by Jack Benny in Hollywood Daffy (Freleng, 1946), and of course by Bugs Bunny in What’s Cookin’ Doc? (Clampett, 1944).

Until 1939, Warner Brothers had very little success in the Oscar race, which was dominated throughout the 1930s by the work of the Disney studio. Only one cartoon even received a nomination, It’s Got Me Again (Harman/Ising, 1932). Incidentally, one of the members of the nomination committee to select the cartoon was none other than Leon Schlesinger. The panel, which consisted of Stan Laurel, Oliver Hardy, Walt and Roy Disney, Mack Sennett, and Leon Schlesinger picked eachother’s films as nominees in the category.

Ironically, Edward Selzer, the feckless producer from 1945 through most of the 1950s, got to keep the first four Oscars the studio won. This in spite of the fact, for example, that he did not think Pépe le Pew was funny enough to merit a cartoon in the first place -- the first cartoon starring Pépe received an Oscar, and Selzer publicly took full credit for that cartoon. (Mel Blanc, in his autobiography, indicates that Selzer later gave him one of the Oscars.)

The studio won five Oscars for producing short subject cartoons and a sixth for best documentary short out of twenty-six nominations, a fairly respectable showing. The following three lists sort these cartoons first chronologically, then alphabetically by director, and finally alphabetically according to recurring characters.
OWL JOLSON: Name of the little jazz-singing owl in I Love to Singa (Avery, 1936) who drives his classical music professor father Dr. Fritz Owl crazy. A parody of Al Jolson’s classic Warner Brother’s film, The Jazz Singer (1927). The story of the original film is about the son of an orthodox Jewish cantor who turns his back on the family profession to becomes a jazz singer.

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The Warner Brothers Cartoon Companion is Copyright © 1996-1998 E. O. Costello. All rights reserved.