One Disney cartoon in particular, 'The Tortoise and the Hare' (1934), had a strong impact on him. The surprise effect made his gags all the more effective. He would create a realistic atmosphere and then subvert it by having a character do something absurd and/or suddenly address the audience. Avery enjoyed clashing these two styles together. McCay and Disney's animation, on the other hand, was so sophisticated that their fantasy worlds looked very realistic. But the simple, cartoony and loosely animated drawing style made the jokes no more or less believable than a doodle on paper. The 'Felix the Cat' and Fleischer shorts often featured surreal moments with characters suddenly changing their physical form or do something impossible. Some historians have theoretized that his lack of depth perception may even have given him a different view on reality, which enhanced his love for surreality.ĭrawing for his high school paper by Fred Avery.Īmong Avery's graphic influences were Winsor McCay, the 'Felix the Cat' cartoons by Pat Sullivan and Otto Messmer, the 'Betty Boop' and 'Popeye' cartoons by Max and Dave Fleischer and, unavoidably, Walt Disney. His left eyesight never recovered! Although this seemed like a career-ending handicap, he kept his job. When his colleagues were clowning around, one of them, Charles Hastings, flung a wire paperclip at him, hitting and blinding Avery in his left eye. However, in 1933 Avery had a tragic accident. In 1928 Avery became an inker at Walter Lantz' animation studio, where his gift for comedy made him move up the ladder to become a director. Even his move into animation was more a temporary vocation, as he intended to eventually get into comics. Throughout his entire life he kept trying to become a comic artist, but was always rejected. After graduation Avery took a summer course at the Chicago Art Institute. Despite showing little signs of his later genius, he was still determined to become a newspaper cartoonist. As a student at North Dallas High School he already created cartoons and comics for his school's annual and monthly papers.
Avery grew up in a region where outrageous urban legends - the so-called "tall tales" - were commonplace and influenced his own love for absurd comedy. He was a descendant of two famous Far West legends, namely Daniel Boone and the eccentric judge Roy Bean. But other artists did create comics based on his popular animated creations.įred Bean Avery was born in 1908 in Taylor, Texas. Although Avery always wanted to become a comic artist, he only made a few cartoons for his high school paper. He had a similar impact on comic artists. Avery pulled animation out of the "children only" ghetto and showed countless cartoonists that its possibilities are limitless. All these aspects gained him a cult following among adult audiences too. He also expressed erotic innuendo and lust, particularly in his famous 'Wolf & Red' cartoons. Avery indulged in anarchic, self-referential comedy, with characters frequently breaking the fourth wall.
Few humorists could put so many hilarious jokes in one seven-minute cartoon. While most people associate animation with Disney, they usually have Avery's style in mind when thinking about a typical animated cartoon: exaggerated emotions (eyes popping out), fast-paced chase scenes, absurd gags and painful slapstick violence (dynamite sticks, falling anvils.). He topped himself at MGM, where Droopy (1943) is his most iconic creation. At Warners he created Daffy Duck (1937), Elmer Fudd (1940) and Bugs Bunny (1940), while also establishing the Looney Tunes signature style.
Tex Avery is an American animated film director, most famous for his cartoons at Warner Brothers and MGM.
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