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A Gander At Mother Goose
''A Gander at Mother Goose'' is a 1940 Warner Bros. ''Merrie Melodies'' cartoon directed by Tex Avery and written by Dave Monahan. The short was released on May 25, 1940. Plot The short is essentially a spot gag cartoon with nursery rhymes. The cartoon is narrated by Robert C. Bruce. The first nursery rhyme is Mary, Mary Quite Contrary as played by Katharine Hepburn. The narrator speaks the first line of the rhyme: ''"Mary, Mary, Quite Contrary----how does your garden grow?"'' to which Mary replies ''"I'm terribly sorry, but confidentially, it stinks."'' (a reference to a line from the 1938 comedy film '' You Can't Take It with You''). It is then revealed that the garden is full of litter, trash and filth The page turns to Humpty Dumpty. Humpty, like the rhyme says, falls off the wall and appears unharmed. However, when he gets up it is revealed that his butt cheeks are exposed. The next page shows Jack and Jill as teen sweethearts. As the narrator recites the rhyme, J ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tex Avery
Frederick Bean "Tex" Avery (February 26, 1908 – August 26, 1980) was an American animator, cartoonist, animation director, director, and voice actor. He was known for directing and producing animated cartoons during the golden age of American animation. His most significant work was for the Warner Bros. Cartoons, Warner Bros. and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer cartoon studio, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer studios, where he was crucial in the creation and evolution of famous animated characters such as Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Porky Pig, Elmer Fudd, Droopy, Screwy Squirrel, Red Hot Riding Hood, The Wolf, Red Hot Riding Hood, and George and Junior. He gained influence for his technical innovation, directorial style and brand of humor. Avery's attitude toward animation was opposite that of Walt Disney and other conventional family cartoons at the time. Avery's cartoons were known for their sarcastic, ironic, Surreal humour, absurdist, irreverent, and sometimes sexual humor, sexual tone in nature. Avery' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Humpty Dumpty
Humpty Dumpty is a character in an English nursery rhyme, probably originally a riddle and one of the best known in the English-speaking world. He is typically portrayed as an anthropomorphic egg, though he is not explicitly described as such. The first recorded versions of the rhyme date from late eighteenth-century England and the tune from 1870 in James William Elliott's ''National Nursery Rhymes and Nursery Songs''. Its origins are obscure, and several theories have been advanced to suggest original meanings. Humpty Dumpty was popularized in the United States on Broadway by actor George L. Fox in the pantomime musical ''Humpty Dumpty''. The show ran from 1868 to 1869, for a total of 483 performances, becoming the longest-running Broadway show until it was surpassed in 1881 by ''Hazel Kirke''. As a character and literary allusion, Humpty Dumpty has appeared or been referred to in many works of literature and popular culture, particularly English author Lewis Carroll's 1871 b ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Iris Shot
An iris shot is a technique used in silent film and television sometimes to emphasize a detail of a scene above all others, more commonly to end or open a scene. The film camera's iris is slowly closed or opened, so that what is visible on film appears in a decreasing or increasing circle, surrounded by black. The iris shot used at the start of a scene is an iris in and an iris out is used at the end of a film/episode or a particular scene. ''Iris in'' is also used after a previous ''iris out'' to allow different episodes or scenes to begin in a more natural way. Iris shots are also used to put emphasis on a particular aspect of film, usually something of importance. After the silent film era, the technique became less used, and has mainly been used only for ironic or comedic effect. An example of non-ironic iris shot as part of the grammar of film is found in "Life Lessons", the Martin Scorsese-directed segment of ''New York Stories'' ( Touchstone, 1989). Non-silent era slapst ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Night Before Christmas
''A Visit from St. Nicholas'', more commonly known as ''The Night Before Christmas'' and ''Twas the Night Before Christmas'' from its first line, is a poem first published anonymously under the title ''Account of a Visit from St. Nicholas'' in 1823 and later attributed to Clement Clarke Moore, who claimed authorship in 1837. The poem has been called "arguably the best-known verses ever written by an American" Burrows, Edwin G. & Wallace, Mike. '' Gotham: A History of New York City to 1898''. New York: Oxford University Press, 1999. pp. 462–63 and is largely responsible for some of the conceptions of Santa Claus from the mid-nineteenth century to today. It has had a massive effect on the history of Christmas gift-giving. Before the poem gained wide popularity, American ideas had varied considerably about Saint Nicholas and other Christmastide visitors. ''A Visit from St. Nicholas'' eventually was set to music and has been recorded by many artists. Plot On the night of Ch ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Little Hiawatha
''Little Hiawatha'' (also called ''Hiawatha'') is a 1937 animated cartoon produced by Walt Disney Productions, inspired by the poem ''The Song of Hiawatha'' by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. It does not appear to have historical correlation to legendary Mohawk leader and peacemaker Hiawatha. It is the last ''Silly Symphonies'' short to be released by United Artists. Plot Over opening narration, a Native American boy named Little Hiawatha is seen paddling his canoe down a river – at one point backwards – on his way to hunt game. Upon reaching land, he steps out and immediately falls down a hidden hole in the water, bringing about the laughter of the animals in the forest. Hiawatha gives chase to them – with his pants often falling down as the cartoon's running gag. Hiawatha pursues a grasshopper, but is foiled when it spits in his face, much to the amusement of the other animals. He chases them again and manages to corner a baby rabbit on a tree stump; he finds, however, th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Old Woman Who Lived In A Shoe
"There was an Old Woman Who Lived in a Shoe" is a popular English language nursery rhyme, with a Roud Folk Song Index number of 19132. Debates over its meaning and origin have largely centered on attempts to match the old woman with historical female figures who have had large families, although King George II (1683–1760) has also been proposed as the rhyme's subject. Lyrics The most common version of the rhyme is: The earliest printed version in Joseph Ritson's ''Gammer Gurton's Garland'' in 1794 has the coarser last line: Many other variations were printed in the 18th and 19th centuries. Marjorie Ainsworth Decker published a Christian version of the rhyme in her ''The Christian Mother Goose Book'' published in 1978: Origins and meaning Iona and Peter Opie pointed to the version published in ''Infant Institutes'' in 1797, which finished with the lines: The term "a-loffeing", they believe, was Shakespearean, suggesting that the rhyme is considerably older than the fi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jack Be Nimble
"Jack Be Nimble" is an English language nursery rhyme. It has a Roud Folk Song Index number of 13902.1882 Lyrics The most common version of the rhyme is: :Jack be nimble, :Jack be quick, :Jack jump over :The candlestickI. Opie and P. Opie, ''The Oxford Dictionary of Nursery Rhymes'' (Oxford University Press, 1951, 2nd edn., 1997), pp. 226–7. Origins and meaning The rhyme is first recorded in a manuscript of around 1815 and was collected by James Orchard Halliwell in the mid-nineteenth century. Jumping candlesticks was a form of fortune telling and a sport. Good luck was said to be signalled by clearing a candle without extinguishing the flame. Notes {{reflist Jack tales English nursery rhymes English poems English folk songs English children's songs Traditional children's songs Songs about fictional male characters ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Star Light, Star Bright
"Star Light, Star Bright" is an English language nursery rhyme. It has a Roud Folk Song Index number of 16339. Lyrics The lyrics usually conform to the following: :Star light, star bright, :First star I see tonight; :I wish I may, I wish I might :Have the wish I wish tonight. Origins The superstition of hoping for wishes granted when seeing a shooting or falling star may date back to the ancient world. Wishing on the first star seen may also predate this rhyme, which first began to be recorded in late nineteenth-century America.R. Webster, ''The Encyclopedia of Superstitions'' (Llewellyn Worldwide, 2008), p. 245. The song and tradition seem to have reached Britain by the early twentieth century and have since spread worldwide.I. Opie and M. Tatem, ''A Dictionary of Superstitions'' (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989), pp. 175-6. In popular culture It is used in the 1940 Disney film Pinocchio and related Disney media The first half is featured in the chorus of Madonna's son ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Detouring America
''Detouring America'' is a 1939 Warner Bros. ''Merrie Melodies'' cartoon directed by Tex Avery. The short was released on August 26, 1939. Plot A tour of the United States, with recurring checks on the progress of the human fly climbing the Empire State Building. Also featured are jokes and gags on the Everglades, the Wyoming prairies, Alaska, a California prospector, Sioux Indians and a Jerry Colonna-esque (literal) Texas cow-puncher. Home media *LaserDisc – ''The Golden Age of Looney Tunes'', Volume 5, Side 2 (USA 1995 Turner print) *DVD – ''Each Dawn I Die'' (USA 1995 Turner print added as a bonus) Censorship *Two scenes are excised from the cartoon when aired on Cartoon Network and Boomerang A boomerang () is a thrown tool, typically constructed with aerofoil sections and designed to spin about an axis perpendicular to the direction of its flight. A returning boomerang is designed to return to the thrower, while a non-returning b ... United States television netw ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Parade Of Wooden Soldiers
''The Parade of the Tin Soldiers'' (''Die Parade der Zinnsoldaten''), also known as ''The Parade of the Wooden Soldiers'', is an instrumental musical character piece, in the form of a popular jaunty march, written by German composer Leon Jessel, in 1897. ''The Parade of the Tin Soldiers'' was originally composed for solo piano. Jessel later published it for orchestra in 1905, as Opus 123. Today it is also a popular tune for marching bands, concert bands, and small orchestras, and for extremely diverse alternate instrumentations as well. Since the early 1920s, the piece has been very popular in the U.S., and has also been frequently performed and recorded worldwide. A song, "The Parade of the Wooden Soldiers", was also created from the piece in 1922, with English lyrics by Ballard MacDonald. Rise to international popularity Recordings of ''The Parade of the Tin Soldiers'' were made in late 1910 and in 1911 and distributed internationally, and Jessel republished the shee ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Listerine
Listerine is an American brand of antiseptic mouthwash that is promoted with the slogan "Kills Microorganism, germs that cause bad breath", Named after Joseph Lister, who pioneered antiseptic surgery at the Glasgow Royal Infirmary in Scotland, Listerine was developed in 1879 by Joseph Lawrence, a chemist in St. Louis, Missouri. Originally marketed by the Lambert Pharmacal Company (which later became Warner–Lambert), Listerine has been manufactured and distributed by Johnson & Johnson since that company's acquisition of Pfizer's consumer healthcare division on December 20, 2006. The Listerine brand name is also used in toothpaste, chewable tablets, and Thin-film drug delivery, self-dissolving teeth-whitening strips. History Inspired by Louis Pasteur's ideas on microbial infection, the English doctor Joseph Lister, 1st Baron Lister, Joseph Lister demonstrated in 1865 that use of carbolic acid on surgical dressings would significantly reduce rates of post-surgical infection. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Three Little Pigs
"The Three Little Pigs" is a fable about three pigs who build three houses of different materials. A Big Bad Wolf blows down the first two pigs' houses which made of straw and sticks respectively, but is unable to destroy the third pig's house that made of bricks. The printed versions of this fable date back to the 1840s, but the story is thought to be much older. The earliest version takes place in Dartmoor with three pixies and a fox before its best known version appears in ''English Fairy Tales'' by Joseph Jacobs in 1890, with Jacobs crediting James Halliwell-Phillipps as the source. The phrases used in the story, and the various morals drawn from it, have become embedded in Western culture. Many versions of ''The Three Little Pigs'' have been recreated and modified over the years, sometimes making the wolf a kind character. It is a type B124 folktale in the Thompson Motif Index. Traditional versions "The Three Little Pigs" was included in ''The Nursery Rhymes of England'' ( ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
