Wednesday, October 18, 2017
Christmas In Tattertown
Christmas In Tattertown
Christmas in Tattertown is an animated film short that was released in 1988. The short is a Bashki Animation, and the characters featured in the cartoon were created by Ralph Bakshi. The teleplay was by Tom Minton and Jim Reardon and Tom Klein was an executive producer. The short was produced and directed by Ralph Bakshi. Being as Christmas is right around the corner its only right to blog about interesting animated features and this short in question is quite an eye opener if you get my drift. I cant be 100% sure, but the short seems somewhat Fleischer or 1930s cartoon inspired. You could say...Warner Bros, Disney?Along many others. I was thinking the 1932 Betty Boop cartoon entitled Crazytown but i could be wrong as there were many old cartoons with stories about old toys being broken. As you know in the 80s things from the past were highly honored in media. Not to mention that most of the writers, producers, directors and actors/actresses were still alive and kicking back then. They eventually died off...but nostalgia was a big thing back then. And...still is to this very day. But in the 80s nostalgia was huge. I never lived in the 80s, but just by looking at commercials and movies from back then you can clearly see. Christmas in Tattertown has interested me slightly, even though I wont have much of a Christmas this year, its nice to watch whats going on. I dont think TV would air this anymore. It was said to be lost media. These days everything is CGI. TV rarely airs older animated features, unless its say the Muppets or something. I never see any Rankin Bass Productions on TV anymore. And they specialized in Christmas based features...they have a huge list. What I am trying to say is we no longer see older stop motion/animation of TV anymore on special days. For example it was Halloween not too long back and they had shown The Smurfs Halloween, which is old-ish, but its more of an up to date feature if you know what I mean.
The story is pretty simple a little girl by the name of Debbie loves dressing up her doll Little Miss Muffet who is voiced by Jennifer Darling. Charlie Adler is also featured and those are the only two main cast members I know of. The rest are all a blur, Id have to go into full detail if I wanted to know who did what. Well the little girl ends up sucked into a magical book which leads them into Tattertown. Muffet as a doll hates being dressed up by Debbie, once they end up in Tattertown Muffet ditches Debbie. Muffet dislikes Debbie with a passion. Debbie is crazy as hell, she just chases Muffet and ends up losing her.
Debbie is...cray...cray. She reminds me of Elmyra Duff from the Tiny Toon Adventures series but its hard to dislike Debbie. Think Amy Rose from Sonic the Hedgehog series. You know someone that just wont stop until they get what they want. You know...those...characters who chase others??? The ones who are super obsessed. Debbie...flirts??? With Harvey a stuffed dog or bear??? She dubs him "Harvey Baby" but he seems much younger than her. He reminds me of Bimbo the dog or some other 1930s Furry based character. Debbie goes on about her doll Muffet and how she loves dressing her up and cant understand why her doll keeps running away from her as she used to be nice to her in the real world. Mainly because she couldnt speak. According to Harvey, they have no idea what Christmas is.
Elsewhere Muffet, who originally spoke in a cute little voice has started to speak with a deeper Brooklyn tone. She reminds me of a tough Brooklyn guy. Her face shape sometimes even resembles a man and it looks like she has a beard. She now dubs herself Muffet the Merciless and wants to take over. She joins up with a Spider who takes her to a war zone. The Spider introduces Muffet to some bad guys, but Muffet claims them to be losers. Muffet wants to run Tattertown so she needs all the help she can get.
Elsewhere Debbie is getting used to Tattertown. Harvey is asked to do something to buy a cigar by a Christmas item, which upsets Harvey. We have no idea what he is asked to do but he claims it is not nice. (Obviously something sexual) Just as Harvey is about to punch the Christmas item...Debbie snatches it. And does...that Elmyra Duff thing, where she hugs it. And yes...Debbie was created long before that character. Debbie explains to everyone what Christmas is. She tells the broken toys about snow, candy canes and so on...you get the picture. Muffet sends her goons out, but they end up celebrating Christmas. Which upsets her. Meanwhile Sidney the Spider...dresses up in Muffets royal gear and she ends up owning him.
Muffet dresses up as Santa Claus to fool those Tattertown Twits. Meanwhile Debbie cries her heart out, and tries to tell the broken toys of Tattertown about Christmas day. Debbie and her pals look into the sky and see Muffet and her goons shooting fireworks. The real Santa appears and challenges Muffet to a duel in the sky. Debbie thinks Muffet is doing this to make everyone happy, when in reality shes doing it to be evil. Muffet charges for Tattertown.
Meanwhile Debbie becomes somewhat upset that they are not celebrating Christmas properly and plays Im Dreaming Of A White Christmas.
Everyones hearts begin to warm and they all cry. Bosko and Honey...from the old??? Looney Tunes??? shorts make a cameo appearance and kiss. They were knock-off characters of Mickey and Minnie, kinda like Foxy and Roxy or was it Roxi and Foxi? I cant remember the names 100% at this moment in time. Bosko and Honey looked like monkeys...I thought they were just monkeys...but in reality....they were stereotypical African American characters. In a later blog post I might blog about them because they are often forgotten in time as characters.They are offensive which is why we dont see them. But in a 90s Tiny Toon Adventures episode Honey makes a cameo appearance and seems to be some sort of animal??? Meanwhile Muffet who was riding the Spider through the sky smashes through a window straight into a jail cell.
Debbie tells Muffet that she has got her. And now she can be her dolly again. Debbie and her pals then proceed to laugh at Muffet.
This upsets Muffet dearly and she screams IM NOT YOUR DOLLY ANYMORE, IM NOT EVEN YOUR FRIEND IM NOTHING TO YOU!!!! (Hilarious thats how I feel about someone I know in person...right about now) And the film short ends. I really liked this animated short. If you have seen Bashkis older animated features you will understand where I am coming from there are little jokes in the cartoons in which only adults can understand.
If you look very carefully in once scene you can see Oswald the Lucky Rabbit, who also makes a small cameo appearance. Whod have guessed several years later that Disney would have revived the character because before that...they were not the least interested. I think before that...there was a battle about who actually owned the character or something. The character design for Tattertown was done by Jeffrey Pidgeon, Eddie Fitzgerald and Louise Zingarelli. The character color design was done by Rich Moore. The layout artists were, Ed Bell, Eddie Fitzgerald, Jeffrey Pidgeon, Louise Zingarelli, Tom Minton, Jim Reardon, Mike Kazaleh, Keny Butterwort, Victoria Jenson, Tony Fucile, Steve Gordon, Phil Young, most of these people also did the animation. The background color key was done by Phil Phillipson, Marca Adams and Victoria Jenson. Thats once part I really like about the animation is the background, I like how the moon looks. The title illustration sequences were done by Louise Zingarelli. I thought the opening illustrations to the animation were wonderful, very well detailed. Cast members apart from Jennider and Charlie were Adrian Arnold, Keith David, Arthur Burhardt, Sherry Lynn and Patrick Pinney. The animation production was by Wang Film Productions Co. LTD. Cuckoos Nest Studio. Its a shame this wasnt made into a TV series, they could have used the title Tattertown...but it was just a one-shot Christmas special.
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