NFR Project: “Magical Maestro”
Dir: Tex Avery
Scr: Rich Hogan
Animators: Grant Simmons, Michael Lah, Walter Clinton
Premiere: Feb. 9, 1952
6 min. 30 sec.
Let’s face it: Tex Avery was a genius.
He only took part in inventing Porky Pig, Bugs Bunny, and Daffy Duck, and even Chilly Willy! Beginning in 1935, he supervised the madness at Warner Brothers’ animation outpost, “Termite Terrace,” during the time of its codification of an anti-Disney sarcasm and surreal, fourth-wall-breaking approach to cartoon shorts. In 1941, he moved to MGM, where he ran things animated until the early 1950s.
Magical Maestro is discussed in depth, expertly, by Thad Komorowski at the National Film Registry. Avery was king of the surrealists in American animated films of the period; he would do anything in service of a gag.
His premise here is to cofound the performer, much as Chuck Jones did later in Duck Amuck (1953). The Great Poochini (played by one of Avery’s straight men, Spike) is a concert singer, talented and aloof. He throws out an auditioning Mysto the Magician, who seeks revenge. He sneaks into the theater as Poochini is singing, and takes the conductor’s place with his magic wand. He then puts Poochini through the changes, switching garments, nationalities, ages, and races as he tries to belt out Rossini’s “Largo al factotum” from The Barber of Seville. The rapid switch from gag to gag guarantees a laugh in there somewhere for everyone.
In the end, Poochini gets his revenge. Avery would soon, exhausted from overwork, take a sabbatical. In that sense his film now plays as the last full expression of the dominant phase of his comic genius.
The NFR is one writer’s attempt to review all the films listed in the National Film Registry in chronological order. Next time: High Noon.
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