Red Hot Riding Hood: A Landmark Animated Film by Tex Avery

Tex Avery pro­duced car­toons dur­ing the Gold­en Age of Hol­ly­wood ani­ma­tion, most­ly for Warn­er Bros. and Metro-Gold­wyn-May­er stu­dios, and cre­at­ed some mem­o­rable char­ac­ters along the way — Daffy Duck, Bugs Bun­ny, Droopy dog and the rest. In 1943, Avery ani­mat­ed Red Hot Rid­ing Hood, which amount­ed to a rebel­lious retelling of the clas­sic Lit­tle Red Rid­ing Hood tale. 50 years lat­er, ani­ma­tors ranked it 7th on their list of The 50 Great­est Car­toons. Accord­ing to Ter­ry Gilliam, Avery’s work deliv­ers this:

The mag­ic of Tex Avery’s ani­ma­tion is the sheer extrem­i­ty of it all. The clas­sic Avery image is of some­one’s mouth falling open down to their feet, wham, their eyes whoop­ing out and their tongue unrolling for about half a mile: that is the most won­der­ful­ly lib­er­at­ing spec­ta­cle.… There is also a child­like sense of immor­tal­i­ty and inde­struc­tibil­i­ty in his work; peo­ple get squashed, mashed, bashed, bent out of shape, what­ev­er, and they bounce back. In essence, it is like the myth of eter­nal life.

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