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CARNIVALE'S BALLOON RAILCARS PART 2
I introduced this new railcar series in last month's article while still early in its development to test the overall presentation, content and reader interest. I was amazed by the number of positive responses I received at the club's March meeting from so many members. Memories were shared, stories told, and always with a smile. I quickly learned my cartoon knowledge grossly fell short in comparison to most everyone I spoke with.
I realized after replicating Heckle and Jackle, who worked off each other, that most all the other characters had either a partner in crime or a nemesis and should have their own balloon railcar. Also, the typical cartoon character was almost always an ANAMORPHIC animal........Definition; An animal with human-like features; personality, speech, movement and drawn in cartoon form.......from now on will be described as 'human-like'.
Already deviating from my plan to only make 1950-60's TV cartoon characters, this month's two characters are exceptions to that plan, the reasons will be explained in their stories.
I received an anonymous request at the meeting to create a Betty Boop balloon railcar (why anonymous?). Betty would never become a Saturday morning cartoon but is balloon worthy. In 1930, Max Fleischer of TALKARTOON STUDIOS hired Grim Barwick to create (here we go) a 'human-like' flirtatious French poodle.
The first few releases were duds prompting them to make her a human in cartoon form. She became a hit with 90 shorts running from 1930-1939. As a 'roaring 20's flapper', her stories became increasingly sexualized and with two episodes each having a seriously forced and unwanted sex scene with Betty fending off the attacker at the last minute and saying 'YOU CAN'T TAKE MY BOOP-OOP-A-DOOP AWAY'. In following, the film industry established the HASE CODE, limiting sexual content in films because of Betty's antics. Soon after, the catch phrase would evolve into just BOOP-OOP-A-DOOP, a more innocent version that represents the more reserved BETTY. To this day, she has endured and is still featured in stories, comic strips, merchandise, and has become a counter-culture figure.
WENDY DARLING: BALLOON RAILCAR #505
Wendy is usually portrayed as a cartoon version of a human in stories with Peter Pan. This figure is the more realistic version, not used now, that dates back to 1904 when she and Peter Pan first appeared in a novel and then live on stage. She remained in human form until Disney acquired the rights to the Peter Pan works. All the characters were then re-drawn in the Disney style to star in major animated cartoon motion pictures passing up the Saturday morning cartoon slot.
I chose to create this balloon railcar to bring attention to a special person. My niece, brother Bill's daughter, Wendy (Ralph) Woods. Yes, she was named after Disney's Wendy Darling, her dad being a life-long Disney fan. Wendy is the family historian, a story writer and skilled crafter in her own right. She shares most of this on her website wendymydarling.com, is the creator and web designer of her dad's website porcupinegulch.com (named after his garden railroad)......and...... is also managing my carnivaleonthegeen.com website.
UPDATING BALLOON RAILCAR #503: FOGHORN LEGHORN
Following up on suggestions from club members, and being a constant player in the story lines, I added HENRY HAWK, FOGHORN'S confused chicken hawk friend to the railcar. He knows that his job is to hunt and eat chickens, but doesn't know what a chicken is, so with the help of Leghorn and Farm Dawg, he is constantly misdirected! Similar pairing of characters may be done on future railcars.
