Beans (Looney Tunes)

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Beans
Leon Schlesinger Productions character
First appearanceI Haven't Got a Hat (1935)
Last appearanceWestward Whoa (1936)
Created byFriz Freleng
Voiced byBilly Bletcher (1935)
Tommy Bond (1935–1936)
Years of Active:1935-1936
In-universe information
SpeciesCat
GenderMale

Beans the Cat is an animated cartoon character in the Warner Bros. Cartoons series of cartoons from 1935–1936.[1] Beans was the third Warner Bros cartoon character star after Bosko and Buddy. He is voiced by Billy Bletcher and occasionally by Tommy Bond. He was created by director Friz Freleng. The character was featured in nine cartoons made in 1935 and 1936.[2]

History

When the cartoon animators/directors

Metro-Goldwyn Mayer. Desperate to maintain his contract with Warner Bros., Schlesinger founded an animation studio of his own, Leon Schlesinger Productions, to produce new Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies cartoons in-house and collected employees from Disney, Ub Iwerks, and other animation studios. Schlesinger set up his new studio on the Warner Bros. lot, on Sunset Boulevard. Among the staff Schlesinger had accrued was Tom Palmer, a former Disney animator who was appointed director of Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies.[3]

Schlesinger intended to effectively compete with Disney and

Michael Barrier, all the animated short films produced by the Schlesinger studio under its early directors lacked in cuteness and charm of any kind and were frequently incoherent.[3] The shorts of this period had much smaller production budgets than their main competitor, Disney.[3]

By 1934, Schlesinger had assigned directorial duties on the Merrie Melodies series to former Harman-Ising animator Friz Freleng, and the Looney Tunes series to Jack King. Schlesinger tasked the two with creating new characters to replace the sterile Buddy, and the two created a group of anthropomorphic animals to show to Schlesinger, which included Beans, a mischievous cat, Little Kitty, a female cat and Beans' love interest, twin puppies named Ham and Ex, Oliver Owl, a stubborn, spectacled owl, and Porky, a stuttering pig. Beans and his friends made their first appearances on I Haven't Got a Hat, a Merrie Melodies animated short directed by Freleng.[2] The Merrie Melodies series lacked continuing characters by this point. But the film served as a showcase for the new characters, that were being groomed to replace Buddy as the stars of the Looney Tunes series.[3] Schlesinger hoped that some of them would catch on with audiences and become bankable stars, and when the characters became popular with audiences, Buddy was discontinued and Beans became the star of Looney Tunes.

Beans' first "crack at stardom" was his first solo

The Mail Pilot (1933).[3] Beans was voiced by Billy Bletcher and Tommy Bond
.

Also in 1935, the studio gained a third full-time director, working in addition to Freleng and King. He was

Sid Sutherland, and Virgil Ross. The first animated short film produced by this unit was Gold Diggers of '49 (1935), the third Looney Tunes film starring Beans. Beans was also featured in the film's title card, signifying that he was the intended protagonist. The film had a Western setting and cast Beans as a gold miner. Also featured in the film was a redesigned Porky Pig, making his second appearance.[3]

Beans began appearing with characters from the cast of I Haven't Got a Hat, most frequently Porky Pig. However, after a number of Porky and Beans outings, it became clear that the character audiences were talking about was Beans' stuttering sidekick, Porky Pig, and after Westward Whoa, Beans was phased out and Porky replaced him as the star of Looney Tunes.

According to Barrier, Beans made one last appearance in

Shanghaied Shipmates (1936), a short film directed by Jack King. It was to be the last animated short featuring either Beans or the rest of the cast of I Haven't Got a Hat, with the exception of Porky Pig.[3] Barrier suggests that Leon Schlesinger may have been giving Avery a vote of confidence, when deciding to keep only Porky as a continuing character and to drop Beans. Porky had already been the main star in Avery's films, while Beans had continued to serve as the main star of King's films. After losing use of Beans, Jack King directed only three films starring Porky Pig. By April 1936, King was hired again by the Disney studio. He would go on to serve as a director in films starring Donald Duck.[3]

In 1937 and 1938, Schlesinger's studio began creating various potential replacements for Beans, producing characters such as

Gabby Goat, Petunia Pig, Daffy Duck and a little white hare. Daffy would become Porky's most enduring comic partner, while Gabby and Petunia both disappeared after a few shorts; the white hare would rarely ever appear with Porky again but would, over the course of a few years, evolve into Warner Bros.'s biggest star, Bugs Bunny
.

Filmography

Title Release date
I Haven't Got a Hat March 2, 1935
The Country Mouse
(cameo)
July 13, 1935
A Cartoonist's Nightmare September 21, 1935
Hollywood Capers October 19, 1935
Gold Diggers of '49 November 2, 1935
The Fire Alarm[4] December 23, 1935
Plane Dippy (cameo) January 4, 1936
Alpine Antics January 18, 1936
The Phantom Ship February 1, 1936
Boom Boom February 29, 1936
Westward Whoa April 25, 1936
Space Jam (picture cameo) November 15, 1996

References

Sources