Beans (Looney Tunes)
Beans | |
---|---|
Leon Schlesinger Productions character | |
First appearance | I Haven't Got a Hat (1935) |
Last appearance | Westward Whoa (1936) |
Created by | Friz Freleng |
Voiced by | Billy Bletcher (1935) Tommy Bond (1935–1936) |
Years of Active: | 1935-1936 |
In-universe information | |
Species | Cat |
Gender | Male |
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
Schlesinger intended to effectively compete with Disney and
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 .
Also in 1935, the studio gained a third full-time director, working in addition to Freleng and King. He was
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
In 1937 and 1938, Schlesinger's studio began creating various potential replacements for Beans, producing characters such as
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
- Barrier, Michael (2003), "Warner Bros., 1933-1940", Hollywood Cartoons: American Animation in Its Golden Age, ISBN 978-0199839223