Talk:Beans (Looney Tunes)

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The comment below is nonsense. The so called "Mickey Mouse" style was simply the way cartoon were being drawn in that period and has nothing to do with someone copying another character. Mickey Mouse just happened to be the character that did not modernize his design, while practically every other character was redesigned in the late 1930's. For example, Oswald the Rabbit and Bosko. Walt Disney was simply too conservative to modernize and people who grew up seeing the rather outdated design of Mickey Mouse then associate all the other characters as being copies of Mickey Mouse... which is pretty ridiculous.

"Beans' character design is one of the last of a series of thinly veiled copies of Walt Disney's Mickey Mouse character produced during the 1930s in reaction to Mickey's enormous popularity. (Ironically, the character design of Mickey himself is a thinly veiled copy of Felix the Cat, an enormously popular cartoon star of the 1920s.)"

I removed this:

This is complete nonsense. The so called "Mickey Mouse" style was simply the way cartoon were being drawn in that period and has nothing to do with someone copying another character. Mickey Mouse just happened to be the character that did not modernize his design, while practically every other character was redesigned in the late 1930's. For example, Oswald the Rabbit and Bosko. Walt Disney was simply too conservative to modernize and people who grew up seeing the rather outdated design of Mickey Mouse then associate all the other characters as being copies of Mickey Mouse... which is pretty ridiculous.

This is a point of view statement that violates the

I've retooled the statement to be hopefully more neutral. Still, a source citation one way or the other is preferable. — BrianSmithson 04:31, 14 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I disagree that Beans was not a Mickey Mouse copy. Is User:Vitaphone disputing Mickey Mouse's popularity? Box office and merchandising figures (plus history) has proven that. Why is it ridiculous to assume that Mickey Mouse was so tremendously popular that he influenced character design at other studios (who were hoping to share in some of Mickey's success)? This is a well-researched and documented fact (Barrier, Beck and others). Also, there were popular characters in the early 30s that did not at all mimic Mickey's style, Fleischer's Popeye and Betty Boop for instance, so it's not fair to say simply "that was the way cartoon[sic] were being drawn". If you look at Harman and Ising's Piggy and Foxy, I find it hard for anyone to believe their character designs were not a conscious decision to cash in on Mickey's fame. Take off Beans' ears you have Bosko. Put on mouse ears and you have Mickey, put on cat ears yo have Felix. Jeff schiller 16:35, 14 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

My reading seems to support Jeff in this. However, like I said, a source citation would be good (whether it's Beck, Maltin, Solomon, etc.). Beans is probably the least Mickey-like of the so-called Mickey clones; he's rounder, and his snout isn't as prominent as Mickey's. I also think there probably is some truth to Vitaphone's point of view. Look at Japanese anime — to many Westerners, it all looks the same: big eyes, small mouth, wild hair. This is the established "look" of Japanese animation, and it came about because early artists were imitating Disney. In other words, it's possible that 1930s cartoon characters looked like Mickey both out of conscious imitation and because that was the established look at the time. This is all just my speculation, of course. :) — BrianSmithson 17:30, 14 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Take it a step futher and say Mickey Mouse is a copy of Oswald the Rabbit (created by Ub Iwerks). Everyone was copying Oswald the Rabbit!

Is User:Jeff schiller disputing Oswald's popularity? Box office and merchandising figures (plus history) has proven that. Why is it ridiculous to assume that Oswald was so tremendously popular that he influenced character design at other studios (who were hoping to share in some of Oswald's success)? This is a well-researched and documented fact. Harman and Ising worked on the Oswald the Rabbitt series before making their own cartoon series in 1930.

No he is a copy of the mice that had appear in Paul Terry's Aesop Film Fables since 1921. When Paul Terry first released that cartoon back in 1921 - he made that Mouse that was one day going to be copied by Ub Iwerks (the real creator of Mickey Mouse) for Walt Disney. Everyone was copying Paul Terry

LOL Anything but the truth Around 1933, the trend came to make human cartoon character. Thus we see Betty Boop (which lost its animal characters), Popeye The Sailor, Buddy, Scrappy, Willie Whopper, Tom & Jerry (Van Bueren), Little King, Amos N Andy, Barney Google.....

Around 1935 the modernization of characters took place along with a reintroduction of animal characters. Oswald The Rabbit and Bosko were completely changed and all the 1920's style cartoons disapeer (the ones you call Mickey Mouse... lol) Walt Disney refused to change with the times so he was stuck with his 1920's mouse ... Today people try to change history and say everyone copies Disney ..this is sheer nonsense If everyone was copying him why didnt they continue? Obviously by the late 1930's, Disney was more popular than he had been in the early 1930's yet no one was copying him... Stuff and Nonsense :)

Is that you, Vitaphone? I'm having trouble following your argument due to the odd indenting and random changed quotes from Jeff's post above. Can you try again, keeping everything indented to the same level, putting quotes around things you are taking form other users, and signing your post with four ~ symbols? — BrianSmithson 19:59, 15 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Wow, I never assumed such an innocent statement in an article would welcome such vehement (and clearly POV) opposition. But that's the state of today's Wikipedia, with all the newcomers who don't even understand rules and conventions of Wikipedia. Vitaphone, you obviously know something about early animation around this period. So you also must know that Harman/Ising came from Disney's studio and were very competitive with him, right? This is well-documented in Barrier's "Hollywood Cartoons" through interviews. Do you believe that Bosko was a knockoff of Mickey? Even down to his girlfriend and dog? And Buddy was simply a blander version of Bosko. I contend that Beans was simply a continuation of this trend and that's why he failed - I think by mid-1930s, the happy-go-lucky Mickey Mouse types were losing ground by this time and the popular Disney cartoons featured funnier characters like Pluto, Goofy and Donald. But I guess that's my opinion. I recommend simply removing the statement altogether regarding Beans' character design to make User:Vitaphone happy. It's clear that there are multiple points of view regarding this and that makes it a subjective statement. Plus, it never quite fit in with the flow of the article. Jeff schiller 22:06, 15 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

As stated in a comment on the article, I picked the dates from the filmography from http://www.bcdb.com/. Vitaphone, if you have sources, please let me know. Additionally, I just watched "Plane Dippy" right now and could only find one scene in which the corner of Beans the Cat's head appears briefly, though Miss Kitty and Oliver Owl do appear. I would classify this as at most a cameo and not "co-starring" with Porky Pig. Furthermore, BCDB puts this cartoon on January 4, 1936 several months before "Westward Whoa". Jeff schiller 03:33, 16 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]