Willie Whopper
Willie Whopper is an
History
Willie is a young lad who tells of his many outlandish adventures, which are then depicted on-screen. His fantastic accounts are, in fact, outright lies or "whoppers". His stories are usually preceded by his memorable catchphrase, "Say, did I ever tell ya this one?"
The character's first-produced film was The Air Race (1933), in which Willie tells of how he entered and won the 1933
The Air Race was initially left unreleased because distributor MGM rejected it, asking for a revision to explain more about why Willie entered the race. In the largely reanimated revision — Spite Flight (1933) — the story shows Willie interested in the race's cash prize because it will help him pay off his girlfriend's mom's mortgage. The new footage also turns Willie's racing rival into the girlfriend's landlord.
Animator Grim Natwick initially designed Willie for The Air Race and the subsequent Play Ball, the character's first theatrical release. He was, at first, tall and lanky, much like a boy version of the earlier Flip the Frog. Iwerks wasn't completely satisfied with this design and decided to make the character more "cartoonlike". By the series' fourth entry, Stratos-Fear, Willie became roly-poly and more endearing to audiences. Critics too especially went for this new change. Before 1933 was over, Willie also appeared in his first Cinecolor endeavor, Davy Jones' Locker.
1934 was the final production year for the Whopper series, but some of Willie's best emerged from this particular year. One interesting 1934 entry is The Good Scout, an outrageous short in which boy scout Willie manages to help a beautiful girl who has been kidnapped by a big brute in downtown New York City. The bulk of the film's soundtrack is composed of a jazzy
After MGM dropped Iwerks, they hired
Filmography
1933
| Film | Original release date | DVD / Blu-ray |
|---|---|---|
| The Air Race | July/August 1933 | Cartoons That Time Forgot (DVD) Ub Iwerks' Willie Whopper (Blu-ray/DVD) |
| Play Ball | September 16, 1933 | Ub Iwerks' Willie Whopper (Blu-ray/DVD) |
| Spite Flight | October 14, 1933 | Ub Iwerks' Willie Whopper (Blu-ray/DVD) |
| Stratos-Fear | November 11, 1933 | Cartoons That Time Forgot (DVD) Ub Iwerks' Willie Whopper (Blu-ray/DVD) |
| Davy Jones' Locker 1 | December 9, 1933 | Ub Iwerks' Willie Whopper (Blu-ray/DVD) |
1 Filmed in Cinecolor
1934
| Film | Original release date | DVD / Blu-ray |
|---|---|---|
| Hell's Fire (a.k.a. Vulcan Entertains)1 | January 6, 1934 | Cartoons That Time Forgot (DVD) Ub Iwerks' Willie Whopper (Blu-ray/DVD) |
| Robin Hood, Jr. | February 3, 1934 | Ub Iwerks' Willie Whopper (Blu-ray/DVD) |
| Insultin' the Sultan | April 14, 1934 | Cartoons That Time Forgot (DVD) Ub Iwerks' Willie Whopper (Blu-ray/DVD) |
| Reducing Creme | May 19, 1934 | Ub Iwerks' Willie Whopper (Blu-ray/DVD) |
| Rasslin' Round | June 1, 1934 | Cartoons That Time Forgot (DVD) Ub Iwerks' Willie Whopper (Blu-ray/DVD) |
| Cave Man | July 6, 1934 | Ub Iwerks' Willie Whopper (Blu-ray/DVD) |
| Jungle Jitters | July 27, 1934 | Ub Iwerks' Willie Whopper (Blu-ray/DVD) |
| The Good Scout | September 1, 1934 | Cartoons That Time Forgot (DVD) Ub Iwerks' Willie Whopper (Blu-ray/DVD) |
| Viva Willie | September 21, 1934 | Cartoons That Time Forgot (DVD) Ub Iwerks' Willie Whopper (Blu-ray/DVD) |
1 Filmed in Cinecolor
Further reading
- Leslie Iwerks and John Kenworthy, The Hand Behind the Mouse (Disney Editions, 2001) and documentary of the same name (DVD, 1999)
- Leonard Maltin, Of Mice and Magic: A History of American Animated Cartoons (Penguin Books, 1987)
- Jeff Lenburg, The Great Cartoon Directors (Da Capo Press, 1993)
See also
- The Golden Age of American animation
References
- ISBN 0-8160-3831-7.
External links
- Willie Whopper at Don Markstein's Toonopedia. Archived from the original on September 13, 2015.
- The Air Race, a Willie Whopper cartoon