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About Frank Tashlin ... — Description
" There's a great deal of argument about who created Bugs Bunny. Now certainly, "Bugs" Hardaway, Ben Hardaway, who was a great idea man, had a lot to do with it, and it was certainly his name. But Bugs Bunny is nothing but Maxie Hare, the Disney character in The Tortoise and the Hare. "

"I went to work as an errand boy at the "Out of the Inkwell" Max Fleischer studio. Dave Fleischer, I don't know what he did—Max was the head man. And I used to run errands for eleven dollars a week, and also take home celluloids, and wash them, and they would pay you a penny a celluloid, for each one you washed "

" The first story I did there, as a story man, was, I took this Fox and Crow, and I bad seen what Ralph Wright had done with How to Ride a Horse, and those things, and I did the same thing. The Crow had the grapes, and the Fox was trying to get the grapes from the Crow. And it was a series of jokes, and I'm sure I must have made the imprint in the wall, or in the floor, and I'm sure I flattened them up, and I'm sure I did all those things."

" Unfortunately, it's nothing but compromise until you earn the right not to have to. Censorship, producers, stars. I get pretty morose when something goes wrong, so I go home on weekends and paint. I love to paint. Doesn't matter if it's good or bad. If someone tells me, "I don't like that yellow,' I can say, 'Screw you.' "

Francis Fredrick von Taschlein, also known as Tish Tash or Frank Tash (February 19, 1913 – May 5, 1972) was a prominent animator, writer, and director of both cartoons and live action films. (Talented as much as he is underrated in those fields ...)

Initially, Tashlin worked for Paul Terry as an animator on the Aesops Film Fables series of cartoons, only to go to another animation stint at Van Beuren Studios. Finally, in 1932, he found work at the then-rising Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies cartoon studio, working as an animator (being now one of the founding fathers of the Looney Tunes ) while working on a short lived comic strip in his spare time called Van Boring,(A jab at his previous boss. What you can't criticise directly , just draw or wittily make fun of ). When Leon tried to swindle Frank into giving him a cut of the comics profits, it went this way "“He wanted a cut of it, and I said go to hell. So he fired me.” He then did a brief stint at the Ub Iwerks cartoon studio in 1934, only to leave in 1935 to be a writer on Hal Roach's Our Gang series of live comedies. During this time, he learned quite a bit about live-action film-making, including film-camera techniques.

In 1936, Leon managed to lure Tashlin back to his studio (Well you can't afford to lose such a talent XD ), giving him a position as a director there, right during a time when Tex Avery was starting to give the studio its own flavor. Frank jumped right in, getting off to a good head start with "Porky's Poultry Plant", where he adapted live action style fast-cutting and dynamic camera angles into his cartoons, giving them a cinematic, energetic feeling lacking from Tex Avery and Friz Freleng's cartoon shorts. Despite this, he wasn't particularly glad to work on Porky Pig cartoons, a character whom Tashlin admitted later to hating.
" He was nothing, you couldn't do anything with his body, you know what I mean? Just a terrible character. I remember I did a picture about him and Daffy, couldn't pay their rent or something."

Then he left the studio again, with his crew being handed over to Chuck Jones, while he worked for Disney in 1938 to 1940 as a Gag man (his best contribution was as a part writer for the great "Mr Duck steps out',Check it out !) . He began story work on a Mickey Mouse feature, which would later evolve into the Mickey and the Beanstalk segment of Fun and Fancy Free.(but he never received credit for it...)

In 1941, he found work at Columbia Cartoons, where he directed three short cartoons, one of them being the first of Columbia's star series "The Fox And The Crow"—the short in question, "The Fox and the Grapes" was the first cartoon to use a "blackout gag" format, ( Chuck Jones would cite as an influence on his Road Runner cartoons.)

He would once again return to Warner Bros. in 1943 and boy did his ultimate Termite Terrace run KICK ASS ! These are definitely the best shorts of his career (which says a lot !) Some of these later shorts of his had some noticeable sexual themes, particularly "Plane Daffy" and "Stupid Cupid".He perfected the film aspects of his cartoons—the and used a quite effective , fluid cartoon-magazine style of drawing and added a lot more sexual innuendos to his pictures . These innuendos are so subtle yet energetic that they are PERFECT ! The Daffy cartoons stand out as some of the duck's absolute best . Tash's Daffy had the best of all worlds and his design is what I'd call the begining of handsome Daffy (which is pretty close to Daffy's 50's shape : Lankier, scruffier and more mature in shape...). All his work from that period is definitely a must-see (How come Nasty Quacks is not on a Golden collection yet FOR GOD SAKE !) . Even his 2 Bugs Bunny cartoons nailed the 2 facets of Bugs : Anarchic heckler (The Unruly Hare) and well-intentioned scamp (Hare remover).

After his cartoon career ended, Tashlin went on to direct and write for many live action films, most famously the Jayne Mansfield comedies The Girl Can't Help It 'Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter, Bob Hope's Son of Paleface and numerous Jerry Lewis movies (which are seen as Lewis's best ).
Now the opinions sort of divided about his departure from Termite Terrace , well actually I don't mind . Tash found his niche as a film-maker and he was not much a fan of cartoon formulas (unlike the other directors ...). His cartoons were a warm-up to his later feature films (who are really cartoonesque actually !Jayne Mansfield melting ice and causing milk bottles to overflow as she walks by is one of those examples ...)

He also wrote five books: "The Bear That Wasn't" , "How The Circus Learned to Smile" , "The Possum That Didn't" and "The World That Isn't" and a self-help cartooning book "How to Create Cartoons" (extremely helpful BTW). Most are parables who are as educative for kids as they are for adults !

Enfin, Dieu bénisse Tish Tash le magnifique ! On ne l' oubliera jamais !

Now , because I am incredibly random let me show you a song I absolutely love to celebrate the first TRUE tribute to this genius ! [link] (expect this song to pop up later ! The key word is friendship .)