DVD-Blu-Ray Availability: nada
You may view a nice-looking copy of this cartoon (with an embedded logo) HERE.
Perhaps I'm softening, or weakening under the spell of these Avery spot-gag cartoons, but they don't seem as egregious as I anticipated. They can be stale, but it's a deliberate staleness, a reveling in the joy of telling a bad or corny joke.
These aren't Avery's most enjoyable or memorable cartoons, but they do offer evidence of the shreds of progress in his path to becoming the most innovative and well-known non-Disney director of Hollywood cartoons.
The long delay in posting this analysis is due to the temporary misplacement of my set of complete Warner Brothers cartoons from a sudden move this past January. I am happy to say the set has been recovered, and I'll try to get through the rest of this spot-gag period quickly and painlessly.
By the time of Fresh Fish, an easy formula rules the Avery-directed spot gag cartoons. Robert C. Bruce is the affable, mildly sarcastic emcee; Mel Blanc and Carl Stalling supply invaluable audio input, and a talent pool of animators with a growing skillset turn out stable, functionial-to-impressive work. The Warners cartoons begin to have the vibe of a finely-tuned machine: each part does its work with due diligence, and each part works with its neighbors in concert.
The lone variant, by this time, is the content of each cartoon. Avery's time at the Leon Schlesinger studios demonstrates the power of this variant. With good material, Avery and crew could create an instant classic cartoon. With formula stuff or a flawed basic theme, the same group of talented people, capable of far greater things, could turn out a trifle. No one was going to remember these things, so if they turned out good, great; if not, well, let's try to make the next one better.
