Six Degrees of Animation

[LARSSON at VAX1.Mankato.MSUS.EDU]

Offered:
"by Filmation, a seriously                 
penny-pinching company that brought television animation to new lows from
which it has not since recovered, and pioneered new methods of creating 23
minutes of "animation" while using as few frames as was humanly possible."


Yet, surely the award for the most mis-appropriately-named "animation" has
to belong to that pioneering series, CLUTH CARGO, where adventurer Clutch,
looking sort of like a beefier Rock Hudson, goes off on adventures with
his boy pal and their dog.  Now, this series is, I think, the key to the
entirity of PULP FICTION.  The beginning of "The Gold Watch" sequence has
the kid who will grow up to be Bruce Willis watching this series when Chris
Walken comes to give him the eponymous timepiece.  The episode in question
has Clutch and his pal helping out an Eskimo, who punctuates his conversation
with a phrase that'
s something like "Oogle oogle!"  At the end, they learn that it means "whatever
you want it to mean," which is I think Tarantino'
s "message" as well.

Now, since I believe that any topic on this list *ought* to have some connection
to Pynchon, I propose that we point out the connection, however tenuous.  Call
it the OPR: Obligatory Pynchon Reference.

So, OPR: the decline and fall of a
American animation as shown in what Thoth watches in COL 49 (from Porky Pig
and Tex Avery to Hanna-Barbera's MAGILLA GORILLA).

2. Clutch's sidekick is actually named, if memory serves, "Skippy."  See GR.

3. In M&D, a watch is swallowed.  In PULP FICTION,  a watch is . . .well,
you know.

Don Larsson, Mankato State U (MN)