Sproing! Crash! Boiiing! Whack! Zap! Ka-Powie! That could be any five seconds of the sound track to a typical Tex Avery cartoon. No other animation talent has done so much for sheer chaos, exaggerated comic disaster, and just plain over-the-top silliness than Tex Avery. His subversive, self-aware style of humor predates the irony of our own times, and defined our very idea of a cartoon, a short, frantic romp through the imagination, in which ridiculously stupid or foolish characters are subjected to a hilarious nightmare that pokes fun at everything we hold dear and sacred, including animation and movie-making itself. He would be immortal just for creating or defining great animated characters like Bugs Bunny, Porky Pig, Daffy Duck, Chilly Willy, Droopy, and Screwy Squirrel, but Tex Avery also occupies a unique position as hands-down the most extreme, the most sublimely surreal, the zaniest and the most creative of all the great animators. His cartoons have never been off the air and now his influence is flowering all over again thanks to fan clubs all over the world, dozens of websites, and two different cable TV animation shows dedicated exclusively to his outrageous output.
All the many websites and books about Fredrick Bean "Tex" Avery agree he was born in Taylor, Texas, Feb. 26, 1908, and started drawing comic strips in high school. After training at the Chicago Art Institute he came out to Hollywood and ended up sleeping on the beach, where he was noticed for his sand drawings and hired by animation pioneer Walter Lantz. His creativity finally exploded like cartoon dynamite when he went to work at the famous "Termite Terrace" at Warner Bros. in 1935 when he was only 27, just when the great stock company of Warner characters was being created and refined. There he gave Bugs Bunny his hipster attitude, grew Porky Pig and Elmer Fudd into major stars and unleashed the gleeful lunacy of Daffy Duck into the world in 1937's "Porky's Duck Hunt." His cartoons were a kind of anti-Disney, poking fun at the solemn narrations, nice characters, and attempts at artfulness. His Warner cartoons were racy and topical, designed for adults, for as Tex said, he drew what made him laugh and didn't think about what a ten-year-old would find funny. That's why many of us who were once ten-year-olds loved Tex's cartoons -- we couldn't believe they would show them on TV and hoped our mothers wouldn't walk in and throw a chair through the set.
From 1942 to 1955 Tex worked at MGM where his cartoons kept getting faster, funnier and wilder, firing relentless barrages of gags, some only five frames long but enough to get the big laugh. He supported the war effort with cartoons that made fun of Hitler and found humor in the lives of defense plant workers and shell-shocked G.I.s. He made the censors' jaws drop with risque send-ups of beloved fairy tales like "Swing Shift Cinderella" in which Cinderella was a luscious exotic dancer and the Prince was a wired-up Wolf whose eyeballs blew out of his head at the sight of the girl in the short skirt. That extreme "Tex Avery eyeball take" with tongue rolling out and steam coming out of the ears is one of his most copied creations, showing up everywhere from The Simpsons to Jim Carrey's super-charged, overreacting character in The Mask.
Tex continued to generate new characters, including perhaps his best-known, Droopy, a maddeningly deadpan dog who always drives the Wolf insane and outwits his larger opponents in a tradition of underdog animal comedy that goes back to Egyptian folk tales. But my personal favorite has to be that cheerful anarchist Screwy Squirrel, who bounced off the walls of the cartoon universe making life a living hell for all the other characters.
In 1954 Tex came back where he started to Walter Lantz's studio, making four cartoons including one that launched another popular underdog character, the shy little penguin Chilly Willy. He made a lasting impact in advertising with his creations like the Raid bug spray campaign and the Frito Bandito. He passed away in 1980 and was laid to rest in Forest Lawn-Hollywood Hills where Screwy Squirrel can sometimes be seen making wisecracks and bouncing acorns off the heads of dog policemen. Year by year respect for his inventiveness grows among cartoon fans and students of animation art. But his greatest influence is undoubtedly his impact on his fellow animators, who were inspired by his craftsmanship and his willingness to drive animation to its extremes and beyond, to stretch this wonderful medium past all limits. It's in this spirit that our award for animation excellence is presented, hoping to encourage and honor those who work in Tex's irreverent, innovative style, blasting holes in the envelope and defying convention to fling animation to new heights of imagination and humor.
The Hollywood Film Festival® is pleased to announce the creation of the Hollywood Tex Avery Animation Award™, named for legendary pioneer animator Tex Avery (1908-1980). The Festival is also proud to honor Jeffrey Katzenberg with its inaugural Hollywood Tex Avery Animation Award™ in 2002. His well-known passion for animation is almost unparalleled in the film industry. As a studio executive, as a producer, and as an unabashed fan, he has made invaluable contributions to the art form on every level.
