Does anyone (besides us geeks at Cartoon Research) really miss or even care about Conrad the Cat?

After all, he only appeared in three cartoons, all in 1942, and in two of them he was a mere co-star. Chuck Jones created the character, then abandoned him after that trifecta. A doughy yellow cat specializing in physical comedy, viewers remember Conrad as a knockoff of Disney’s Goofy, especially when Pinto Colvig voiced him in Conrad the Sailor. (Side note: Ink and Paint veteran Martha Sigall related that the I&P department thought that Conrad was a caricature of Jones himself).

Conrad, however, can be seen as a transitional figure in Chuck Jones’ development as a Warner animator and director. From the bones of Conrad would arise a snappier and more cosmopolitan Jones, one capable of perhaps more nuance than any of his contemporaries. Let’s examine this thesis.

Chuck Jones became a Warner director in 1938. His first cartoon, starring an unnamed kitten in The Night Watchman, featured a cute character that very much resembled his next “star’ Sniffles the mouse, whom Jones created and first directed in 1939 (Naughty but Mice). Siffles was childlike and super-cute. His gabby voice, provided by Margaret Hill-Talbot (later by Marjorie Tarlton), reinforced this take on the character. Sniffles went on to headline a dozen cartoons between 1939 and 1946, showing little evolution.

During those years, Jones was obsessed with laborious drawings and layouts, lighting effects, and showed a strong predilection for Disney-flavored action. Conflict tended to be character-versus-object (or self), a far cry from the later interplay between Bugs and Daffy, for example.

Jones’ cartoons tended to be gentle, with visual references to Disney’s Silly Symphony period. Nowhere is this more evident than in the 1940 cartoon Tom Thumb in Trouble. His characters were adorable and mild, and until Jones found a more individual voice, they seemed most anchored in Pluto Pup. The Jones unit at this time had some outstanding talent: animators Robert Cannon, Ken Harris, Robert McKimson, Ben Washam, and background artist Paul Julian. Yet the best this group could achieve was shorts that recalled Disney but could not be confused with its output.

By the time Conrad Cat appeared in The Bird Came C.O.D. (1942), there were signs of Jones transitioning to a different comic style. Although Conrad strongly recalled Goofy (minimal vocals by Mel Blanc), especially when wrestling with a palm tree, there are glimpses of Jones’ future work; in one scene, while watering the tree, Conrad mugs to the camera. After smacking into a door for the second time, he gives the audience a frustrated side glance. After finally getting the plant through the door, more fourth-wall facial expressions are seen.

Skip ahead to Conrad’s encounter with the bird(s) in a magician’s hat. The bird (a visual predecessor to Henery Hawk) treats Conrad with far more violence than could be imagined in a Sniffles cartoon. Notably, the bird recalls Jones’ Minah Bird (first appearing in 1939) in that he marches to a distinct musical theme. Jones is clearly using comedy differently in this short.

In his final two cartoons, both in 1942, Conrad was a co-star, paired with two of Warner’s biggest stars. Such pairings are likely as good as they could be for the goofy yellow cat, since he was far too weak to be a stand-alone character. In Porky’s Café, Conrad is a short-order cook who still manages to show glimpses of Jones’ future work; there are more gags and more telling reaction shots from Conrad. Jones was to become a master of expressing emotion through the twitch of an eye or a tiny movement of the mouth. These precursors can be glimpsed in the scene where Conrad attempts to beckon a recalcitrant pancake.

Conrad’s final cartoon was Conrad the Sailor, in which Daffy Duck harassed the poor cat in a total mismatch. Not only was Conrad constantly defeated by Daffy (who was far more like Bob Clampett’s duck than the egotist Jones would later fashion him into). As related earlier, Conrad’s voice was unfortunately provided by Pinto Colvig, the longtime portrayer of Disney’s Goofy, with no tweaking of the Goofy vocalization. Fairly or not, Colvig’s dialogue and singing reinforced the observation that Jones had not quite abandoned his Disneyesque tendencies.

As stated, while Conrad was not a character that could ever be featured independently, Conrad did offer occasional glimpses of Chuck Jones’ evolving style. Conrad was better built for comedy than Sniffles was, and he worked far better in gag situations than, say, the childlike Porky Pig in Old Glory (1939) or Tom Thumb. Conrad at least suggested an adult figure, and that represented a step forward.

Later, with writers such as Michael Maltese and a more developed sense of how to underplay a gag, Jones would blossom into one of Warners most sophisticated directors. If Jones reshaped the personalities of the studio’s stars during his heyday, it still started with a single step. Conrad the Cat may not stir many fond memories, but his three cartoons during 1942 just might have been that step.

On April 3, 1965, a low point in American animated films hit the theaters. Advertised on its poster was the tagline, “The Most Delightful Animated Adventure Since Snow White.” This audacious claim would have been more truthful if it had been a comparison between a third-grader’s crayon art and a Picasso, but hey, it did have one honest word: it was animated.

The Man From Buttton Willow, produced by film and TV cowboy star Dale Robertson, left itself wide open with that tagline, and it gets everything it deserves. Neither delightful nor adventurous, this disaster takes its place beside Foodfight, Arctic Dogs, and that great animated epic, Happily Ever After, which spelled the end for Filmation. Button Willow is 81 minutes of boring, poorly produced animation that might have an actual running time of 45 minutes if one were to edit out all the folderol involving humanized animals, the terrible “musical numbers,” and the reused animation cycles.

Let’s get down to business. The story involves Justin Eagle, (Dale Robertson) purportedly the very first “U.S. Agent”, investigating the machinations of the evil Montgomery Blaine and his accomplice, The Whip. These two, readily identifiable by their Scooby Doo – type evil visages, have been buying up the route for the transcontinental railroad and overcharging the government for the land. Oh yeah, they have been driving settlers off and burning their homes, a terrible thing to do since the inhabitants of Button Willow do nothing except walk down an idealized Western street and attend church. We know that Blaine is a scoundrel because he blows smoke rings from his cigar into our faces.

Aha! The good Senator Freeman has evidence of Blaine’s misdeeds! Before he can warn the Senate, the bad dudes kidnap Freeman in San Francisco, which is on the other side of the country from Washington, where the Senate is, but hey. They dump him onto a ship, although nobody knows which one, planning to permanently silence him eventually.

It’s Justin Eagle to the rescue, or at least after a stultifying, absolutely deadly period of doing farm chores and relating to his ranch animals and being attentive to his Japanese adopted little girl Stormy, who speaks in malformed English and attaches the suffix – “san” to everyone’s name. We learn in an awful song whose lyrics consist mostly of “Pardon Me, Ma’am” why Justin’s loyal ranch hand, Jeremiah “Sorry” Baker, never married, which is irrelevant to anything in the plot.

Jeremiah and Justin are both incredibly stupid; when one of their mares, Savannah, is about to foal, they believe she is sick, panic, call the vet, and wait worriedly outside the stall until they get the good news and celebrate! You dunderheads! You own a freakin’ ranch, and you couldn’t figure out that one of your mares was preggers? Anyway, this segues into a lengthy scene of the cutie foal. The dreadful soundtrack launches into the praiseful song, “Savannah,” which consists of that single name repeated endlessly.

Of course, the foal runs away into the mountains, pursued by Savannah’s stud Rebel, Justin’s dog Shady, and pet skunk Alfie. A cougar attacks, and Shady is knocked off a cliff in a fall that Wile E. Coyote might have envied, but of course the kindly vet resurrects him as Stormy prays. We are now at least 100,000 miles off the alleged plot of this tale.

Oh, yeah, Justin is in San Francisco, where he gets shanghaied and ends up on the same boat as Senator Freeman (remember him?) With the help of fellow prisoner Andy (Ross Martin), who boasts the worst Swedish accent since Pat Harrington Jr. voiced Lars in the Filmation series Journey to the Center of the Earth, Justin defeats the entire crew in the only noticeable “action/adventure” sequence in the film. They sail back to San Francisco. Justin goes home. Blaine and the Whip go to jail. Das Ende.

We’ve been over the music. Henry Mancini was allegedly a contributor to George Stoll and Robert Van Epps score, perhaps on a day when Mancini was cleaning out his trash bucket. The animation is abominable. Justin does resemble Dale Robertson when his features aren’t drifting over his face. The characters are stiff and rigid, and I spotted several scenes in which body movements are oddly out of synch. The animation crew seems to be a mixture of the unemployed and the third-stringers left after the death of theatrical shorts. Among the more recognizable are John Dunn, Don Lusk, John Sparey (who did some good work for Ralph Bakshi), Ben Washam, Les Clark, and Marc Davis (uncredited).

There is a horrid animated sequence in which Justin is pitched woo by the local spinster, Ms. Pomeroy; her entire face appears to be a repeating animation cycle, with several of her facial expressions physically and emotionally inappropriate for her dialogue. It’s scary. The only passable animation is that of the ranch hand, Sorry, who looks as if he belongs in a different movie. Since he seems to be a thinly disguised version of Johnny Appleseed’s guardian angel from Melody Time, perhaps he does.

I remain amazed at the vocal cast that Button Willow mustered. Cliff Edwards, Clarence Nash, and Verna Felton, late of Disney. Add Pinto Colvig, Herschel Bernardi, Shep Menken, and Thurl Ravenscroft, most of them playing multiple parts. Give ‘em all credit.

Poor Dale Robertson! This handsome cowboy star founded United Screen Arts in 1964, with Button Willow being its first feature. The now-defunct company produced seven films, the last one in 1968. The only legacy truly remaining is giving Raquel Welch her first film role and producing an animated feature that made Filmation look like Disney.

Lest we forget, Button Willow had David Detiege as director. His most notable prior credits were The New 3 Stooges and the abysmal Syncro-Vox cartoon Captain Fathom. After Button Willow, Detiege went on to a passable career at various studios until he died in 1984.