‘I knew I should've taken that left turn at Albuquerque’: The Warner Bros. Cartoon down under

Abstract

ABSTRACTThere are many feature films made outside of Australia during the 1930s, 1940s and 1950s that attempt to represent or ‘imagine’ specific histories or features of the Australian continent, particularly as a ‘landscape’. This article examines an under-analyzed series of films (containing similar characteristics) produced by the animation departments of major Hollywood studios during this same period. Its particular focus is upon two series of animated short subjects produced by the Warner Bros. studio in the period between the late 1940s and the early 1960s featuring the iconic ‘Australian’ characters Hippety Hopper and the Tasmanian Devil. It examines the ways in which these cartoons reinforce and in some respects depart from conventional representations of Australia in ‘international’ cinema (and also scrutinizes how they rarely move past a ‘partial’ representation of place). It also explores the ways in which the animated film allows for a freer expression of what might be called the ‘imagination’ of Australia, and how this relates to the often wilful, bizarre and non-realistic characterizations and stereotyping that appear within the frame and on the soundtrack. This article further interrogates how such textual practices relate to the broader characteristics of the animated film, the ‘imagination’ and representation of ‘other’ foreign places in Hollywood cinema more generally, and the ‘painterly’ image of Australia.