Tex Avery | |
|---|---|
 Averyc. 1940s | |
| Born | Frederick Bean Avery (1908-02-26)February 26, 1908 Taylor, Texas, U.S. |
| Died | August 26, 1980(1980-08-26) (aged 72) Burbank, California, U.S. |
| Resting place | Forest Lawn Memorial Park, Hollywood Hills |
| Other names | Fred Avery Texas Avery |
| Occupation(s) | Animator, director |
| Years active | 1928–1980 |
| Employers |
|
| Spouse | [1] |
| Children | 2[2] |
Frederick Bean "Tex" Avery (/ˈeɪvəri/; February 26, 1908 – August 26, 1980) was an Americananimator andvoice actor. He was known for directing and producing animated cartoons during thegolden age of American animation. His most significant work was for theWarner Bros. andMetro-Goldwyn-Mayer studios, where he was crucial in the creation and evolution of famous animated characters such asBugs Bunny,Daffy Duck,Porky Pig andElmer Fudd for Warner Bros. andDroopy,Butch Dog,Screwy Squirrel,The Wolf,Red Hot Riding Hood, andGeorge and Junior for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer.
He gained influence for his technical innovation, directorial style, and brand of humor that appealed especially towards adults.[3] Avery's attitude toward animation was opposite that ofWalt Disney and other conventional family cartoons at the time. Avery's cartoons were known for their essentiallydarker,sarcastic,ironic,absurdist,irreverent, and sometimessexual tone in nature. They focused onvisual gags, meta humor, physically impossible gags, social satire, surrealist humor, rapid pacing, racial stereotypes, and violent slapstick occurring around brash, outlandish characters whobroke the fourth wall, stating that cartoons are meant to do anything.[4][5]
Avery was born to Mary Augusta "Jessie" (née Bean; 1886–1931) and George Walton Avery (1867–1935) inTaylor, Texas. His father was born inAlabama and his mother was born inChickasaw County, Mississippi.
Avery graduated in 1926 fromNorth Dallas High School.[6][7] A popularcatchphrase at his school was "What's up, doc?",[8] which he later used for Bugs Bunny in the 1940s. Interested in becoming a newspaper cartoonist, he took a three-month summer course at theChicago Art Institute[9] but left after a month.[10]
Tex Avery's major inspirations were comedians such asLaurel & Hardy,Charlie Chaplin,Buster Keaton,Harold Lloyd and especiallyThe Marx Brothers; the latter of which was inspiration forBugs Bunny. He was especially inspired byWinsor McCay,Pat Sullivan,Otto Messmer,Max Fleischer andWalt Disney in term of animation field. He additionally liked the works of newspaper comic strip artistVirgil Partch, mainly praising for his surrealist gags.[11]
On January 1, 1928, Avery arrived inLos Angeles. He spent the next few months working in menial jobs. According to animation historianMichael Barrier, these jobs included working in a warehouse, working on the docks at night, loading fruits and vegetables, and painting cars.[7] He began his animation career when hired by the Winkler studio (named after producerMargaret J. Winkler and later known asScreen Gems). He was aninker, inking cels for animated short films in theOswald the Lucky Rabbit series; the character had been created by Walt Disney. Avery then moved to a new studio, Universal Cartoon Studios (later known asWalter Lantz Productions). He was again employed as an inker, but moved rapidly up the studio's hierarchy. By 1930, Avery had been promoted to the position ofanimator.[7]
Avery continued working at theWalter Lantz Studio into the early 1930s. He worked on most of theOswald the Lucky Rabbit cartoons from 1931 to 1935. He is shown as "animator" on the original title card credits on the Oswald cartoons. He later claimed to have directed two cartoons during this time.[9]
During some office horseplay at the Lantz studio, a thumbtack or paper clip flew into Avery's left eye and caused him to lose sight in that eye. Some speculate it was his lack ofdepth perception that gave him his unique look at animation and bizarre directorial style,[9] but it did not stop his creative career. The incident is described in some detail by Barrier, based in part on old interviews with Avery. Part of the typical crude horseplay at the Universal studio was using arubber band or a paper spitball to target the back of a colleague's head. An animator called Charles Hastings decided to take the game one step further, by using a wirepaper clip, instead. Avery heard one of his colleagues telling him to look out. He reacted by turning around. Instead of the back of his head, the paper clip hit Avery in his left eye. He instantly lost the use of his eye.[7]
As an animator, Avery worked under directorBill Nolan. Nolan reportedly delegated work to Avery, whenever Avery had to animate a sequence. Nolan's instructions for a scene involving Oswald being chased by bees were reportedly simple. He would describe in which direction Oswald was running ("right to left") and for how many feet. The rest of the details were left up to Avery.[7] Avery started handing out work to other animators working under Nolan.
Avery wanted still greater control over the creative process and served as ade facto director for a couple of films. Based on Avery's recollections, here is a description of how this happened. He was submittingsight gags for use in the short films. Some of them were used in the actual films, and some funny ones were left out. He wanted to somehow get all his gags in the finished film. So, he asked Nolan to let him create the entirestoryboard for a film. Nolan instructed Avery to not only draw the storyboard, but also to work on the timing and the layout on his own. Avery completed two films using this process. An older Avery recalled that both films "were terrible", though they got accepted for release.[7]
Avery was reportedly displeased with his salary and had started giving up on his work. After about six weeks of substandard work, his superiors let him go. In April 1935, Avery lost his job at the Universal studio.
Later in 1935, Avery applied for a job at Leon Schlesinger Productions (the company later known asWarner Bros. Cartoons). Avery reportedly managed to convince producerLeon Schlesinger that he was an experienced director, a false claim. In Avery's own words:[7]
'Hey, I'm, a director.' Hell! I was no more a director than nothing, but with my loud mouth, I talked him into it.
By 1935, when Avery was hired, the Schlesinger studio had only two full-time, regular film directors:Friz Freleng andJack King. Avery became the third regular director.[7] The staff of the Schlesinger studio had become too large to be housed in a single building, at theWarner Bros.backlot on Sunset Boulevard. The new Avery unit of the studio was granted their own building, a five-roombungalow. The unit staff dubbed their quarters "Termite Terrace", due to its significanttermite population.[7][12] "Termite Terrace" later became the nickname for the entire Schlesinger/Warner Bros. studio, primarily because Avery and his unit were the ones who defined what became known as "the Warner Bros. cartoon".
Avery was granted exclusive use of four animators:Bob Clampett,Chuck Jones,Sid Sutherland, andVirgil Ross. The first animated short film produced by this unit wasGold Diggers of '49 (1935), the thirdLooney Tunes film starringBeans. Beans was also featured in the film's title card, signifying that he was the intendedprotagonist. The film had aWestern setting and cast Beans as agold miner. Also featured in the film was a redesignedPorky Pig, making his second appearance.[7] The Avery unit was assigned to work primarily on the black-and-whiteLooney Tunes instead of theTechnicolorMerrie Melodies, but was allowed to make colorMerrie Melodies beginning withPage Miss Glory from 1936. Avery was also noted to be the first to stray away from using song breaks in color cartoons starting with the 1937 shortUncle Tom's Bungalow, later saying that "We were forced to use a song, which would just ruin the cartoon. You'd try like a fool to get funny, but it was seldom you did."[13]
Avery stopped using Beans followingGold Diggers of '49, but continued using Porky as a star character. According to Michael Barrier, Beans was more of astraight man.[7] However, Porky had to be redesigned again. The early Porky was decidedly "piglike" in appearance. In Michael Barrier's description, Porky was very fat, had small eyes, a large snout, and pronounced jowls. He was like a porcine version ofRoscoe Arbuckle. Starting withPorky the Rainmaker (1936), his fourth animated short starring Porky, Avery introduced a cuter version of Porky. The new design gave Porky more prominent eyes and a smaller snout. The jowls were replaced by chubby cheeks. Porky's body now had a rounder shape; its defining trait was not fatness, but softness.[7] Barrier notes that the new design by Avery departed from the "Disneyish"realism in the previous drawing style. Porky became a less realistic pig and looked more like a cartoon character.[7]
According toMartha Sigall, Avery was one of the few directors to visit the ink and paint department — where he would answer questions and was always in good humor — as he liked to see how his cartoons were developing. When some of the artists humorously criticized the wild action in his animated shorts, Avery would take time to explain his rationale.[14] He recalled that while working at Warner Bros., the animators had a great deal of liberty, and were subject to very little censorship.[15]
Avery, with the assistance of Clampett, Jones, and the new associate directorFrank Tashlin, laid the foundation for a style of animation that rivaledThe Walt Disney Studio as the leader in animated short films, and created a group of cartoon characters that are still known today. Avery, in particular, was deeply involved. He crafted gags for the shorts, and sometimes provided voices for them (including his trademark belly laugh) and held such control over the timing of the shorts that he would add or cut frames out of the final negative if he felt a gag's timing was not quite right.
Porky's Duck Hunt (1937) introduced the character ofDaffy Duck, who possessed a new form of "lunacy" and zaniness that had not been seen before in animated cartoons. Daffy was an almost completely crazy "darn fool duck" who frequently bounced around the film frame in double-speed, screaming "Hoo-hoo!" in a high-pitched, sped-up voice provided by voice artistMel Blanc, who, with this cartoon, also took over providing the voice ofPorky Pig. Avery directed two more Daffy Duck cartoons:Daffy Duck & Egghead andDaffy Duck in Hollywood. Egghead was a character inspired by comedianJoe Penner and first appeared in Avery'sEgghead Rides Again.[16][17][18]
Little Red Walking Hood first introduced the early character ofElmer Fudd as a character mostly taking part of some running gag. Elmer in this early form had green clothes, a brown bowler hat, and a pink nose. He was also named "Elmer" on the lobby cards for "The Isle of Pingo Pongo" (1938), his second appearance,Cinderella Meets Fella (1938), his third appearance, and was fully called "Elmer Fudd" on screen in "A Feud There Was" (1938), also his fourth appearance. Elmer even appears on early merchandise and in the early Looney Tunes books in 1938 and 1939 and was later promoted as "Egghead's Brother" on the Vitaphone Release Sheet forCinderella Meets Fella because Elmer was also voiced byDanny Webb in hisJoe Penner voice that was also use for Egghead.[19][20][21]
Ben Hardaway,Cal Dalton, and Chuck Jones directed a series of shorts that featured a Daffy Duck-like rabbit, created by Ben "Bugs" Hardaway. As is the case with most directors, each puts his own personal stamp on the characters, stories, and overall feel of a short. So, each of these cartoons treated the rabbit differently. The next to try out the rabbit, known around Termite Terrace as "Bugs' bunny" (named after Hardaway), was Avery. Since the recycling of storylines among the directors was commonplace,A Wild Hare was a double throwback. Avery had directed the shortPorky's Duck Hunt featuring Porky Pig, which also introduced Daffy Duck.[22]
Hardaway remade it asPorky's Hare Hunt, introducing the rabbit. So, Avery went back to the "hunter and prey" framework, incorporating Jones'sElmer's Candid Camera gag for gag and altering the new design of Elmer Fudd, polishing the timing, and expanding theGroucho Marx smart-aleck attitude already present inPorky's Hare Hunt; he made Bugs a kind of slick Brooklynesque rabbit who was always in control of the situation. Avery has stated that it was very common to refer to folks in Texas as "doc", much like "pal", "dude", or "bud". InA Wild Hare, Bugs adopts this colloquialism when he casually walks up to Elmer, who is "hunting wabbits" and while carefully inspecting a rabbit hole, shotgun in hand, the first words out of Bugs's mouth is a coolly calm, "What's up, doc?" Audiences reacted riotously to the juxtaposition of Bugs's nonchalance and the potentially dangerous situation. "What's up, doc?" instantly became the rabbit'scatchphrase.[23] Originally, Avery wanted Bugs Bunny to be called Jack E. Rabbit because he hunted forjack rabbits when he was a kid. Numerous suggestions for names came up, but publicist Rose Horsely liked the name that was on Thorson's model sheet, saying that it was cute and they will "play it two ways." Avery argued on his stance for the name "Jack E. Rabbit" saying that "Mine's a rabbit! A tall, lanky, mean rabbit. He isn't a fuzzy little bunny." He also said the name Bugs Bunny sounded like a Disney character. Nevertheless, Schlesinger settled on Bugs Bunny.[24][25]
Avery ended up directing only four Bugs Bunny cartoons:A Wild Hare,Tortoise Beats Hare,The Heckling Hare, andAll This and Rabbit Stew. During this period, he also directed a number of one-shot shorts, includingtravelogueparody (The Isle of Pingo Pongo, which is the second cartoon to feature an early character that evolved into Elmer Fudd); fracturedfairy-tales (The Bear's Tale); Hollywood caricature films (Hollywood Steps Out); and cartoons featuring Bugs Bunny clones (The Crackpot Quail).[26]
Avery's tenure at the Schlesinger studio ended in late 1941 when the producer and he quarreled over the ending toThe Heckling Hare. In Avery's original version, Bugs and the hunting dog were to fall off a cliffthree times, making it an early example of the wild take. According to a DVD commentary for the cartoon, historian and animatorGreg Ford explained that the problem Schlesinger had with the ending was that, just before falling off the third time, Bugs and the dog were to turn to the screen, with Bugs saying, "Hold on to your hats, folks, here we go again!", a punchline to a potentially risqué joke of the day.[27] However, Barrier uncovered a typewritten dialogue transcript of the cartoon that mentions the three falls at the end, but the "Hold on to your hats" line is absent, with the rest of the dialogue in the cartoon transcribed accurately. This inferred that Avery either misremembered or embellished the story and Schlesinger made the cut not because of any risqué content, but because he did not think that it was funny that Avery was killing Bugs three times, and the ending simply dragged on for too long.[28]The Hollywood Reporter reported on the quarrel on July 2, 1941. Avery was slapped with a four-week, unpaid suspension.[29]
While at Schlesinger, Avery created a concept of animating lip movement to live-action footage of animals. Schlesinger was not interested in Avery's idea, so Avery approachedJerry Fairbanks, a friend of his who produced theUnusual Occupations series ofshort subjects forParamount Pictures. Fairbanks liked the idea and theSpeaking of Animals series of shorts was launched. When Avery left the Schlesinger studio in mid-1941, he went straight to Paramount to work on the first three shorts in the series before joining Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM). The series continued without him, lasting seven years.[14]
On September 2, 1941, theReporter announced that Avery had signed a five-year contract with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, where he was to form his own animation unit and direct shorts inTechnicolor.[30] By 1942, Avery was in the employ of MGM, working in theircartoon division under the supervision ofFred Quimby. Avery felt that Schlesinger had stifled him. When asked if he missed the Looney Tunes characters, he responded: "Sometimes, but I don't miss anything else. MGM is a heck of a better place to work, in every way, and the people here are just as great."[14]
At MGM, Avery's creativity reached its peak. His cartoons became known for their sheer lunacy, breakneck pace, and penchant for playing with the medium of animation and film in general that few other directors dared to approach. MGM also offered him larger budgets and a higher quality production level than the Warner Bros. studio; plus, his unit was filled with talented ex-Disney artists such asPreston Blair and Ed Love. These changes were evident in Avery's first short released by MGM,Blitz Wolf, anAdolf Hitler parody of the "Three Little Pigs" story, which was nominated for theAcademy Award for Best Short Subject (Cartoons) in 1942. Avery's cartoons at MGM somewhat felt like Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies cartoons done during that same period at Warner Bros., albeit the Bros.' series gained more popularity than Avery's MGM cartoons.[31]
Avery's best-known MGM character debuted inDumb-Hounded (1943).Droopy (originally "Happy Hound") was a small, calm, slow-moving, and slow-talking dog who always won out in the end, whatever difficulties he faced. He also created a series of risqué cartoons, beginning withRed Hot Riding Hood (also 1943), featuring a sexy female star who never had a set name, but has been unofficially referred to as "Red" by fans. Her visual design and voice varied somewhat between shorts. Other Avery characters at MGM includedScrewy Squirrel,Butch Dog and theOf Mice and Men-inspired duo ofGeorge and Junior.[32]
Other MGM cartoons directed by Avery includeBad Luck Blackie,Cellbound,Magical Maestro,Lucky Ducky,Ventriloquist Cat, andKing-Size Canary. Avery began his stint at MGM working with lush colors and realistic backgrounds, but he slowly abandoned this style for a more frenetic, less realistic approach. The newer, more stylized look reflected the influence of the up-and-comingUPA studio, the need to cut costs as budgets grew higher, and Avery's own desire to leave reality behind and make cartoons that were not tied to the real world of live action. During this period, he made a series of films that explored the technology of the future:The House of Tomorrow,The Car of Tomorrow,The Farm of Tomorrow, andTV of Tomorrow (spoofing common live-action promotional shorts of the time). He also introduced a slow-talkingwolf character, who was the prototype for MGM associatesHanna-Barbera'sHuckleberry Hound character, right down to the voice byDaws Butler.[33]
Avery took a year's sabbatical from MGM beginning in 1950 (to recover from overwork), during which timeDick Lundy, recently arrived from the Walter Lantz studio, took over his unit and made oneDroopy cartoon, as well as a string of shorts featuringBarney Bear. Avery returned to MGM in October 1951 and began working again. Avery's last two original cartoons for MGM wereDeputy Droopy andCellbound, completed in 1953 and released in 1955. They were co-directed by the Avery unit animatorMichael Lah. Lah began directing a handful ofCinemaScope Droopy shorts on his own. On March 1, 1953, Avery's unit was terminated and he was fired from MGM. Fred Quimby spoke of bringing back the unit, but in December of that year, Walter Lantz announced that Avery would be working for him.[34]
Avery directed four cartoons for Walter Lantz Productions in 1954–55:Crazy Mixed Up Pup,Sh-h-h-h-h-h,I'm Cold, andThe Legend of Rockabye Point, in which he defined the character ofChilly Willy thepenguin. He brought his signature wild gags and fast pacing to the Lantz studio, and the Lantz cartoons received new energy and recognition.The Legend of Rockabye Point andCrazy Mixed Up Pup were nominated forAcademy Awards.
Avery had agreed to a salary and a percentage of the profits. He did not realize that his share came out of thenet profits: "I made about four cartoons for [Lantz], then I started thinking about the contract. I took it to an attorney, and he said, 'Oh, brother! You'll never get a dime out of this. You're getting charged for everything but the paving out in front of the studio.' I was getting my percentage off the bottom instead of off the top. By the time all the charges went in, why, my goodness, there was nothing left. So, I gave up there."[9] Avery left behind three new Chilly Willy storyboards, which were later made into cartoons by directorAlex Lovy.
Avery turned to animatedtelevision commercials at Cascade Studios, including those forRaid (1950s through 1970s), in which cartoon insects, confronted by the bug killer, screamed "RAID!" and died flamboyantly, andFrito-Lay's controversialmascot, theFrito Bandito. Avery also produced ads forKool-Aid fruit drinks starring the Looney Tunes characters he had once helped create during his Termite Terrace days. Funnily enough, the Cascade executives did not even know that he created the characters.[35][36] His earliest commercial work is advertisements for the toothpaste brandPepsodent.[37]
During the 1960s and 1970s, Avery became increasingly reserved anddepressed due to the suicide of his son and the break-up of his marriage,[38] although he continued to draw respect from his peers. After Cascade, he briefly animated commercials for his own company, Tex Avery Cartoons, from June to July 1973.[39] Avery then went back to Cascade, and closed the cartoon department in 1978. He had an offer fromFriz Freleng, to write forDePatie-Freleng Enterprises, but was not interested.[40]
From 1979 until his death, his final employer wasHanna-Barbera Productions, where he wrote gags forSaturday morning cartoons such asFred and Barney Meet the Thing[41] and the Droopy-esqueKwicky Koala. According to an interview byJohn Dunn in his diary, Avery did not like the late animation industry at the time, feeling that it lacked quality.[42][43]
Gary Morris described Avery's innovative approach:
Above all, [Avery] steered the Warner Bros. house style away fromDisney-esque sentimentality and made cartoons that appealed equally to adults, who appreciated Avery's speed, sarcasm, and irony, and to kids, who liked the nonstop action. Disney's "cute and cuddly" creatures, under Avery's guidance, were transformed into unflappable wits like Bugs Bunny, endearing buffoons like Porky Pig, or dazzling crazies like Daffy Duck. Even the classic fairy tale, a market that Disney had cornered, was appropriated by Avery, who made innocent heroines likeRed Riding Hood into sexy jazz babes, more than a match for any Wolf. Avery also endeared himself to intellectuals by constantly breaking through the artifice of the cartoon, having characters leap out of the end credits, loudly object to the plot of the cartoon they were starring in, or speak directly to the audience.[44]
As noted byLambiek, Tex Avery's cartoons would often include realistic backgrounds but he then have the characters do any physically impossible gags or talk to the audience.[11]
Avery had developed a directing style unlike anything moviegoers had ever seen, a distinct, signature style at Warner Bros. Studio, which had breakneck pacing, outlandish, over-the-top acting from his characters, and seemingly nonstop jokes and gags.[45] Avery's style of directing encouraged animators to stretch the boundaries of the medium to do things in a cartoon that could not be done in the world of a live-action film. An often-quoted line about Avery's cartoons was, "In a cartoon, you can do anything."[9] He also performed a great deal of voice work in his cartoons, usually throwaway bits. He also occasionally filled in forBill Thompson as Droopy.[46][47]
Two days after being fired from Universal in spring 1935, Avery married his girlfriend, Patricia Johnson. She was also employed at Universal Studios as an inker.[7] The newlyweds spent a long honeymoon inOregon, but had to return to Los Angeles when they ran out of money.[7]
On Tuesday, August 26, 1980, Avery died fromgastroesophageal junction adenocarcinoma atSt. Joseph's Hospital inBurbank, California, at the age of 72.[48] At the time of his death, he was developing a character named "Cave Mouse" for a newFlintstones series.[49][6] According to Chuck Jones, when watching a baseball game with another animator, Avery's last words were, "I don't know where animators go when they die, but I guess there must be a lot of them. They could probably use a good director, though."[50] He is buried inForest Lawn Memorial Park, Hollywood Hills.[51]
Avery's influence can be seen in modern cartoons such asWho Framed Roger Rabbit,The Ren & Stimpy Show,Animaniacs,The Mask,SpongeBob SquarePants, andCat Burglar.[52][53][54][55][56] An Avery-esque cowboy character bore his name in the otherwise unrelated seriesThe Wacky World of Tex Avery. Avery's work has been featured on shows such asThe Tex Avery Show andCartoon Alley.[57]
In the mid-1990s,Dark Horse Comics released a trio of three-issue miniseries that were openly labelled tributes to Avery's MGM cartoons,Wolf & Red,Droopy, andScrewy Squirrel, in which other characters make appearances in the comics such asGeorge and Junior,Spike, and the one-shot characters. Tex Avery, unlike most Warner Bros. directors, kept many original title frames of his cartoons; several were otherwise lost due toBlue Ribbon Reissues. Rare prints and art containing original titles and unedited animation from Avery's MGM and Warner Bros. cartoons are now usually sold oneBay or in the collections of animators and cartoon enthusiasts. In 2008,France issued three postage stamps honoring Tex Avery for his 100th birthday, depicting Droopy,the redheaded showgirl, and the Wolf.[58]
All of his MGM shorts were released in a North American MGM/UA laserdisc set calledThe Compleat Tex Avery. While two cartoons in the set were edited versions---the blackface gags inDroopy's Good Deed andGarden Gopher---others, including the controversialUncle Tom's Cabaña andHalf-Pint Pygmy were included intact (although they were removed from the Region 2 DVD release, now out of print). Several of his cartoons were released on VHS, in four volumes ofTex Avery's Screwball Classics, two VHS Droopy collections, and various inclusions on MGM animation collection releases, with many gags left in that had been edited out for television.
Avery's Droopy cartoons are available on the DVD setTex Avery's Droopy: The Complete Theatrical Collection.[59] The seven Droopy cartoons produced in CinemaScope were included here in their original widescreen versions (letter-boxed), instead of thepan-and-scan versions regularly broadcast on television.
Also, some of his works could be found on home video releases (from VHS to Blu-ray) of Warner Bros.' Merrie Melodies and Looney Tunes shorts, and the same is true of his few Lantz Studio cartoons included in the DVD setThe Woody Woodpecker and Friends Classic Cartoon Collection.[60]
Just like with theBob Clampett Humanitarian Award, first awarded toForrest J Ackerman in 1984[61] and the Friz Freleng Lifetime Achievement of Excellence, first award to Isadore Freleng himself in 1994,[62] The Texas Avery Award, first awarded toBrad Bird in 2005, 25 years after Avery's death.[63] First presented by the Deep Ellum Film Festival, it is now presented byReel FX. Notable recipients includeHenry Selick,[64]Pete Docter,[65]Dean DeBlois andChris Sanders forHow to Train Your Dragon,[66]John Kricfalusi for his contributions to the animation industry,[67] andPhil Lord and Christopher Miller.[68]
Avery is honored byTexas Historical Marker #17073, which was unveiled in his hometown of Taylor, Texas, in 2014.[69] The marker says Avery spent "a lifetime...reinventing the American cartoon."[70]
In February 2020,Warner Archive releasedTex Avery Screwball Classics Volume 1 on Blu-ray containing 19 of his MGM cartoons.[71] According toJerry Beck, most of MGM's pre-1951 cartoons had their original negatives destroyed in a 1978 George Eastman House fire, causing great difficulties in terms of restoration. However, using the best surviving archival elements, all 19 shorts on the set have been digitally restored in HD and are uncut.[72] In March 2020, Warner Archive announced they were working onTex Avery Screwball Classics Volume 2,[73] which was released in December 2020 and contained 21 restored and uncut shorts as well asTex Avery: The King of Cartoons, an archival documentary as a special feature.[74]Volume 3 was released on October 5, 2021, with an additional 20 uncut restored cartoons with the Avery directedMerrie Melodies short,The Crackpot Quail, as a bonus feature restored with its original 1941 soundtrack.[75][76]
Many of Avery's cartoons have been released on home video over the years:
| Release | Film | Media | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1985 | The Adventures Of Droopy | VHS | features 7 animated shorts |
| 1988 | Cartoon Moviestars: Tex Avery Screwball Classics | VHS | features 8 animated shorts |
| 1989 | Tex Avery Screwball Classics Vol. 2 | VHS | features 8 animated shorts |
| 1990 | Here Comes Droopy | VHS | features 6 animated shorts |
| 1991 | Tex Avery Screwball Classics Vol. 3 | VHS | features 6 animated shorts |
| 1992 | Tex Avery Screwball Classics Vol. 4 | VHS | features 6 animated shorts |
| 1993 | The Compleat Tex Avery | Laserdisc | features 67 animated shorts on five discs (nine sides) |
| 2007 | Tex Avery's Droopy - The Complete Theatrical Collection | DVD | features 24 animated shorts on two discs |
| 2020 | Tex Avery Screwball Classics Vol. 1 | Blu-ray | features 19 animated shorts |
| 2020 | Tex Avery Screwball Classics Vol. 2 | Blu-ray | features 21 animated shorts |
| 2021 | Tex Avery Screwball Classics Vol. 3 | Blu-ray | features 20 animated shorts[77][78] |
{{cite AV media}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)... Tex, on the few occasions when I saw him in the '70s, was from all appearances a desperately unhappy man—his son had just killed himself, and his long marriage had broken up—and I'm sure that Chuck tapped into that mood. ...'
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