Trivia / Tex Avery MGM Cartoons

• Creator Backlash: Scott Bradley wasn't a big fan of the kind of music Tex Avery wanted for his cartoons compared to William Hanna and Joseph Barbera's Tom and Jerry series; according to Greg Ehrbar on Cartoon Research:
  Greg: Actually, Bradley was not especially fond of Avery's use of music, as the great director repeatedly requested what the composer felt were obvious old folk tunes and less of what Goldmark calls "through-composed" music." Most likely to him, it was less of a challenge and more "wah-wah-wah-wah." "It was all punch lines," explained Goldmark. "Not only was it all punch lines, but he wanted the same old corny tunes again and again which would drive him crazy." As a rule, Bradley preferred composed original melodies over using existing tunes altogether, but if he was going to interpolate a song, he was happier when it was a pop, blues or classic piece.
• Creator's Pest: Tex Avery HATED Screwy Squirrel! There are accounts of him throwing out fan letters about the character on sight. It explains why Screwy ended up meeting such a gruesome end in his final cartoon, "Lonesome Lenny".
• Keep Circulating the Tapes: Prior to 2020, the last home video release for Avery's non-Droopy MGM cartoons was a 1993 Laserdisc set, The Compleat Tex Avery, which included every short he made, plus the two "banned" shorts "Uncle Tom's Cabana" and "Half-Pint Pygmy". Outside of that, the shorts have become mostly hard to find outside of the occasional Boomerang airing prior to 2014 and as bonus features on DVDs of various classic MGM films Warner Bros. had the rights to. Since 2020, WB (via their Warner Archive division) has begun restoring all of his cartoons on Blu-ray and DVD in multiple volumes under the title of Tex Avery Screwball Classics: the first one was released in February 2020, the second one was released on December 15, and a third volume was released on October 5, 2021.

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