The Case For Sidney's Family Tree (aka Knighty Knight Bugs Is A Stupid Cartoon)

There have been many, many contentious Oscar rivalries across the decades, but few quite so endearingly offbeat as that between Looney Tunes mega star Bugs Bunny and Terrytoons newcomer Silly Sidney the elephant, who in 1959 went against each other for the Academy Award For Best Animated Short Film (or Best Short Subjects, Cartoons, as it was then known). Actually, when Bugs' entry, Knighty Knight Bugs, triumphed and Sidney's Family Tree was sent away empty-handed, I doubt it was considered a terribly earth-shattering outcome from anyone within the industry. After years of languishing in the shadows of Disney and MGM, Warner Bros were increasingly becoming the studio to beat for Short Subjects; Knighty Knight Bugs represented their fifth overall win, four of which had occurred within the past decade (Knighty Knight Bugs would prove to be the last of their victories, as the 1960s were a spectacularly unkind time to the Looney Tunes, and to theatrical animation in general). Terrytoons, meanwhile, seldom had their shot at Oscar glory, with Sidney's Family Tree being only their fourth nomination in the history of the award, and the taste of victory was consistently denied them. In the years that followed, it seems unlikely that many people lost sleep over the match-up, or even gave it a second thought. And then, 31 years after the fact, it suddenly gained retroactive notoriety, when it became the basis of the Tiny Toon Adventures episode, "Who Bopped Bugs Bunny?" It was 1990, and Sidney was back from the abyss of obscurity...in a manner of speaking. The elephant in question went by the name of "Sappy Stanley" and his character design was given a grotesque modification, courtesy of John Kricfalusi, so that his mouth was located inside his trunk. It was patently obvious that this was meant to be Sidney, however. He was still bitter about losing to Bugs after all these years, and apparently vindictive enough to kidnap the rabbit and steal his Oscar (or Shloscar, as it was called in-universe), setting Daffy Duck up to take the fall along the way - a startling turn of events for an elephant who, in his original series of shorts, was never depicted as having a mean bone in his body. ^[1] That's what the sting of losing to Knighty Knight Bugs had done to him!  This portrayal of Sidney (sorry, "Stanley") was voiced by Jonathan Winters, and for an entire generation of children (yours truly among them) he would have been their introduction to the character. And what a first impression! Casting him as a villain with such a vicious axe to grind might seem like a terribly mean-spirited move (this was, after all, a written-by-the-victors scenario, with Warner Bros mocking a character they'd already defeated once), but they made a singularly cool antagonist out of the neurotic elephant. Far from defiling Sidney's legacy, they gifted it with a fun and affectionate new twist.

When confronted by Babs and Buster, Stanley's justification for his crimes was that he deserved the award by right for good taste, since "Knighty Knight Bugs is a stupid cartoon". That's a sentiment to which I am honestly very sympathetic. While I wouldn't necessarily go so far as to call Knighty Knight Bugs "stupid", I do find it astonishing to think that the ONLY Oscar of Bugs' entire rich career was for this cartoon. They couldn't have picked a more pedestrian, more middle of the road example of his work if they'd tried. There is nothing outstanding about it other than that it happens to be Bugs Bunny's sole Oscar win. That it won the award while the phenomenal What's Opera, Doc? (1957) wasn't even nominated a year prior feels like a sick cosmic joke in itself. But then nominations for Bugs shorts were surprisingly sparse in general - only two shorts, A Wild Hare (1940) and Hiawatha's Rabbit Hunt (1941) had previously attained the honor. The success of Knighty Knight Bugs is a blatant example of the Academy handing out a win not on the merits of the nomination itself, but in compensation for their having overlooked a body of much stronger works to an artist's name. On that basis, I think Sidney/Stanley has every right to feel aggrieved.

Could Sidney's Family Tree actually have beaten Knighty Knight Bugs in a battle based solely on the respective merits of each cartoon? Here's where Sidney's Family Tree would still be at a hot disadvantage - there is little getting around the fact that the animation in Knighty Knight Bugs is of a considerably higher quality than that of Sidney's Family Tree. Terrytoons was, after all, renowned for doing things on the cheap. Studio founder Paul Terry infamously cared more about the quantity of his output than the quality and never had any pretensions to making serious art. Sidney himself came about as part of a new wave of Terrytoons characters created after Terry retired in the mid-1950s, leaving his studio in the hands of Gene Deitch (remembered chiefly for his infamous run of Tom & Jerry shorts in the early 1960s). Deitch's strategy had been to move away from the studio's existing store of characters (Mighty Mouse, Heckle & Jeckle, Little Roquefort & Percy) in favour of implementing new blood, and with only a fraction of the budgets of his already notoriously frugal predecessor. A former apprentice of United Productions of America, Deitch applied that studio's approach of limited animation against basic, undetailed backgrounds (techniques that would prove instrumental with animation's impending shift to being a medium of television) ^[2]. And lo, the look of Terrytoons got even cheaper. A second's glance at Sidney's Family Tree would clue you in that this was a considerably less prestigious production than Knighty Knight Bugs.

Likewise, it is important to acknowledge that the competition for Best Animated Short of 1958 was hardly a two-horse race, three contenders being the category's bare minimum. Sidney had not just the heavy-hitters at Warner Bros to worry about, but Disney too. The also-ran who's largely been squeezed out of this discussion is Paul Bunyan, the House of Mouse's take on the overgrown lumberjack of American folklore. But then again Disney, the undisputed kings of this award in the 1930s, had fallen quite vastly out of favour by the 1950s. Toot, Whistle, Plunk and Bloom (1953) was their only win for Best Animated Short that whole decade. At a hefty 17 minutes, Paul Bunyan was certainly the most epic short in contention that year, although that might even have worked against it. It goes on a long time and offers rather a wishy washy pay-off. I can see why Academy voters might have felt underwhelmed by it. Whatever their shortcomings, Knighty Knight Bugs and Sidney's Family Tree do have the virtue of being short.

Somehow, it's my impression that 1958 wasn't the strongest of years for short animation, and Academy voters weren't exactly left with an embarrassment of riches at the end of it. They had their choice of the mediocre Bugs Bunny cartoon, the interminable shaggy dog story from Disney, or the unassuming, frugally-animated short about the unknown elephant. "Oh jeez. Well, everyone loves Bug Bunny, and this is his first nomination in 17 years. Let's just give it to him now while we have the chance, and take a load off our consciences." It's not fair, but it's where we are.

Am I really poised to argue that Sidney's Family Tree was the worthiest of the three nominees after all? I'm sure that part of the joke, in Tiny Toon Adventures, was in Sidney/Stanley ever seeing himself as a serious contender to begin with. And yet where Sidney's Family Tree is at an advantage, at least in my eyes, is that, unlike Knighty Knight Bugs, it actually feels like it's about something. That something being neediness. The characters have a loneliness and a vulnerability that makes them endearing, even if it exists largely within the subtext. It may not be the most technically accomplished of the three entrants, but is the one to which I am the most warmly-disposed.

Sidney's Family Tree was only the second of Sidney's adventures (he'd made his debut earlier that same year with Sick, Sick Sidney).  Directed by Art Bartsch, it follows Sidney (voice of Lionel Wilson, better known to modern viewers as Eustace from the early seasons of Courage The Cowardly Dog) in his efforts to find himself an adoptive family. The whereabouts of his biological parents are accounted for in a verse recited by Sidney during the opening credits; they joined a circus and left him alone in the jungle. Initially, his plight is met with little sympathy by the other animals, who remind Sidney that he's 44 years old. Which is one of Sidney's main running gags - his crippling anxieties about having to live in the adult world whilst being a perpetual kid at heart. And really, who couldn't relate to that? The guy's cast off and alone in the world, being in his 40s doesn't preclude him from still not having a clue what he's doing, and all he yearns for is a whisker of emotional security and validation. He tries taking his case to a passing hippo and giraffe, but gets brushed aside in both cases. They've already got offspring of their own, and don't have time to be indulging a neurotic elephant on the side. (The giraffe, incidentally, is named Cleo, and she would become a recurring character in Sidney's subsequent cartoons. For now, Sidney addresses her only as "Mrs So-and-So", which probably isn't going to score him many points in the courtesy leagues. She seems to know exactly who he is, however.) 

Sidney's luck changes when he runs into an animal also looking to fill an emotional void, a female chimpanzee who's desperate for a baby of her own, but doesn't have one. She eagerly agrees to be Sidney's adoptive mother, but her mate isn't so thrilled when she breaks the news that this two-ton elephant manchild is moving in with them. It's through what's implicit in the chimpanzees' interactions that the short adds a dash of hidden substance to its subtext. The male chimpanzee is every bit as keen to start a family as she is, and when she indicates that they've made good on that aspiration, his immediate assumption is clearly that she's pregnant. This is even reinforced with a cheeky subliminal visual gag, wherein he joyously squirts an obviously phallic banana out of its skin on thinking that he's finally managed to sire offspring of his own. It's not a point that the script particularly lingers on, but it's easy enough to read in between the lines and interpret the chimps as a couple who want to procreate, but haven't had much luck with the conception process. The female chimp sees Sidney as the answer to their problems, but the male isn't so willing to accept him as a baby substitute. The interplay between Sidney and his grudging adoptive Pop is where most of the narrative focus lies, as he first attempts to cope with the arrangement and then aspires to get rid of Sidney, but it also takes the time to establish a bond between Sidney and his mother, incorporating a tender moment where she knits him a trunk cozy and bids him a good night. The connection between the two seems heartfelt enough that you genuinely feel a sense of her pain at the end, when her mate announces that Sidney is out of their lives for good.

Sidney's Family Tree is an extraordinarily gentle cartoon. Possessing neither the loftiness of Paul Bunyan nor the anarchic aggression of Knighty Knight Bugs, it coasts along considerably on basic geniality. The very darkest thing that happens is when Sidney's adoptive father attempts to ditch him by trapping him inside a cave, which he obviously doesn't get far with. Even the frugal production values, and the all-round lack of technical sophistication, come together in ways that play to the film's merits. The plain, predominantly yellow backgrounds dusted with crude floral outlines are barebones as can be, yet they radiate a warmth and vibrancy. Phil Scheib's flute and percussion score is repetitive, but adds to the soothing ambience of the piece.

Sidney remains too naive and trusting to ever cotton onto the fact that his adoptive father doesn't want him around, interpreting his hostility as tokens of affection. His priorities seem to change, however, when a female elephant happens to wander past and catch his eye, and Sidney is compelled to follow after her, seemingly forgetting about his simian kin. The male chimp is giddy with delight, attempting to sell the outcome to his heartbroken mate as a case of nature running its course, an empty nest an inevitability she signed up to when she chose to take on a baby. His relief proves to be short-lived; as it turns out, Sidney still has no intention of taking his place within the adult world, reaffirming his commitment to his protracted childhood by inducting his new mate Hortense into the fold. The elephants show up at the chimps' tree and announce that they'll be moving in with them until they find their feet (as if that's ever going to happen). Sidney believes that they make the nicest family in the jungle, and while the closing visual gag, in which the branch collapses under their combined weight, would ostensibly undermine that, what's important is that they all go down together - a chaotic and unconventional unit, but ultimately as valid as any other, connected firmly by the basic need to be needed on both sides. I'm sure the male chimp will come round eventually (or maybe not - later Sidney shorts appear to indicate that Cleo the giraffe wound up becoming his parental figure after all, along with a lion who was ironically named Stanley).

Sidney's failure to beat Bugs to the Oscar did not deter him from enjoying a prosperous enough run of shorts. His cartoons continued up until 1964, by which point he had made the transition from theatrical animation to television (such were the changing times), finishing up his career as a supporting segment on The Hector Heathcote Show. Since then, he hasn't exactly remained at the forefront of public consciousness (few, if any, Terrytoons characters honestly have in the 2020s). An elephant never forgets (nor forgives, as his thinly-veiled resurfacing on Tiny Toon Adventures would bear out), but the world forgot Sidney long ago. His 1990 grudge match against Bugs, Babs and Buster, far from being a mean-spirited dig, was a real shot in the arm of relevancy for a character who'd been otherwise consigned to stagnation. My only regret is that they restricted Sidney/Stanley to that one episode and he did not become a recurring nemesis for the Tiny Toons gang. It was not, however, his last hurrah - Sidney was a featured character on Curbside, an attempted Terrytoons revival project made by Nickelodeon in 1999, in which he was voiced by Dee Bradley Baker, although this never got further than the pilot. As to whether we'll ever see Sidney again, who knows? Paramount Pictures currently owns the rights to the Terrytoons characters, but don't appear to be doing a great deal with them.

At the very least, Sidney has an Oscar nomination to his name, and that's something that can never be taken away from him. It's also one more Oscar nomination than Daffy Duck ever received (sad, but true).

Now if Tiny Toons Looniversity would just do something as awesome as to bring back Sappy Stanley, it might even be worth my while to watch it. So far as I can tell it hasn't happened, so the revival gets a hard pass from me.

[1] Although a latent dark side was arguably hinted in the short "Meat, Drink and Be Merry". This is the one where Sidney attempts to become a carnivore, and the way it plays out is so weird and unsettling, like he's aspiring to be the neighbourhood serial killer.

[2] Mind you, while Terrytoons never won this award, there was precedent for UPA doing so twice, with the Mr Magoo shorts When Magoo Flew (1954) and Magoo's Puddle Jumper (1956).