I consider The Dover Boys to be Chuck Jones' first classic cartoon at Warner Bros. Before this cartoon Jones bored his audiences with weak imitations of cute Disney cartoons. Some of these earlier efforts had no humor in them at all, and the animation and timing were slow and plodding. He made a radical departure with The Dover Boys. Since it was a parody of gay nineties melodrama Jones has the characters strike very exaggerated poses. Because the poses were so strong they were easier for the eye to "read," and required less animation in between them. This also led to quicker timing of the action. Jones also invented a new way to animate speed. Up until this point in animation history speed was indicated by "drybrushing" streaks of paint following a fast moving character. Here, though, as the character moves from one extreme pose to the next he stretches like taffy (or "smears") for a few inbetween drawings. This created a more believable illusion of speed. (One has to watch these scenes frame by frame to appreciate it.) Besides all this inventiveness, the cartoon is incredible funny, too. Jones forsook Disney "realism" and has the characters move in humorous ways (Dora Standpipe never walks but glides across the floor). Mel Blank provides one of the funniest voices in his career for villain Dan Backslide. Jones got into some trouble for this experiment and it would be some time before he would use the lessons he learned from this cartoon again (mainly in the late forties). A real gem, highly recommended
