Post by myhomeo on Jul 23, 2022 13:39:56 GMT -5
Recently rewatched 'Cousin Wilbur' and a question occurred to me: Why?
No, no. Granted, this is a question one finds oneself asking frequently while watching the MGM shorts but 'Cousin Wilbur' isn't as painful as many of the others.
Nor am I really wondering about the creation of Cousin Wilbur. Again, he's nowhere near as awful as some of their other failed characters. No, I don't mean Janet or Froggy. I mean the obscurities like the twins who spoke in sync with each other or the kid with the Chico Marx accent. Prissy-looking types who are tougher than they seem were fairly common in the comics kid gangs, so one can see the dynamic they were going for.
But why'd they bring in Scotty Beckett to play him? He did a fine job and I'm guessing he was under contract to MGM but he had a career going in feature films. We already know the Gang wasn't a top priority for MGM. Why would they 'waste' him here?
What makes it really confusing is that the character turns up briefly in another short. I could get doing a one-off for the publicity but they honestly seemed to be considering adding him to the Gang. Why would they want to do that?
I can only assume they were thinking of him along the same lines as Tommy Bond, who was a busy movie and radio actor when he wasn't being Butch.
A little sad it didn't work out. Again, Cousin Wilbur wasn't a great character but he was better than some other stuff they tried and he might have made an interesting occasional player in the Gang.
No, no. Granted, this is a question one finds oneself asking frequently while watching the MGM shorts but 'Cousin Wilbur' isn't as painful as many of the others.
Nor am I really wondering about the creation of Cousin Wilbur. Again, he's nowhere near as awful as some of their other failed characters. No, I don't mean Janet or Froggy. I mean the obscurities like the twins who spoke in sync with each other or the kid with the Chico Marx accent. Prissy-looking types who are tougher than they seem were fairly common in the comics kid gangs, so one can see the dynamic they were going for.
But why'd they bring in Scotty Beckett to play him? He did a fine job and I'm guessing he was under contract to MGM but he had a career going in feature films. We already know the Gang wasn't a top priority for MGM. Why would they 'waste' him here?
What makes it really confusing is that the character turns up briefly in another short. I could get doing a one-off for the publicity but they honestly seemed to be considering adding him to the Gang. Why would they want to do that?
I can only assume they were thinking of him along the same lines as Tommy Bond, who was a busy movie and radio actor when he wasn't being Butch.
A little sad it didn't work out. Again, Cousin Wilbur wasn't a great character but he was better than some other stuff they tried and he might have made an interesting occasional player in the Gang.
