Studio: Famous Studios
Distributor: Paramount Pictures
Short Synopsis
Plot accounts of this one-off Noveltoon are hard to find, and this summary follows the surviving television print. Snapper, a lanky, earnest dog with a press card in his hat, is a newspaper photographer desperate for a scoop. His editor, a short-tempered dog behind a cluttered desk, rages at him for coming back empty-handed and sends him out to get a real story. Snapper takes to the streets with his camera, chasing anything that might make the front page. The hunt takes him through the city, examining clues with a magnifying glass while another figure scans the horizon with binoculars, and it ends with Snapper wide-eyed and alarmed against a brick wall. Whether Snapper finally lands his scoop is not described in the sources this book could check.
Why It Matters
- By 1955 Famous Studios had adopted the flatter, more graphic look that UPA had made fashionable: News Hound has bold, flat colour fields, simplified backgrounds and angular character designs, a clear sign of how widely the UPA style spread through Hollywood studios in the mid-1950s.
- It was the only appearance of Snapper, one of many characters the studio tried out in the Noveltoons series in search of a new star. Films like this show the cartoon industry experimenting with new looks and characters as theatrical shorts became less profitable and television approached.
Notes and Trivia
- The writer, Jack Mercer, was also the long-serving voice of Popeye.
- It was the 89th Noveltoon; the backgrounds ("scenics") are by Robert Owen.
- See also: Rooty Toot Toot (1951), The Friendly Ghost (1945).