“Little Johnny is inspired by Monty Python, The Goodies, and of course the Looney Tunes cartoons. It’s not Benny Hill, but it does have that kind of irreverence.”
“Little Johnny is inspired by Monty Python, The Goodies, and of course the Looney Tunes cartoons. It’s not Benny Hill, but it does have that kind of irreverence.” Sipping a coffee in a cafe just a short walk from his South Melbourne office, where he is heavily involved in post-production work, director Ralph Moser enthusiastically discusses the genesis of the animated comedy Little Johnny.
A life-long film buff since he first snuck out of his bedroom to watch The Time Machine on television late one night as a six-year old, Moser has been fortunate enough to work in the film industry for much of his life. “I was traumatised, but at the same time I was absolutely enthralled at what the power of cinema was,” he recalls of the experience, “and I knew then that this was the way I was going to go.”
Moser comes to direction through a background in production design and story boarding. Animation is the very purest form of storytelling as far as the storyboard artist goes. Moser’s training was through storyboarding, and he worked his way up to production design. His credits include local productions like Let’s Get Skase, Sensitive New Age Killer, Hating Alison Ashley, and Till Human Voices Wake Us. He also experienced working on large scale Hollywood productions, including Where The Wild Things Are, which was filmed in Melbourne, and Russell Mulcahy’s television remake of On The Beach.
Moser makes his directorial debut with the animated feature Little Johnny. He admits that his decision to direct was a natural progression. Some great directors, like Sam Raimi, have also started their careers through storyboarding. “I’ve spent so much of my time fascinated by what directors do and how they interact with the cast, and I’ve adopted a lot of that along the way. A lot of my work was done by the time directors turn up on the set. I’m often in the wings watching it all, after having been there eight hours before the crew arrives. So in my own hazy way I’ve picked up a lot.”
Little Johnny itself is the brainchild of Moser and his co-director Dean Murphy and screenwriter Stewart Fainchey. The three have a long established partnership and have worked together on a number of films, including two with Paul Hogan – Strange Bedfellows and the recent Charlie And Boots.
The idea for the project came when his long time associate Dean Murphy told a “little Johnny” joke. “I’m not good at telling jokes, but I’m a great joke listener,” Moser confesses. “It was a very funny joke, but I can’t repeat it. He then said: ‘Wouldn’t it be interesting to make a movie about little Johnny.’ I had no idea how to construct something based on a joke. We did a little bit of research. We looked on the internet and saw about two million references to him, and we thought there is obviously a market.
“The jokes are actually out there in the public domain, and they have been told and retold in different ways. We found the versions that worked best and we reworked them. There was already a kind of structure to the story from those jokes. From that we started to incorporate the jokes into the screenplay. Then I realised that, as funny as those jokes are, the minute you line them up one after the other, you tend to just have a series of gags that play out, without the story to bolster it. I think that all these things hinge on the narrative, and I needed to find a human story to tell. Even if it’s a comedy you still need to find some sort of reality to base it on and anchor it.”
Little Johnny is set in the small town of Gallangatta, and introduces us to Johnny, his younger brother and his ultra-conservative parents. The film itself is little more than a string of jokes – many of them rude, most familiar, and some very funny. But what passes for a narrative strand here sees Johnny try to win the affection of class mate Mandy and woo her away from his rival, the handsome rebel Jason. His only chance of success is by winning the annual billy cart race. And his mentor Uncle Kevin tries to save his farm from becoming insolvent due to his inability to repay a bank loan.
The animation is very old-fashioned, almost retro in style, and harks back to the era of Ginger Meggs, and the Merry Melodies cartoons we grew up with. This was a deliberate choice, explains Moser. “Part of that nostalgic feeling does come from those cartoons that we grew up with as kids – you can’t go past Chuck Jones, Friz Freleng or even a Bugs Bunny cartoon. Part of their genius was born out of necessity, and I knew that if we were going to make this movie we’d have to have that same mother of invention. Our movie harks back to a simpler time, we’re actually celebrating the whole 2D nature of it. It’s very retro style. Moser teamed up with J C Reyes, a local animator, who’d done a lot of work with Disney and Hanna Barbera when they were based in Sydney. They put together a team of animators that would be capable of doing what he wanted.
Uncle Kev, the wayward uncle and Johnny’s mentor, was probably the trickiest role to cast. Kevin Wilson was a latecomer to the piece, and proved to be perfect. “He’d never done a movie before, but we thought the guy had to be capable,” Moser explains. Genevieve Morris, who is better known to television audiences as Barbara in the series of ANZ bank advertisements, was immediately cast as little Johnny. “It would be great to have a little kid, but some of the things he says would probably get me arrested…” laughs Moser.
Little Johnny is premiering at the Melbourne International Comedy Festival in April, which Moser believes is the perfect springboard for the film. “We figured that the comedy market would be just the right place. It’s about comedy, it’s about the nature of comedy,” he elaborates.
Little Johnny The Movie screens at Greater Union Russell St from April 1 – April 24. For session times check eventcinemas.com.au. Tickets are $17 full price, $13.50 concession and $10 on Tightarse Tuesdays.
