Dr. Grob's Animation Review

Tom and Jerry in the Hollywood Bowl

May 20, 2013 in MGM films, Tom & Jerry films, ★★★★★ | Tags: 1950, concert, Hanna & Barbera, Tom & Jerry, concert cartoon, conductor, Hollywood Bowl, Tom and Jerry in the Hollywood Bowl, Fledermaus, Johann Strauss | Leave a comment

Directors: William Hanna & Joseph Barbera
Release Date: September 16, 1950
Stars: Tom & Jerry
Rating: ★★★★★
Review:

Only a year after Chuck Jones’ Bugs Bunny cartoon ‘Long-Haired Hare‘ the Hollywood Bowl is visited by cartoon characters again in ‘Tom and Jerry in The Hollywood Bowl’.

This short is Tom & Jerry’s second concert cartoon (the first being ‘The Cat Concerto‘ from 1947). This time Tom is a conductor, conducting an orchestra of cats in Johann Strauss Jr.’s overture to ‘Die Fledermaus’. Jerry wants to conduct, too, but Tom doesn’t allow him. This leads to a battle between the two with a great finale in which Jerry makes the complete orchestra disappear, so Tom has to play all the instruments himself. Jerry, who conducts him shares the applause with an exhausted Tom, before the cat vanishes into a hole, too.

During the complete cartoon the feud between the two conductors is perfectly timed to the music. ‘Tom and Jerry in the Hollywood Bowl’ is not as good as ‘The Cat Concerto’, but still very funny. Its only drawback are the designs on Tom and Jerry, which both look poorer than usual, looking forward to the leaner designs of their later cartoons.

Watch ‘Tom and Jerry in the Hollywood Bowl’ yourself and tell me what you think:

This is Tom & Jerry cartoon No. 52
To the previous Tom & Jerry cartoon: Safety Second
To the next Tom & Jerry cartoon: The Framed Cat

Room and Bird

May 17, 2013 in ★★★, Merrie Melodies, Sylvester cartoons, Tweety cartoons, Warner Brothers films | Tags: 1951, bulldog, corridor, Eugene Poddany, Friz Freleng, Granny, hotel, pet inspector, Room and Bird, Tweety & Sylvester | Leave a comment

Director: Friz Freleng
Release Date: June 2, 1951
Stars: Tweety & Sylvester, Granny
Rating: ★★★
Review:

Granny sneaks Tweety into a hotel where no pets are allowed.

Another old lady sneaks Sylvester in, who inhabits the room next to Tweety. Like in ‘All a bir-r-r-d‘ Sylvester encounters a vicious bulldog, too. The cartoon contains a classic corridor-with-doors-gag, but the cartoon’s greatest joy is its great twist on the chase routine, provided by a pet inspector who at times interrupts the chase of the three animals.

‘Room and bird’ is the first of four 1951 Warner Brothers cartoons featuring music by Eugene Poddany instead of Carl Stalling.

Watch ‘Room and Bird’ yourself and tell me what you think:

http://kidstube.com/video/19879/Sylvester–Tweety-in-Room-and-Bird-1951

All a Bir-r-r-d

May 15, 2013 in ★, Looney Tunes, Sylvester cartoons, Tweety cartoons, Warner Brothers films | Tags: 1951, Friz Freleng, Room and Bird, train, Tweety & Sylvester | Leave a comment

Director: Friz Freleng
Release Date: June 2, 1951
Stars: Tweety & Sylvester
Rating: ★
Review:

‘All a Bir-r-r-d’ is Tweety and Sylvester’s fourth cartoon and in this short their chase takes place in the baggage wagon of a train. Sylvester’s pursuit is extra hindered by a train conductor and a vicious bulldog.

‘All Abir-r-rd’ is a rather formulaic chase cartoon, and in no way among Tweety & Sylvester’s best. It is noteworthy however, for introducing Tweety’s theme song, sung, off course, by Tweety himself.

Watch ‘All a Bir-r-r-d’ yourself and tell me what you think:

http://www.bcdb.com/cartoon_video/4332-All_A_Bir-r-r-d.html

Bad ol’ Putty Tat

May 13, 2013 in ★★★, Merrie Melodies, Sylvester cartoons, Tweety cartoons, Warner Brothers films | Tags: 1949, Bad ol' Putty Tat, Friz Freleng, Tweety & Sylvester | Leave a comment

Director: Friz Freleng
Release Date: July 23, 1949
Stars: Tweety & Sylvester
Rating: ★★★
Review:

‘Bad Ol’ Putty Tat’ is only the third of the Tweety and Sylvester shorts, but it already feels routine.

The short opens with Tweety’s birdhouse all wrapped in barbed wire and a wrecked Sylvester sitting below, thinking how to reach the bird. Friz Freleng and his team waste no time and immediately start with Sylvester’s attempts in blackout gags involving a fake female bird and a badminton game.

In this short Sylvester does manage to swallow Tweety, but the little bird takes control of his head, steering the cat like a train into a stone wall.

Watch ‘Bad ol’ Putty Tat’ yourself and tell me what you think:

http://www.supercartoons.net/cartoon/708/bad-ol-putty-tat.html

Lion Down

May 10, 2013 in ★★★, Goofy shorts, Walt Disney films | Tags: 1951, Goofy, hammock, Jack Kinney, Lion Down, mountain lion | Leave a comment

Director: Jack Kinney
Release Date: January 5, 1951
Stars: Goofy
Rating: ★★★
Review:

In this short Goofy inhabits a house on the top floor of a large apartment block. He needs an extra tree for his hammock, so he fetches one from a forest nearby. Unfortunately, he’s visited by the tree’s former owner, the mountain lion from the Donald Duck short ‘Lion Around’ (1950), and together they fight over the hammock.

The gag routine is laid out well, involving many ringings of doorbells and falls from great heights, resulting in an extraordinarily long falling sequence. However, the comedy is hampered by irritating vocal sounds by both Goofy and the mountain lion, and by a slightly sloppy timing. This is too bad, for a possibly very funny cartoon now only becomes average.

In 1952 the mountain lion would reappear again in the Goofy short ‘Father’s Lion’.

Watch ‘Lion Down’ yourself and tell me what you think:

Hold That Pose

May 8, 2013 in ★★★★★, Goofy shorts, Walt Disney films | Tags: 1950, bear, funfair, Goofy, Hold That Pose, Jack Kinney, photography | 1 comment

Director: Jack Kinney
Release Date: November 30, 1950
Stars: Goofy
Rating: ★★★★★
Review:

This cartoon starts with the opening shot of a tired Goofy dragging himself into his own home from ‘Goofy Gymnastics‘ from the previous year.

This time, however, the voice over advises Goofy to get a hobby, for example photography. This leads to several great photography gags, especially when Goofy tries to make pictures of a bear, which results in a long, fast and gag-packed chase sequence involving a funfair. It also reuses a gag involving a cab from ‘Baseball Bugs‘ (1946), showing Jack Kinney’s interest in the gag language of Disney’s rivals.

‘Hold that pose’ is one of Goofy’s funniest shorts, and certainly one of his best cartoons of the fifties.

Watch ‘Hold That Pose’ yourself and tell me what you think:

Motor Mania

May 6, 2013 in ★★★★★ ♕, Goofy shorts, Walt Disney films | Tags: 1950, cars, driving, Goofy, Jack Kinney, Motor Mania, traffic | Leave a comment

Director: Jack Kinney
Release Date: June 30, 1950
Stars: Goofy
Rating: ★★★★★ ♕
Review:

In this cartoon a particularly civilized type of Goofy, an “average man” called Mr. Walker, changes into a Mr. Hyde-like wildman called Mr. Wheeler, once he sits behind the wheel of his car.

‘Motor Mania’ is the only Goofy cartoon in which our hero is depicted as an unsympathetic and even evil character. But by now Goofy has lost all his former persona. He has changed into a random citizen, so it works very well.

‘Motor Mania’ forms another step in the evolution of Goofy into the American everyman. By now Goofy had replaced Donald Duck as representative of the American citizen. Donald Duck had been the average citizen in the forties, but the last few years his role had been diminished, evolving into a straight man for the antics of Chip ‘n Dale, the little bee and such. Jack Kinney’s Goofy took over, cumulating in the typical fifties everyman, George Geef, in ‘Cold War’ from the next year.

‘Motor mania’ is a quite disturbing film about road manners, it even becomes nightmarish when we watch cars bark at a helpless pedestrian. It is as moralistic as it is funny. And it remains somehow strikingly relevant today, making it an original classic within the Goofy series.

Watch ‘Motor Mania’ yourself and tell me what you think:

Goofy Gymnastics

May 3, 2013 in ★★★½, Goofy shorts, Walt Disney films | Tags: 1949, Goofy, Goofy Gymnastics, gym, home trainer, Jack Kinney, sports | Leave a comment

Director: Jack Kinney
Release Date: September 23, 1949
Stars: Goofy
Rating: ★★★½
Review:

In this short Goofy orders some home training devices to improve his condition. All his attempts fail, of course, sometimes in surprisingly long and elaborate gags, involving great situation comedy. It’s this cartoon Roger Rabbit watches in ‘Who Framed Roger Rabbit’ from 1988.

Together with the previous ‘Tennis Racquet‘, Goofy Gymnastics’ is a transitional Goofy cartoon: it’s the first cartoon showing the restyled Goofy as an average American citizen. Unlike ‘Tennis Racquet’, however, there’s only one Goofy in this cartoon, who even sings his own theme song ‘The world owes me a living’ again. ‘Goofy Gymnastics’ marks the last time we see Goofy in his original hat, which he only puts on after changing into his gym costume. It’s also the last of the Goofy sports cartoons. The next year, the same tired Goofy gets the advise to get a hobby, in ‘Hold That Pose‘.

Like the earlier great sports cartoons it uses a posh voice over, who’s completely out of tune with Goofy’s antics with his home training gear. The action is a bit slow, however, and the animators make no attempts to synchronize their character’s lip movements with the now obligate Goofy vocalizations.

Watch ‘Goofy Gymnastics’ yourself and tell me what you think:

Tennis Racquet

May 1, 2013 in ★★★★, Goofy shorts, Walt Disney films | Tags: 1949, Goofy, Jack Kinney, sports, tennis, Tennis Racquet | Leave a comment

Director: Jack Kinney
Release Date: August 26, 1949
Stars: Goofy
Rating: ★★★★
Review:

After four years of working on feature films, Jack Kinney returns as a director of Goofy shorts to remain Goofy’s sole director until the series’ end in 1953.

Kinney’s first Goofy film in four years, ‘Tennis Racquet’ is a transitional film: together with the next Goofy short, ‘Goofy Gymnastics‘, it’s firmly rooted in the 1940′s Goofy tradition, being a sports cartoon, similar in content to ‘How to Play Football‘ (1944) and ‘Hockey Homicide‘ (1945). Moreover, in the first scene we hear one of the Goofy characters (the cartoon contains several of them) singing Goofy’s own theme song “the world owes me a living”, and in the end we can hear the typical Goofy yell, introduced in “The Art of Skiing” (1941). The short even features a slow motion gag, not seen since ‘How to swim‘ (1942). On the other hand, it can also be seen as the first entry of Goofy’s second series, for the character has been completely redesigned. The next year this new, redesigned Goofy would turn into Mr. Geef, the everyman.

Like ‘How to Play Football’ and ‘Hockey Homicide’, ‘Tennis Racquet’ has no educational value: the cartoon consists of one frantic tennis match between two Goofy characters. It’s a fast and funny cartoon, full of silly gags. The highlight may be the running gag of the stoic gardener, who enters the game at several points, undisturbed by the frantic action around him.

Watch ‘Tennis Racquet’ yourself and tell me what you think:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=894ZXePM7bs

Puss-Cafe

April 29, 2013 in ★★★★★, Pluto shorts, Walt Disney films | Tags: 1950, alley cats, Charles Nichols, Dick Kinney, Milt Schaffer, Milton, Pluto, Puss-cafe | Leave a comment

Director: Charles Nichols
Release Date: June 9, 1950
Stars: Pluto, Milton
Rating: ★★★★★
Review:

Pluto has a relatively small part in this very zany cartoon, penned by Goofy-storymen Dick Kinney and Milt Schaffer. It stars two alley cats trying to invade a garden full of milk, birds and fish, but guarded by our hero.

The comedy between the two cats is brilliant and the short is full of fine gags, the best of which is a bizarre fishing scene, in which one of the cats uses a milk bottle for a helmet. The larger cat is a dumb character reminiscent of George in Tex Avery’s George and Junior cartoons, and of Junior Bear in Chuck Jones’ three bear cartoons. However, unlike those shorts, the comic interplay between the two characters is devoid of dialogue. Only in the beginning they exchange some meows. The whole cartoon is a showcase of silent comedy.

‘Puss-cafe’ undoubtedly is one of Pluto’s wildest cartoons, on par with ‘Pluto at the Zoo‘ (1942) and ‘Springtime for Pluto‘ (1944), and it belongs to his all-time best. In fact, the two cats were such wonderful characters that it is hard to understand they were only used once. Nevertheless, one of them would return as ‘Milton’ in Pluto’s last two cartoons: ‘Plutopia’ and ‘Cold Turkey’ from 1951, with equally funny results.

Watch ‘Puss-Cafe’ yourself and tell me what you think:

This is Pluto cartoon No. 37
To the previous Pluto cartoon: Primitive Pluto
To the next Pluto cartoon: Pests of the West

Dr. Grob's Animation Review

Tom and Jerry in the Hollywood Bowl

Room and Bird

All a Bir-r-r-d

Bad ol’ Putty Tat

Lion Down

Hold That Pose

Motor Mania

Goofy Gymnastics

Tennis Racquet

Puss-Cafe

Follow Dr. Grob's Animation Review via Email

Categories

Tag Cloud

Content

Related blogs

Relevant links

Follow “Dr. Grob's Animation Review”