Baby Checkers

Director: Paul Fennell?
Release Date: 1940
Stars: Gran’ Pop Monkey
Rating:  ★
Review:

‘Baby Checkers’ is the last of three surviving Gran’ Pop Monkey cartoons, a cut series made in the last days of the Ub Iwerks studio.

The cartoon copies the story of the first, ‘Beauty Shoppe‘, in that Gran’ Pop Monkey and his two grandsons try a new business. This time they try their luck with a baby nursery. The first day is highly successful, with countless mothers bringing in their babies. Unfortunately, Gran’ Pop Monkey’s system to remember which baby is whose, soon runs haywire, and causes much discomfort among the mothers at the end of the cartoon. In between all kinds of things go wrong, like feeding and bathing the baby animals.

Nowhere ‘Baby Checkers’ gets near being funny, even if the short makes more sense than ‘A Busy Day‘. The action remains tiresome, the story is disjointed, and the grand finale anything but that. The terrible voice acting and erratic designs don’t help either, and like in the other two Gran’ Pop Monkey cartoons, only the musical score is of a high quality. This, of course, wasn’t enough, and although the reasons are unknown, the series was justly abandoned.

‘Baby Checkers’ has only survived in a black and white copy, which is available on the DVD ‘Cultoons! Rare, Lost and Strange Cartoons! Volume 3: Monkeys, Monsters & More!’