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Director: Dave Fleischer
Release Date: November 18, 1938
Stars: Popeye, Olive Oyl
Rating: ★★★★
Review:
Popeye invites Olive into a roller skating hall.
The unwilling Olive is no roller skate talent, however, and after some antics inside the hall, she accidentally skates outside and into the streets. It’s up to Popeye to rescue her. Unfortunately, he has forgotten his spinach, but luckily somebody in the audience can give him a can. This particular gag is rare but undeniable influence of the new Warner Bros. cartoon style on the Fleischer cartoons. The rest of the cartoon retains Fleischer’s unique and charming style.
‘A Date to Skate’ is in no way a classic, but it’s enjoyable from start to end, and gains particular speed when Olive is lost on the streets. There’s a great scene in which she manages to skate inside a department store, and another one in which she and Popeye make a long descend – a scene that seems to make use of a ridiculously long background painting, even though some parts are clearly reused.
Watch ‘A Date to Skate’ yourself and tell me what you think:
This Popeye film No. 66
To the previous Popeye film: Goonland
To the next Popeye film: Cops Is always Right
‘A Date to Skate’ is available on the DVD-set ‘Popeye the Sailor Volume Two’
Director: Dave Fleischer
Release Date: October 21, 1938
Stars: Popeye, Poopdeck Pappy
Rating: ★★★★★ ♕
Review:
‘Goonland’ is a pivotal Popeye cartoon, which introduces two characters from E.C. Segar’s famous comic strip to the movie screen: the goons and Poopdeck Pappy.
The short opens with Popeye sailing an unknown sea in search for his father. He lands on a volcanic island, which is clearly doomed, as witnessed by the number of shipwrecks around it. The island turns out to be Goonland, inhabited by ‘Goons’, large, hairy humanoid creatures with superhuman strength. Indeed, even though Popeye doesn’t show any fear, he remains as long in hiding as possible, and only dares to confront the goons when disguised as one.
Goonland indeed turns out to be the home of Popeye’s dad, Poopdeck Pappy, locked in a prison and playing checkers with himself. But Poopdeck Pappy doesn’t want to be rescued, and only comes into action, when Popeye is captured by the goons. In this short Popeye fails to reach his spinach, but his dad succeeds, rescuing his son before a bunch of goons jump at the duo. At this point the film breaks, making all the goons falling off into oblivion. Two hands stitch the film back together, and in the end we watch Poopdeck Pappy carrying his son from the island, the two singing Popeye’s signature song together.
‘Goonland’ is easily one of the all time best Popeye cartoons. Its settings, its characters, its story, Jack Mercer’s improvisation – everything is really great in this cartoon. Goonland is conceived wonderfully, and this part excels in beautiful background images. Jack Mercer is in top form. For example when Popeye disguises himself as a goon, he says ‘here today, goon tomorrow’. Later, when tiny rocks fall on him he mumbles ‘Guess somebody’s trying to rock me to sleep’.
Poopdeck Pappy, who’s also voiced by Mercer, is a strong character and an easy match to Popeye himself. Moreover, the story is truly exciting, as the goons are clearly no small fry for our hero. Indeed, the inventive film break gag, probably the first of its kind, is actually a deus ex machina , appearing when father and son are in undeniable dire straits.
The short also features some beautiful animation, most notably that of Poopdeck Popeye breaking his prison walls. In this scene we can really feel the sheer power of his action. Despite being such a wonderful character, the studio would wait two years before bringing Poopdeck Pappy back to the screen in ‘My Pop, My Pop‘ (1940). Poopdeck Pappy would star some of Popeye’s best cartoons, like ‘With Poopdeck Pappy‘ (1940) and ‘Problem Pappy‘ (1941).
Watch ‘Goonland’ yourself and tell me what you think:
This Popeye film No. 65
To the previous Popeye film: Mutiny Ain’t Nice
To the next Popeye film: A Date to Skate
‘Goonland’ is available on the DVD-set ‘Popeye the Sailor Volume Two’
Director: Dave Fleischer
Release Date: September 23, 1938
Stars: Popeye, Olive Oyl
Rating: ★★★★½
Review:
‘Mutiny Ain’t Nice’ is one of the rarer Popeye cartoons in which we watch our amiable sailor actually sailing.
The cartoon starts with Popeye preparing ship and saying goodbye to Olive, who, as a woman, cannot board ship because she will bring bad luck. Olive, however, lands on Popeye’s ship by accident, and as soon as she’s discovered by the crew, a mutiny starts. With help of spinach, Popeye rounds up his crew single-handed, chains them in one go and throws them into the hold.
Never mind the straight-forward story: ‘Mutiny Ain’t Nice’ is a fast and very enjoyable cartoon, greatly helped by Jack Mercer’s inspired ad-libbing and by beautiful background art.
Watch ‘Mutiny Ain’t Nice’ yourself and tell me what you think:
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x3p4m47
This Popeye film No. 64
To the previous Popeye film: Bulldozing the Bull
To the next Popeye film: Goonland
‘Mutiny Ain’t Nice’ is available on the DVD-set ‘Popeye the Sailor Volume Two’
Director: Bob Clampett
Release Date: November 5, 1938
Stars: Porky Pig
Rating: ★★★½
Review:
This cartoon starts with the call for morning prayer in a dream Egypt, which has more in common with 1001 Arabian nights than with the real state during the 1930’s.
We watch three Arabs rolling dice, a sexy veiled woman, who turns out to be hideously ugly, and the antics a fakir. Then we cut to some tourists taking a tour on a multi-bumped camel into a desert.
Porky Pig is a little too late to join them, and follows the group on his own camel, called Humpty Dumpty. Unfortunately, once they’re in the desert, the burning sun hits the camel with desert madness. In a wonderful scene, the camel loses grip and starts to hallucinate. The hallucinating effect is greatly added by twirling background images. In this scene the acting of the camel is no less than superb. The sheer manic power of this acting is unprecedented in any animated cartoon, and a subtle milestone of animation.
Unfortunately, the complete cartoon is more strange than funny. Notice the multi-door gag, which is halfway between the ones in ‘The Mad Doctor‘ (1932) and ‘The Northwest Hounded Police‘ (1946).
Watch ‘Porky in Egypt’ yourself and tell me what you think:
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x43hhxr
This is Porky Pig cartoon no. 48
To the previous Porky Pig cartoon: Porky’s Naughty Nephew
To the next Porky Pig cartoon: The Daffy Doc
‘Porky in Egypt’ is available on the Blu-Ray set ‘Looney Tunes Platinum Collection: Volume 2’, and on the DVD-sets ‘Looney Tunes Golden Collection Volume Three’ and ‘Porky Pig 101’
Director: Bob Clampett
Release Date: September 24, 1938
Stars: Porky Pig
Rating: ★★★★★ ♕
Review:
In ‘darkest Africa’ lies Wackyland, a wacky land indeed, defying all logic and laws of nature.
The importance of ‘Porky in Wackyland’ can hardly be overstated. This classic cartoon reintroduced complete nonsense back into the cartoon world, after a virtual absence of about five years – and with a vengeance. Interestingly, in ‘Porky in Wackyland’ seems to build on some promising ideas of some Van Beuren cartoons that never really matured in that studio, most notably ‘Jungle Jazz‘ (1930), with its surreal African creatures, and ‘Pencil Mania‘ (1932), with its characters drawing things in mid air, like the Do-Do does in Clampett’s cartoon.
However, ‘Porky in Wackyland’ mostly is the product of an evolution at the Warner Bros. studio itself, which started in 1935, when Tex Avery arrived. Since then Avery, Frank Tashlin and Bob Clampett had already experienced with natural law-defying and dimension-breaking cartoon scenes, but in ‘Porky in Wackyland’ these are unleashed full throttle. Anti-realism starts immediately, when the newspaper boy enters the title card, but it goes totally bezerk in Wackyland. Indeed, a sign says (with voice over): “It CAN happen here!”. What follows is a string of totally surreal and loony scenes, like a rabbit swinging on his own ears, which somehow hang in empty air, or a dog-cat-hybrid attacking itself.
The scenes with the Do-Do are even more outlandish. The Do-Do is a.o. able to pull a giant brick wall out of nothing, to sit behind a window, which floats in empty space, and he even appears on the WB logo, which suddenly appears from the horizon with the sole reason to make the Do-Do knock out Porky. The list is endless, and most of the action has to be seen to be believed.
All this weirdness is greatly enhanced by Stalling’s intoxicating score, a multitude of strange sounds and voices, and outlandish background paintings, which are sometimes reminiscent of the work of George Herriman and Cliff Sterrett (there are three simultaneous moons in one scene), and sometimes completely abstract, like the one in the scene in which Porky meets the Do-Do. All this makes ‘Porky in Wackyland’ the most surreal cartoon since Max Fleischer’s ‘Snow-White‘ (1933). In fact, Porky in Wackyland is more surreal even than most cartoons following it, and stands in a league of its own. Even if Bob Clampett would not have made any other cartoon, he would have been glorified just for this masterpiece of genuine silliness and imagination.
‘Porky in Wackyland’ was remade in 1949 in color as ‘Dough for the Do-Do‘, but now with totally different backgrounds, connecting its surreal aspects to fine art surrealism, most obviously Salvador Dalí.
Watch ‘Porky in Wackyland’ yourself and tell me what you think:
https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x7gl2jc
This is Porky Pig cartoon no. 46
To the previous Porky Pig cartoon: Wholly Smoke
To the next Porky Pig cartoon: Porky’s Naughty Nephew
‘Porky’s Double Trouble’ is available on the Blu-Ray set ‘Looney Tunes Platinum Collection: Volume 2’, and on the DVD-sets ‘Looney Tunes Golden Collection Volume One’ and ‘Porky Pig 101’
Director: Dave Fleischer
Release Date: October 14, 1938
Stars: Betty Boop
Rating: ★★½
Review:
This short opens with Betty Boop looking for a singer to lead a swing band at the university ball.
Unfortunately, no one in the audition room qualifies. Luckily she discovers that the cleaning lady is a natural talent in swinging, ans she hires her on the spot.
In a smooth overlaying cut we are immediately transferred to the ball night. We watch Sally Swing performing her own theme music to intoxicating swing music for the remainder half of the film. Exit story, although during this swing part there’s some rudimentary story of an old professor who somehow doesn’t approve, but who’s caught by the swing music anyway.
The second half is joyous and captures the swing craze that had taken over America. But this section is hampered by lame gags, and ugly and old-fashioned animation, a problem the complete cartoon suffers from. It seems that Betty Boop had become the victim of the Fleischers’ move to Florida and the start of animation on their feature project, ‘Gulliver’s Travels‘. While for this project Fleischer attracted top animators, the lesser talents apparently had to work on Betty Boop cartoons. Even the animation on contemporary Popeye cartoons is much more flexible and inspired.
Even worse, Sally Swing is anything but an appealing character. In fact, she hasn’t got any character traits, at all. If the Fleischers had planned to make her their next star, this plan was doomed to fail, as stars devoid of character had become obsolete since ca. 1936. In any case, after this cartoon Sally Swing was never seen again.
For this short Betty Boop has been re-designed to look more human. Unfortunately, the restyling isn’t a success: she also looks a little more angular, less appealing, and if possible, less sexy than she already had become by the late 1930s. Nevertheless, Betty’s quite boring new design would stay up to her last cartoon.
Watch ‘Sally Swing’ yourself and tell me what you think:
This is Betty Boop cartoon No. 76
To the previous Betty Boop cartoon: Pudgy the Watchman
To the next Betty Boop cartoon: On with the New
‘Sally Swing’ is available on the French DVD Box Set ‘Betty Boop Coffret Collector’
Director: Friz Freleng
Release Date: February 11, 1939
Stars: The Captain and the Kids
Rating: ★★★
Review:
‘Mama’s New Hat’ was the last entry of MGM’s ill-conceived ‘Captain and the Kids’ series, which ended prematurely after only fifteen cartoons, lasting only one year.
Surprisingly, it’s the series’ best entry, as for once the studio has tried to make a genuine gag cartoon.
The short opens with the two brats buying a new hat for their mother for mother’s day. Unfortunately they ruin it immediately by falling into the mud. So they exchange their muddy hat for one of a neighboring horse. The horse is not pleased, however, and tries to steal the hat back from Ma Katzenjammer. This leads to a long chase scene, making ‘Mama’s New Hat’ one of the earliest entries in a genre that would become standard in the 1940s and 1950s.
The short suffers from inner logic, but it builds up nicely to a grand finale, and it’s surprisingly full of inventive gags, the one in which the horse turns into a plane as a highlight. This is imaginative storytelling at its best.
‘Mama’s New Hat’ still is no masterpiece, but it’s better than all the other ‘Captain and the Kids’ cartoons, and the only one looking forward. It shows that the young studio’s team was capable of more. Friz Freleng, of course, would further prove his worth back at Warner Bros., the others only came into their own with the arrival of MGM stars ‘Tom and Jerry’, who made their debut two years later.
‘Mama’s New Hat’ contains a scene in which we watch a supposed pursuit in a large house from the outside (using a moving pan with a lot of sound effects). This gag was reused much later in the Tom & Jerry short ‘The Flying Cat‘ (1952).
Watch ‘Mama’s New Hat’ yourself and tell me what you think:
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x1z9pb2
‘Mama’s New Hat’ is available on the DVD-set ‘Looney Tunes Golden Collection Volume Six’
Director: Friz Freleng
Release Date: January 28, 1939
Stars: The Captain and the Kids
Rating: ★
Review:
In ‘Seal Skinners’ a million dollar seal has escaped and a ten thousand dollar reward has been promised to anyone who can bring him back.
Somehow, both the captain and the kids, his arch rival Long John Silver and an unknown Eskimo are at the North Pole, waiting for the escaped animal. At one point Long John Silver dresses as a seal himself. When the captain and the kids discover the scam, they roll him into a barrel and shake him like a cocktail. This is arguably the best gag in an otherwise remarkably unfunny cartoon, which ends with no conclusion.
‘Seal Skinners’ features some excellent animation, and Scott Bradley’s score is pretty inspired, but these aspects cannot save the cartoon, which suffers from lack of inner logic, and an absence of appealing characters.
Watch ‘Seal Skinners’ yourself and tell me what you think:
‘Seal Skinners’ is available on the DVD-set ‘Looney Tunes Golden Collection Volume Six’
Director: Friz Freleng
Release Date: June 25, 1938
Stars: The Captain and the Kids
Rating: ★
Review:
‘A Day at the Beach’ features the complete Katzenjammer family frolicking at the beach.
The film lacks any story, and consists of an unrelated string of repetitive gags whose only reason of existence seems to demonstrate that one can milk a gag to nausea. For example, there’s almost endless footage of the captain battling with a jumpy sun for some shade, and there’s a running ‘gag’ of the ocean destroying grandpa’s der inspector’s sand castle.
Only when Ma almost drowns, the cartoon gains something of a momentum. The film’s best feature, however, is it depiction of drunken sea creatures, a very small highlight in an otherwise endlessly boring film.
Watch ‘A Day at the Beach’ yourself and tell me what you think:
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xvqhqi
‘A Day at the Beach’ is available on the DVD-set ‘Looney Tunes Golden Collection Volume Six’
Director: Friz Freleng
Release Date: April 16, 1938
Stars: The Captain and the Kids
Rating: ★★
Review:
In 1937 MGM decided to start its very own studio, after having distributed cartoons by Ub Iwerks (1930-1934) and Harman-Ising. They put Fred Quimby, a producer famous for having neither animation experience nor any sense of humor, in charge.
Quimby hired virtually Harman & Ising’s complete staff away. He also hired some talent from other studios, most notably Jack Zander and Joe Barbera, who would later work on Tom & Jerry, and Friz Freleng. Quimby lured Freleng away from Leon Schlesinger by flattery and by offering him a much larger salary. Freleng stayed less than a year at MGM before happily returning to Warner Bros.
Freleng’s talents were wasted on ‘The Captain and the Kids’, a series based on the classic comic strip of the same name by Rudolph Dirks. MGM had bought the rights to this comic strip, and insisted to make a series out of them. The strip had been around since 1897 (first as ‘The Katzenjammer Kids’), and really felt as coming from another era. Amidst the days of Donald Duck, Daffy Duck and Popeye, these characters were hopelessly old-fashioned, and Freleng struggled to create any fun with them. Consequently, none of the Captain and the Kids cartoons have become classics.
Nevertheless, Freleng’s films were still better than that of other people directing the ill-conceived series, which was, in the end, a failure. In total, Freleng directed six Captain and the Kids cartoons, and one stand-alone cartoon called ‘The Bookworm’, before returning to the greener pastures of the Leon Schlesinger studio.
Of Freleng’s Captain and the Kids cartoons, ‘Poultry Pirates’ is the first. It stars the captain, only, who tries to keep a bunch of chickens and ducks out of his vegetable garden, to no avail. At one point he has to fight a six feet tall rooster, but that happens to be part of a dream.
There’s very little to enjoy in ‘Poultry Pirates’. The animators do no attempts to lip synch, neither the captain nor the chicks gain and sympathy, the story drags on, and the result is frustratingly unfunny.
Watch ‘Poultry Pirates’ yourself and tell me what you think:
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xvqhud
‘Poultry Pirates’ is available on the DVD-set ‘Looney Tunes Golden Collection Volume Six’
Director: Elmer Perkins
Release Date: October 5, 1938
Rating: ★★★½
Review:
‘Hollywood Bowl’ merges two genres that had become quite popular by the late 1930s: the concert cartoon and the Hollywood caricature cartoon. The result is pretty uneven, but nonetheless, ‘Hollywood Bowl’ is one of the most original cartoons to sprout from the Walter Lantz studio.
The short opens with a gala night at the Hollywood Bowl, with several famous stars in the crowd, e.g. Edward G. Robinson, Hugh Herbert, Greta Garbo, Groucho Marx, Clark Cable, Charles Laughton, Ned Sparks, Bing Crosby, W.C. Fields, and Charlie.
Leopold Stokowski is the conductor, conducting Franz Schubert’s unfinished symphony with the help of a few gloves. This leads to a great and very imaginative scene, in which we watch ghostly images of the gloves playing instruments on a black screen, and Stokowski casting a huge shadow on the bowl, which changes into a greyhound, which changes into a swallow. At that point this poetic part cuts back to the Hollywood caricatures.
As Schubert has left the symphony unfinished (quite literally), it’s up to the stars to finish it, Hollywood style, which means that radio star Ben Bernie starts conducting a swinging tune, with help of Fats Waller, Rudy Vallee, Benny Goodman, Fred Astaire, Jack Benny and Cab Calloway. This part reuses a lot of animation, and is a not too convincing end to the cartoon.
‘Hollywood Bowl’ is a very interesting entry in Walter Lantz’s oeuvre, but it’s harmed by a lack of story, rather bad voice imitations and at times sloppy animation. Nevertheless, the Schubert sequence is no less than marvelous, and the cartoon’s opening is greatly helped by Frank Churchill’s inspired score, which is simply packed with countless classical tunes. Notice that some of the backgrounds use photographic material, a very rare feat in classic cartoons.
Watch ‘Hollywood Bowl’ yourself and tell me what you think:
‘Hollywood Bowl’ is available on the DVD-set ‘The Woody Woodpecker and Friends Classic Cartoon Collection’
Director: Frank Tashlin
Release Date: June 4, 1938
Stars: Porky Pig
Rating: ★★★★
Review:
‘Porky the Fireman’ is a delightful entry in the fire fighting canon, able to compete with great entries like Disney’s ‘The Fire Fighters‘ (1930) and ‘Mickey’s Fire Brigade‘ (1935).
The short wastes no time, and immediately plunges into action when the fire brigade rushes to the burning building, in a great perspective shot featuring animated backgrounds. These animated backgrounds are an example of some remarkably Fleischer-like gags typical for this cartoon.
Porky does his best, but the best laughs go to an extraordinarily phlegmatic dog who, when Porky yells to him to open the fire hydrant walks a great distance on a leisurely speed only to ask our hero ‘what’d you say?’.
The cartoon ends in a typical Tashlin-montage, placing several earlier scenes on top of each other to create an effect of chaos. Despite Porky’s attempts, the complete building burns down, and one flame has the last laugh.
Watch ‘Porky the Fireman’ yourself and tell me what you think:
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x430j8t
This is Porky Pig cartoon no. 41
To the previous Porky Pig cartoon: Injun Trouble
To the next Porky Pig cartoon: Porky’s Party
‘Porky the Fireman’ is available on the DVD-set ‘Looney Tunes Golden Collection: Volume 4’ and ‘Porky Pig 101’
Director: Norman McLaren
Release Date: 1938
Rating: ★★★½
Review:
‘Mony a Pickle’ is a compilation film for the British ‘General Post Office’, made by several directors. In his contribution Norman McLaren turns to his homeland Scotland to tell a story about a poor young couple, still living with their family, but dreaming of a place of their own.
The dream sequence transforms the poor and crowded living room into a new stylish one, and uses a lot of stop motion of furniture. There’s a humorous sequence in which the two lovers argue about the legs of a table, which change back and forth for our very eyes. Unfortunately, in the end a little brother scatters all their dreams and puts them back into reality again.
‘Mony a Pickle’ is a nice blend of live action and stop-motion. The stop motion sequences in a long tradition of furniture animation, which started with Stuart J. Blackton’s ‘The Haunted Hotel’ (1908). McLaren’s animation is not too remarkable, but effective, and completely in service of the story.
‘Mony a Pickle’ is available on the DVD-box set ‘Norman McLaren – The Master’s Edition’
Director: Dave Fleischer
Release Date: August 19, 1938
Stars: Popeye, Olive Oyl
Rating: ★★½
Review:
In ‘Bulldozing the Bull’ we suddenly find Popeye in either Mexico or Spain, fancying a latin version of Olive Oyl.
Popeye follows the Spanish Olive into the arena, but is suddenly forced to fight the bull himself, something he already had done in his third cartoon ‘I Eats My Spinach‘ (1933).
In that cartoon Popeye beat the bull into a meat market, but five years later he refuses to fight the bull, because it’s inhuman to do so. Indeed, the cartoon clearly turns anti-bullfighting, and in the end Popeye sings ‘Don’t be a bullfighter, because kindness is righter’ to his own tune.
This is all a clear result of the role model Popeye had become over the years. Indeed, already in Segar’s Sunday Pages, Popeye had been promoting kindness to animals and other gentle behavior. It’s this original mix of kindness and violence that made Popeye such a wonderful comic character, and in this film the Fleischers play that combination to an excellent effect.
Watch ‘Bulldozing the Bull’ yourself and tell me what you think:
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x5v5ip6
This Popeye film No. 63
To the previous Popeye film: The Jeep
To the next Popeye film: Mutiny Ain’t Nice
‘Bulldozing the Bull’ is available on the DVD-set ‘Popeye the Sailor Volume Two’
Director: Dave Fleischer
Release Date: May 29, 1938
Stars: Popeye, Olive Oyl
Rating: ★★★½
Review:
‘I Yam Love Sick’ opens with Olive Oyl reading a romance.
Popeye drops by, but Olive ignores him completely. Later she explains she has a new boyfriend now, Bluto. To win her back, Popeye feigns to fall very ill. This leads to a bizarre, and rather surreal series of hospital scenes, in which weird bearded doctors try to examine Popeye. In the end Popeye reveals he was only fooling, only to get clobbered by Olive.
‘I Yam Love Sick’ is full of delightful nonsense. The best gag is when Olive steps out of the panel to address the audience with an ‘is there a doctor in the house?’.
Watch ‘I Yam Love Sick’ yourself and tell me what you think:
This Popeye film No. 60
To the previous Popeye film: Big Chief Ugh-Amugh-Ugh
To the next Popeye film: Plumbing is a “Pipe”
‘I Yam Love Sick’ is available on the DVD-set ‘Popeye the Sailor Volume Two’
Director: Frank Tashlin
Release Date: August 27, 1938
Stars: Porky Pig
Rating: ★★
Review:
In ‘Wholly Smoke’ Porky Pig is still clearly a little boy.
We see his ma, and we watch him walking to Sunday school. On his way to school Porky encounters a street urchin smoking a cigar. The rascal challenges Porky to smoke like him, but, of course, Porky only gets sick, and in a state of delirium he walks into a tobacco shop.
There a ghostly figure called Nick O’Teen starts a song on the tune of ‘Mysterious Mose‘, which tells us that children shouldn’t smoke. This part of the cartoon is much in the vain of Warner Bros. typical books-come-to-life cartoons (e.g. the contemporary ‘Have You Got any Castles?‘), and features caricatures of the three Stooges, Bing Crosby, Rudy Vallee and Cab Calloway. In the end of this morality tale, Porky rushes back to Sunday school.
‘Wholly Smoke’ is a clear showcase of Tashlin’s excellent direction skills, with its interesting camera angles, speedy cuts, and special effects when Porky gets sick. Nevertheless, the short’s obvious moral, its saccharine ending, and the lack of gags makes it one of the more boring Warner Bros. cartoons, even though one couldn’t agree more with the short’s message.
Watch the colorized version of ‘Wholly Smoke’ yourself and tell me what you think:
This is Porky Pig cartoon no. 45
To the previous Porky Pig cartoon: Porky and Daffy
To the next Porky Pig cartoon: Porky in Wackyland
‘Wholly Smoke’ is available on the DVD-sets ‘Looney Tunes Golden Collection Volume Five’ and ‘Porky Pig 101’
Director: Frank Tashlin
Release Date: February 5, 1938
Stars: Porky Pig
Rating: ★★★½
Review:
‘Porky at the Crocadero’ starts with Porky showing his swing diploma and dreaming of becoming a famous conductor, like Leopold Stokowski, Rudy Vallee and Benny Goodman. Porky illustrates this by imitating these three bandleaders.
In order to reach his goal, Porky starts as a dishwasher at the Crocadero nightclub (an obvious take on the famous Trocadero in Hollywood). Unfortunately, Porky is fired quickly.
However, when none of the bandleaders show up, the walrus owner gives Porky a chance. Porky does an imitation of Paul Whiteman, of Guy Lombardo and of Cab Calloway, giving a particularly intoxicating performance by imitating the latter.
The complete cartoon is full of nice swing music and Tashlin’s lightning speed cutting. But there’s also room for a running gag featuring a penguin waiter, whose beers are stolen by a trombone player. In another particularly silly gag the walrus freezes only to tell the audience ‘schnell means quick’. The best scene, however, involves a very silly telegram delivery man.
Watch ‘Porky at the Crocadero’ yourself and tell me what you think:
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x4ttl3l
This is Porky Pig cartoon no. 35
To the previous Porky Pig cartoon: Porky’s Poppa
To the next Porky Pig cartoon: What Price Porky
‘Porky’s Double Trouble’ is available on the DVD-sets ‘Looney Tunes Golden Collection Volume Five’ and ‘Porky Pig 101’
Director: Bob Clampett
Release Date: January 15, 1938
Stars: Porky Pig
Rating: ★★★★
Review:
‘Porky’s Poppa’ starts with a close harmony group singing a variation on ‘Old MacDonald had a Farm’, ‘Porky’s Poppa has a farm’.
On his farm Poppa also has a mortgage, and his prize cow, Bessie, is ill. So he orders a mechanical cow. Porky, however, revives Bessie, and makes her compete against the mechanical cow.
For his cartoons Clampett had redesigned Porky Pig, making him more boyish and more appealing than he was in Freleng’s, Avery’s and Tashlin’s shorts. Porky is still a child character in this cartoon, but the cartoon humor is not. Despite the sentimental Great Depression theme, this cartoon is delightfully silly and nonsensical.
‘Porky’s Poppa’ is only director Bob Clampett’s fifth film, and the short simply bursts with energy. The cartoon already shows what Clampett had in store for the world: nonsensical gags, zany animation and sheer fun.
Watch ‘Porky’s Poppa’ yourself and tell me what you think:
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x51lt3j
This is Porky Pig cartoon no. 34
To the previous Porky Pig cartoon: Porky’s Hero Agency
To the next Porky Pig cartoon: Porky at the Crocadero
‘Porky’s Double Trouble’ is available on the DVD-sets ‘Looney Tunes Golden Collection Volume Five’ and ‘Porky Pig 101’
Director: Frank Tashlin
Release Date: November 13, 1937
Stars: Porky Pig, Petunia Pig
Rating: ★★★½
Review:
‘Porky’s Double Trouble’ is a comical crime cartoon, in which Tashlin plays the classic doppelgänger motif with gusto.
The short starts immediately with a shadow creeping behind the titles, followed by a great cinematic opening, setting the premise of the story: a dangerous killer has escaped Alcarazz prison. When the killer reads the newspaper, he discovers he looks just like the new bank teller of the Worst National Bank: Porky Pig.
The killer kidnaps Porky, and kisses Porky’s colleague, Petunia. She rings the alarm, and the police soon finds both Porky and the convict, who both claim to be Porky. However, Petunia identifies the right one immediately, and yet she runs off with the killer, exclaiming: ‘Boy, can he kiss!’.
‘Porky’s Double Trouble’ plays nicely with the immature Porky and his doomed relationship with Petunia Pig. However, the short’s opening scenes are the most impressive aspect of the cartoon. In these Tashlin unleashes many cinematic devices to create an exciting atmosphere.
Watch ‘Porky’s Double Trouble’ yourself and tell me what you think:
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x430jlr
This is Porky Pig cartoon no. 32
To the previous Porky Pig cartoon: The Case of the Stuttering Pig
To the next Porky Pig cartoon: Porky’s Hero Agency
‘Porky’s Double Trouble’ is available on the DVD-sets ‘Looney Tunes Golden Collection Volume Five’ and ‘Porky Pig 101’
Director: Dave Fleischer
Release Date: August 12, 1938
Stars: Betty Boop, Pudgy
Rating: ★
Review:
‘Pudgy the Watchman’ opens with an alley cat driving a mouse-like car in a beautiful 3D landscape, conceived with Max Fleischer’s unique tabletop technique.
This cat, called Al E. Katz, stops at Betty Boop’s house, and tricks Betty to hire him as a ‘mouse eradicator’ by using a toy mouse. Meanwhile we watch Pudgy playing with the little critters in the cellar. The cat disturbs this peaceful scene by catching the mice in no time and playing darts using them. But one escapes and sets them all free, while the cat gets drunk from Betty’s wine cellar. With help from Pudgy the mice chase the cat out of the house.
‘Pudgy the Watchman’ has a straightforward story, but that’s the best one can say about this cartoon. The makers forgot to provide it with anything resembling a gag. The result is an utterly forgettable cartoon, and certainly one of the most boring entries even in Pudgy’s already mediocre catalog.
Watch ‘Pudgy the Watchman’ yourself and tell me what you think:
This is Betty Boop cartoon No. 75
To the previous Betty Boop cartoon: The Swing School
To the next Betty Boop cartoon: Sally Swing
‘Pudgy the Watchman’ is available on the Blu-Ray ‘Betty Boop: The Essential Collection, Vol. 4’ and the French DVD Box Set ‘Betty Boop Coffret Collector’
Dr. Grob's Animation Review 