Hare Trigger

December 28, 2015 in ★★★★½, Bugs Bunny, Merrie Melodies, Warner Bros. films | Tags: , , , , , | Leave a comment

Director: Friz Freleng
Release Date: April 21, 1945
Stars: Bugs Bunny, Yosemite Sam
Rating: ★★★★½
Review:

Hare Trigger © Warner Bros.‘Hare Trigger’ introduces that tiny yet explosive adversary to Bugs Bunny, Yosemite Sam.

His introduction music is Franz Schubert’s Erlkönig, and train robbery is his profession. However, on the train he encounters Bugs, who gives the short-tempered bandit a hard time.

The cartoon contains a shot of an über-cool Bugs rolling a cigarette, a gag repeated and improved on in ‘Bugs Bunny Rides Again‘ (1948). The short  also contains live action footage in the ‘club bar’ wagon.  The gun drawing scene is a highlight, as is Yosemite Sam’s death scene, which bugs invokes with ketchup. The cartoon ends brilliantly with a tongue-in-cheek cliffhanger.

According to Freleng he needed a stronger adversary to Bugs than Elmer Fudd ever was, and Yosemite Sam perfectly fitted the job. He was a delightful opponent to Bugs Bunny, and he became Friz Freleng’s favorite bad guy, lasting until 1964, and starring 31 cartoons in total, nearly all with Bugs Bunny. Perhaps Freleng was so fond of the character because he was partly based on Freleng himself.

In any case, he soon took Sam out of his Western origin, making him a.o. a pirate (‘Buccaneer Bunny‘, 1948), a foreign soldier (‘Bunker Hill Bunny‘, 1950) and a sheik (‘Sahara Hare’, 1955). Free from his Western origins Yosemite Sam could be Bugs Bunny in every country and every period of time, and in this respect he anticipates the Little Guy, the Pink Panther’s adversary, who also sprouted from Friz Freleng’s imagination.

Watch ‘Hare Trigger’ yourself and tell me what you think:

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x2fbv22

This is Bugs Bunny cartoon No. 32
To the previous Bugs Bunny cartoon: Unruly Hare
To the next Bugs Bunny cartoon: Hare Conditioned

 

To Duck or not to Duck

December 25, 2015 in ★★★½, Daffy Duck, Looney Tunes, Warner Bros. films | Tags: , , , , , | Leave a comment

Director: Chuck Jones
Release Date: January 9, 1943
Stars: Daffy Duck, Elmer Fudd
Rating: ★★★½
Review:

To Duck or not to Duck © Warner Bros.In ‘To Duck or not to Duck’ Elmer Fudd shoots Daffy out of the sky. The duck then challenges the ‘sportsman’ for a boxing match, something which takes place immediately for a crowd of ducks. Needless to say, the match is far from fair.

‘To Duck or not to Duck’ is the first Warner Bros. cartoon to star both Daffy and Elmer. The poor hunter is good fowl for the foul-playing duck and his brethren. When Elmer gets his revenge in the end, we’re almost surprised.

The cartoon knows some good gags, but Jones’s timing is still sloppy, and not every gag hits the screen well. Highlight may be Daffy’s ridiculously haughty humphing at Elmer Fudd’s apology for shooting him.

Note the surprisingly empty backgrounds in this cartoon.

Watch ‘To Duck or not to Duck’ yourself and tell me what you think:

This is Daffy Duck cartoon No. 17
To the previous Daffy Duck cartoon: My Favorite Duck
To the next Daffy Duck cartoon: The Wise Quacking Duck

‘My Favorite Duck’ is available on the DVD-set ‘Looney Tunes Golden Collection Volume Six’

My Favorite Duck

December 23, 2015 in ★★★★, Daffy Duck, Looney Tunes, Porky Pig, Warner Bros. films | Tags: , , , , , | Leave a comment

Director: Chuck Jones
Release Date: December 5, 1942
Stars: Daffy Duck, Porky Pig
Rating: ★★★★
Review:

My Favorite Duck © Warner Bros.‘My Favorite Duck’ is Chuck Jones’s third try on Daffy Duck (after ‘Daffy Duck and the Dinosaur‘ from 1939 and ‘Conrad the Sailor‘ from 1942), and his first cartoon starring both Daffy and Porky Pig.

In this cartoon he finally manages to get grip of Daffy’s wacky character: Daffy’s antics are not only annoying, they’re also funny, and well-timed, and Porky is much more sympathetic victim to his antics than Caspar Caveman and Conrad ever were.

When Porky goes camping, the duck nags him, protected by the law which forbids Porky to harm any duck. Nonetheless, in the end, the tables are turned and Porky has his revenge. However, at that point the film breaks, and Daffy tells us ‘what happened’, or does he?

The film break gag first appeared in Max Fleischer’s Popeye cartoon ‘Goonland‘. Six years later Jones reused this wonderful film break gag in ‘Rabbit Punch‘ (1948).

Like in other Chuck Jones cartoons from this era, the beautifully stylized backgrounds are a highlight on their own.

Watch ‘My Favorite Duck’ yourself and tell me what you think:

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xzm9wc_daffy-duck-my-favorite-duck-video_shortfilms

This is Porky Pig cartoon no. 98
To the previous Porky Pig cartoon: Porky’s Cafe
To the next Porky Pig cartoon: Confusions of a Nutzy Spy

This is Daffy Duck cartoon No. 16
To the previous Daffy Duck cartoon: The Daffy Duckaroo
To the next Daffy Duck cartoon: To Duck or Not to Duck

‘My Favorite Duck’ is available on the DVD-set ‘Looney Tunes Golden Collection Volume Six’

Das musikalische Auto (The Musical Car)

December 21, 2015 in ★★, European films, Netherlands, Toonder Studios | Tags: , , , | Leave a comment

Director: Henk Kabos
Release Date: 1943
Rating: ★★
Review:

Das musikalische Auto © Toonder studio's‘Das musikalische Auto’ is a Toonder studio film commissioned by Nazi Germany.

It’s a strange little tale of a man who ‘improves’ an old car into a musical instrument. He tours around the countryside, until his car crashes against a tree.

The soundtrack of this film has been lost, so we don’t know how the musical car sounds, but the film feels uninspired: the story lacks any logic, and the animation is primitive and raw. It contains some elements both 1930s Fleischer and Disney, without reaching either peaks.

In his autobiography Marten Toonder states that the idea of this cartoon had its origins in the German UFA studio, who wanted a story on a tumble toy. Toonder soon gave the tumble toy arms and legs, but he and his studio only halfheartedly worked on this ill-conceived idea, and it shows. Nevertheless, some of the designs are quite charming: the backgrounds have an unmistakable Toonder-touch, and the animals in the cartoon do look good.

‘Das musikalische Auto’ is available on the DVD inside the Dutch book ‘De Toonder Animatiefilms’

Phi-garo in het woud (Phi-garo in the woods)

December 18, 2015 in ★★★, Black and White Films, European films, Netherlands, Stop motion films, Toonder Studios | Tags: , , , , , , | 2 comments

Director: Joop Geesink?
Release Date: 1943
Rating: ★★★
Review:

Phi-garo in het woud © Toonder Studio's‘Serenata nocturna‘, Marten Toonder’s and Joop Geesink’s first stop motion film, did raise interest of Philips, and the Dutch electronics company commissioned another short to advertise the Philishave, an electronic razor. This resulted in ‘Phi-garo in het woud’.

in ‘Phi-garo in het woud’ a bearded gnome tries to impress a female elf, but she rejects him. The gnome gets a shave at the local barber, but the elf still rejects him. Then a witch shows him the Philips Philishave, which does the trick.

‘Phi-Garo in het woud’ is less entertaining than ‘Serenata nocturna’, its story less logical, and its designs more generic than in the earlier cartoon. The animation, however, is a little more assured. More commissions were now to follow.

Watch ‘Phi-garo in het woud’ yourself and tell me what you think:

‘Phi-garo in het woud’ is available on the DVD inside the Dutch book ‘De Toonder Animatiefilms’

Serenata nocturna

December 16, 2015 in ★★★★, Black and White Films, European films, Netherlands, Stop motion films, Toonder Studios | Tags: , , , , , , | 3 comments

Director: Joop Geesink
Production Date: September 1942
Rating: ★★★★
Review:

Serenata nocturna © Toonder studio's‘Serenata nocturna’ is the first collaboration between two Dutch animation film pioneers, Marten Toonder and Joop Geesink.

The collaboration results in a charming little advertising film about a Mexican who tries to serenade his love, to no avail. He tries several instruments, without success. But then he magically produces a Philips Radio, and finally his love is impressed.

The puppet animation in this short is very reminiscent of that of George Pal, the Hungarian animator, who had an important puppet film studio in Eindhoven in the late 1930s, and who had made several films for Dutch electronics company Philips himself. Pal, however, had exchanged The Netherlands for the United Kingdom, and finally emigrated to the United States in December 1939, leaving The Netherlands without any animation studio of importance. Now, Toonder and Geesink tried to fill this gap. Perhaps, Philips would be interested to commission films from them.

However, the inexperience of both animators shows: the animation still looks primitive, with a lot of excessive movement. The short’s story, however, is funny and still entertaining today. Indeed, Philips saw potential, and would become an important commissioner to both film makers.

Toonder would soon abandon stop motion, but Geesink would continue in the field, creating one of the most successful stop motion animation studios of the post-war era.

Watch ‘Serenata nocturna’ yourself and tell me what you think:

‘Serenata nocturna’ is available on the DVD inside the Dutch book ‘De Toonder Animatiefilms’

The Heckling Hare

December 14, 2015 in ★★★★★, Bugs Bunny, Merrie Melodies, Warner Bros. films | Tags: , , , , , , | 3 comments

Director: Tex Avery
Release Date: July 5, 1941
Stars: Bugs Bunny, Willoughby
Rating: ★★★★★
Review:

The Heckling Hare © Warner Bros.The dumb dog Willoughby was a minor Warner Brothers character, created by Tex Avery, and starring a few cartoons in the early 1940s.

The dog kept changing names, and that’s probably one of the reasons he never got famous. ‘The Heckling Hare’ was his third cartoon, and in it he remains nameless. Tex Avery puts him against his much more famous creation, Bugs Bunny. Penned by Michael Maltese, the result is an inspired cartoon, full of gags.

Willoughby swaps places with Elmer Fudd in hunting rabbits. He’s of course no more successful than Elmer, and Bugs tricks him a lot. The best scene is when Bugs makes the dumb dog making faces, while he puts forward a sign to the audience reading “Silly, isn’t he?”.

However, the cartoon is most famous for its finale: for it ends with a lengthy fall from a cliff by both characters. This scene is obviously cut short in the final version. Producer Leon Schlesinger didn’t like the original ending, which apparently involved no less than two other falls, and ordered the cut. Rumors have it that this was the reason for Tex Avery to leave Warner Bros. This isn’t true. Tex Avery wanted to do a series combining live action animals with animated mouths. Schlesinger wasn’t interested, so Avery ended up doing this series, Christened ‘Speaking of the Animals’ at Paramount. However, this was not a success, and by September 1941 Avery was making cartoons again, now at MGM, where he would direct his greatest shorts.

In his book ‘Chuck Amuck’ Chuck Jones argues that ‘The Heckling Hare’ was the cartoon that re-established Bugs Bunny’s character, after three somewhat misguided cartoons by himself, Tex Avery and Friz Freleng. Bugs Bunny certainly is much more himself and in any of the previous cartoons. In any case, he would meet Willoughby again in the dog’s very last cartoon, ‘Hare Force’ (1944), directed by Friz Freleng, in which the dog is called ‘Sylvester’.

Watch ‘The Heckling Hare’ yourself and tell me what you think:

https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x612jad

This is Bugs Bunny cartoon No. 5
To the previous Bugs Bunny cartoon: Hiawatha’s Rabbit Hunt
To the next Bugs Bunny cartoon: All This and Rabbit Stew

Japoteurs

December 11, 2015 in ★★★, Famous Studio films, Superman | Tags: , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Director: Seymour Kneitel
Release Date: September 18, 1942
Stars: Superman
Rating: ★★★
Review:

Japoteurs © ParamountNo sooner were the Fleischer brothers removed from their own studio, or their stars Superman and Popeye were fully put to the war effort.

No other American cartoon stars featured in as many propaganda shorts fighting the foe. Superman stars in five, of which ‘Japoteurs’ is the first.

In this entry three Japanese spies try to steal the world’s largest bomber on its test flight. Of course, Lois flies along, and both she and the plane have to be rescued by Superman.

‘Japoteurs’ is an unfortunate cartoon, which adds to the idea of a fifth column of Japanese within The United States, making every Japanese person suspicious. Indeed, due to this type of paranoia, during the war no less than 110,000 Japanese Americans, including women and children, were put into internment camps.

This is Superman film No. 10
To the previous Superman film: Terror on the Midway
To the next Superman film: Showdown

Flying Jalopy

December 9, 2015 in ★★★½, Donald Duck, Walt Disney films | Tags: , , , , , , | 2 comments

Director: Dick Lundy
Release Date: March 12, 1943
Stars: Donald Duck
Rating: ★★★½
Review:

Flying Jalopy © Walt DisneyDonald Duck is looking for a plane at ‘Ben Buzzard’s (crashed) used planes’.

Ben Buzzard sells a ramshackle plane to Donald and makes him signing a swindling contract in which an insurance company will pay the swindler $10,000,- in case of an accident. The buzzard then tries to make Donald crash.

Unfortunately, the comedy doesn’t quite work. First, because it’s hard to believe that the anthropomorphized buzzard can fly on his own, while the equally anthropomorphized Donald cannot. Second, Ben Buzzard’s attacks become more open and open, but at no point it’s made clear whether Donald realizes why he’s being attacked.

‘Flying Jalopy ‘was the last cartoon Dick Lundy directed at Disney. In October 1943 he left Disney to become an animator and director at Walter Lantz, where he directed several Woody Woodpecker shorts, including ‘Wet Blanket Policy‘, which uses the same idea, but with way better results, resulting in a far more hilarious cartoon. It even uses the same buzzard character, but Lantz’s Buzz Buzzard would become way more famous than Ben Buzzard ever was.

Watch ‘Flying Jalopy’ yourself and tell me what you think:

This is Donald Duck cartoon No. 40
To the previous Donald Duck cartoon: Donald’s Tire Trouble
To the next Donald Duck cartoon: Fall out – Fall in

Donald’s Gold Mine

December 7, 2015 in ★★★, Donald Duck, Walt Disney films | Tags: , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Director: Dick Lundy
Release Date: July 24, 1942
Stars: Donald Duck
Rating: ★★★
Review:

Donald's Gold Mine © Walt DisneyDonald is a gold miner, who has to deal with a donkey again (see ‘The Village Smithy‘ from the same year) and a gigantic and nonsensical ore processing machine.

Like contemporary Donald Duck cartoons directed by Dick Lundy, like ‘The Village Smithy’ and ‘Donald’s Garden‘ the cartoon is filled with situation comedy only. This type of comedy reaches its apex in an almost endless scene of Donald being stuck into the head of a pickaxe. Granted, the number of ways Donald can get stuck in it is impressive, but there’s a strong sense of milking the gag, and the result is more tiresome than funny.

Watch ‘Donald’s Gold Mine’ yourself and tell me what you think:

This is Donald Duck cartoon No. 34
To the previous Donald Duck cartoon: Donald’s Garden
To the next Donald Duck cartoon: The Vanishing Private

Saludos Amigos

December 4, 2015 in ★★★★, Disney Features, Feature films, Walt Disney films | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Directors: Bill Roberts, Jack Kinney, Hamilton Luske & Wilfred Jackson
Release Date: August 24, 1942
Stars: Donald Duck, Goofy, Joe Carioca
Rating: ★★★★
Review:

Saludos Amigos © Walt Disney‘Saludos Amigos’ was the first result of a two-month trip to South America Walt Disney made with eighteen people from his staff, including animator Norm Ferguson and designers Mary and Lee Blair.

This trip was financed by the Coordinator of Inter-American affairs, and ‘Saludos Amigos’ feels like an advertisement for South America. It’s the first of several ‘package films’ Disney made in the 1940s, and like its followers, it is uneven. There is not much of a story, just a live action travelogue across Bolivia, Chile, Argentine, and Brazil. In between there are four cartoon sequences: Donald Duck as a tourist at Lake Titicaca, the story of Pedro the airplane, Goofy as a Gaucho and a samba sequence featuring Donald and a new character, Joe Carioca.

Donald’s antics at Lake Titicaca are only mildly funny, until its finale, the suspension bridge scene, which evokes a genuine sense of heights. Pedro the airplane is a children’s story using a narrator. It’s probably the first animation film starring a humanized vehicle, and very successful at that. Pedro is well-designed, being both a plane and a likable little boy. His story reaches an exciting climax when Pedro gets caught in a storm near Aconcagua. ‘Goofy as a gaucho’ is a nice follow-up to ‘How to ride a horse’ from ‘The Reluctant Dragon‘ (1941), with Goofy acting as an Argentine gaucho. This sequence is based on the art of Argentine painter Florencio Molina Campos (1891-1959), without being as gritty. The result is both educational and funny.

However, the real highlight of the film is its finale, in which Donald meets the Brazilian parrot Joe Carioca. Both dance to a samba, following a background which is created ‘on the spot’ by a brush. This sequence is alive with creativity, seemingly introducing a new era of more stylized images and brighter colors, which would dominate the 1940s and 1950s.

Joe Carioca was such an intoxicating character, he was returned to the screen, where he would reunite with Donald in ‘The Three Caballeros‘ (1944) and ‘Melody Time‘ (1948), in still more stylized and colorful scenes.

Watch an excerpt from ‘Saludos Amigos’ yourself and tell me what you think:

Stop That Tank!

December 2, 2015 in ★★½, Commercial films, Walt Disney films | Tags: , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Director: Ub Iwerks
Release Date: 1942
Rating: ★★½
Review:

Stop That Tank © Walt Disney‘Stop That Tank!’ was the first commission that resulted from the showing of the pilot instruction film ‘Four Methods of Flush Riveting‘. In that respect it was Disney’s very first commissioned animated instruction film.

The film was made for the Canadian army to show the working of the Boys MK-1 anti-tank rifle. Unlike ‘Four Methods of Flush Riveting’ it features full animation and humor, as well as live action sequences, to educate the soldiers. Most of the film consists of (very boring) instructions, but the film starts very nicely with the full animation sequence of a squad of rattling tanks led by a caricature of Adolf Hitler, jabbering in mock-German, being shot to hell by Tommies and their anti-tank-rifles. In hell we watch Hitler raging in distress. The devil explains to us that Hitler says that “against your anti-tank rifles he simply can’t win”.

During the instruction film which follows we still have four incidents of full animation: three involving a goofy soldier, who 1) tries to carry an anti-tank rifle on his own, 2) opens the magazine the wrong way and 3) goes to bed with his gun, the film’s last shot. The fourth incident is that of a cow being shot instead of a tank.

No doubt these four comic reliefs were very welcome during the otherwise extremely dry and boring instruction film. However, for contemporary audiences only the opening sequence remains of interest. Its strong and rather vicious propaganda was going to be echoed in a lot of cartoons during the war era.

Interestingly, this film was directed by Ub Iwerks, Disney’s old friend, who, after the end of his own animation studio adventure, had recently rejoined the Disney studio. Iwerks went to work at the technical department, and ‘Stop That Tank’ is the only film he directed during his second stay at Disney’s I know of.

Watch ‘Stop That Tank!’ yourself and tell me what you think:

Four Methods of Flush Riveting

November 30, 2015 in ★★½, Commercial films, Walt Disney films | Tags: , , , , , , , | 2 comments

Director: James Algar
Release Date: 1942
Rating: ★★½
Review:

Four Methods of Flush Riveting © Walt DisneyOf all milestones of Disney animation, ‘Four Methods of Flush Riveting’ is the most unassuming and certainly the most boring.

It was made in early 1941, thus before The United States had entered the war, for the Lockheed Aircraft Corporation, which was located nearby the Disney studio at Burbank. The film was “produced under the technical direction of the Lockheed Aircraft Cop.”, and without doubt very useful, but it was in fact a pilot film. As the title card states:

“The following film uses a simplified technique developed by the Walt Disney studio to demonstrate the quickest and cheapest method whereby the animation medium can be applied to National Defense Training”.

Both 1940 features ‘Pinocchio‘ and ‘Fantasia’ had lost money, and Disney was looking for new opportunities to earn some. In World War I J.R. Bray had demonstrated that animation film could be used perfectly for training the troops, thus pioneering the educational animation film. Nevertheless, between World War I and World War II only few educational films were made.

Disney’s new technique is in fact limited animation. As such it is the mother of all animated instruction films up to the present day, but even more of limited animation as an art, which would be explored more and more during the 1950s and 1960s.

The immediate effect on the Disney studio was that it sprouted commissions for several instruction films, mostly for the army and the navy, starting with ‘Stop That Tank!‘ for the National Film Board of Canada.

During World War II the Disney studio produced no less than 200 different training films for the armed forces. Moreover, limited animation immediately entered propaganda shorts, like ‘The Thrifty Pig‘ (1941) and such, as well as features, like ‘The Three Caballeros‘ (1944).

The film itself is very dry, and as educational as it is dull. Its most interesting feature is the use of a structured blue monochrome background against which the clean, airbrushed objects read very well. The idea of using monochromes and structures in backgrounds was going to be of as much importance as limited animation to the more forward looking forces in the animation field, and the UPA studio, which sprouted from the 1941 Disney strike, in particular.

Watch ‘Four Methods of Flush Riveting’ yourself and tell me what you think:

Alona on the Sarong Seas

November 27, 2015 in ★, Black and White Films, Famous Studio films | Tags: , , , , , , , | 1 comment

Director: Isadore Sparber
Release Date: September 4, 1942
Stars: Popeye, Bluto, Olive Oyl
Rating: ★
Review:

Alona on the Sarong Seas © ParamountPopeye and Bluto are on a battle cruiser stationed somewhere in the South Seas.

There they meet a ‘princess Alona’ (Olive Oyl in a sarong). Her parrot warns the two suitors that if the princess get’s harmed, the volcano will erupt. In the end all turns out to be just a dream.

In this cartoon the comedy is mostly silent, and princess Alona doesn’t speak at all. Unfortunately, Jack Mercer’s jabbers are absent, too, and they are certainly missed. The result is the weakest Popeye cartoon in years.

Watch ‘Alona on the Sarong Seas’ yourself and tell me what you think:

This Popeye film No. 110
To the previous Popeye film: You’re a Sap, Mr. Jap
To the next Popeye film: A Hull of a Mess

You’re a Sap, Mr. Jap

November 25, 2015 in ★★, Black and White Films, Famous Studio films | Tags: , , , , , , | 3 comments

Director: Dan Gordon
Release Date: August 7, 1942
Stars: Popeye
Rating: ★★
Review:

You're A Sap, Mr. Jap © Paramount‘You’re a Sap, Mr. Jap’ is the first Popeye short by the Famous studio, after Paramount had taken over business from the Fleischer Brothers.

This film is immediately the most vicious propaganda film in Popeye’s career, and one of the most extreme cartoons of the entire World War II era. In it Popeye encounters some vicious caricatures of Japanese who doublecross him while suggesting to want to make peace. Their small boat turns out to be on top of a giant battleship which Popeye defeats singlehandedly. The cowardly admiral then commits suicide by drinking nitroglycerin and eating firecrackers, destroying the whole ship.

‘You’re a sap, Mr. Jap’ is as propagandistic as it is ferocious. In the Fleischer’s  ‘Fleets of Stren’th’ from five months earlier, the enemy was still rather abstract, but in ‘You’re a sap, Mr. Jap’ the Japanese people themselves are attacked. The film was the first, but not the only one to feature extreme caricatures of Japanese, which in this cartoon are killed by the dozen. Later, cartoons like ‘Bugs Bunny Nips the Nips’ and ‘Commando Donald’ (both 1944) would follow suit.

These cartoons mark a clear difference between the two enemies: the Germans and the Japanese. While the Nazis were always portrayed as silly, the German people were almost never seen in cartoons, and when shown, they were regarded as victims of their leaders, like in ‘Education for Death‘ (1943). The Japanese, on the other hand, with their less visible regime, were treated as one and the same, from the military top to the average soldier. No doubt, a sizable dose of racism accompanied this view. And it’s views like this that resulted in the arrest and internment of American Japanese, something that also happened to Germans living in the United States, but on a much smaller scale…

In ‘You’re a sap, Mr. Jap’ the anti-Japanese sentiment results in a remarkably unfunny cartoon, and the short is more famous for its lack of politic correctness than for its humor.

Watch ‘You’re a Sap, Mr. Jap’ yourself and tell me what you think:

This Popeye film No. 109
To the previous Popeye film: Baby Wants a Bottleship
To the next Popeye film: Alona on the Sarong Seas

Baby Wants a Bottleship

November 23, 2015 in ★★★★½, Black and White Films, Max Fleischer films, Popeye | Tags: , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Director: Dave Fleischer
Release Date: July 3, 1942
Stars: Popeye, Olive Oyl, Li’l Swee’Pea
Rating: ★★★★½
Review:

Baby wants a Bottleship © Paramount‘Baby Wants a Bottleship’ opens with Olive visiting Popeye, whose battleship is stationed at the harbor.

Olive has brought li’l Swee’Pea with her. The baby wants to have a battleship en climbs aboard the cruiser. Popeye has a hard time catching him again.

The result is a cartoon of great comedy and excellent timing. The action includes a musical number in which Popeye is clobbered by a canon. Like in the previous Popeye cartoon, ‘Many Tanks’, Popeye’s design switches between old and new.

Watch ‘Baby wants a Bottleship’ yourself and tell me what you think:

This Popeye film No. 108
To the previous Popeye film: Many Tanks
To the next Popeye film: You’re a Sap, Mr. Jap

Many Tanks

November 20, 2015 in ★★★, Black and White Films, Max Fleischer films, Popeye | Tags: , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Director: Dave Fleischer
Release Date: May 15, 1942
Stars: Popeye, Bluto, Olive Oyl
Rating: ★★★
Review:

Many Tanks © ParamountIn this World War II cartoon Bluto is a soldier who tries to sneak away to date Olive Oyl.

When Popeye passes by Bluto tricks him into his army uniform. Popeye unwillingly has to join a tank squad, which leads to hilarious antics. Only when he has eaten some spinach Popeye directs his tank out of the camp straight to Bluto, who is wooing Olive.

Jack Mercer’s ad libbing during Popeye’s tank ride is fantastic and a highlight of the cartoon, as is the extremely flexible animation on Popeye’s tank. Popeye’s design changes back and forth from the old Fleischer design to the later, more streamlined Famous design, which makes its debut in this cartoon.

Watch ‘Many Tanks’ yourself and tell me what you think:

This Popeye film No. 107
To the previous Popeye film: Olive Oyl and Water Don’t Mix
To the next Popeye film: Baby Wants a Bottleship

T-Bone for Two

November 18, 2015 in ★★½, Pluto, Walt Disney films | Tags: , , , , , | Leave a comment

Director: Clyde Geronimi
Release Date: August 14, 1942
Stars: Pluto, Butch
Rating: ★★½
Review:

T-Bone for Two © Walt Disney‘T-Bone for Two’ is one of those Clyde Geronimi directed Pluto shorts about bones (other examples are ‘The Sleep Walker‘ and ‘Pluto at the Zoo‘ from the same year). It’s also Pluto’s second attempt to get a bone from vicious bulldog Butch, after ‘Bone Trouble‘ from 1940.

This time Pluto gets the bone by making Butch think he has buried a gigantic bone somewhere else. The second half is devoted to Pluto’s problems with a car horn. The horn make him lose his bone to Butch again, but he regains it with it, too.

Despite some great comedy (Pluto’s fake steps to his supposed hiding place and Butch’s flight into the air), Clyde Geronimi’s interplay between Pluto and Butch is less successful than Jack Kinney’s was in ‘Bone Trouble’. The cartoon never becomes really funny, resulting in one of the weaker entries in the Pluto series.

Watch ‘T-Bone for Two’ yourself and tell me what you think:

This is Pluto cartoon No. 8
To the previous Pluto cartoon: The Sleep Walker
To the next Pluto cartoon: Pluto at the Zoo

The Sleep Walker

November 16, 2015 in ★★½, Pluto, Walt Disney films | Tags: , , , , , | Leave a comment

Director: Clyde Geronimi
Release Date: July 3, 1942
Stars: Pluto
Rating: ★★½
Review:

The Sleep Walker © Walt DisneyIn the first scene of this cartoon a female black dachshund tries to steal Pluto’s bone, but she fails.

Then, strangely enough, Pluto delivers her his bone in his sleep, but when he awakes he thinks she has stolen it. After some chasing, he finally destroys her home in his wrath, only to discover that she’s a mother of five pups. When it starts to rain, too, he repents and lends her his own house and collection of bones.

Director Clyde Geronimi favored food-themed Pluto cartoons, and this short is no exception. Unfortunately, the premise of Pluto sleepwalking  is very unlikely and the execution more aimed at sighs than at laughs. The result is yet another cute and rather unfunny Pluto entry. Its best feature is its music (unfortunately uncredited), which uses an effective muted trumpet during the chase scenes, and a weird melody for woodwinds during Pluto’s sleepwalking.

The female dachshund is an early forerunner of Pluto’s later love interest, Dinah, who would first appear in the 1945 cartoon ‘Canine Casanova’.

Watch ‘The Sleep Walker’ yourself and tell me what you think:

This is Pluto cartoon No. 7
To the previous Pluto cartoon: The Army Mascot
To the next Pluto cartoon: T-Bone for Two

Pluto Junior

November 13, 2015 in ★★, Pluto, Walt Disney films | Tags: , , , , , | Leave a comment

Director: Clyde Geronimi
Release Date: February 28, 1942
Stars: Pluto
Rating: ★★
Review:

Pluto Junior © Walt DisneyIn this cartoon Pluto has only one son (instead of five as in ‘Pluto’s Quin-Puplets’ from 1937).

We watch this pup playing with a ball, a balloon, a caterpillar and a bird, which leads him into a distressful position on a clothes-line. Only then Pluto, who had been asleep all the time, comes into action. Pluto rescues his son and both fall into a wash-tub.

The best sequence of the cartoon involves Pluto’s antics on the clothes-line. It’s clear that he is a far funnier character than his son, which is only cute. Indeed, after this cartoon Pluto jr. was never seen again.

Watch ‘Pluto Junior’ yourself and tell me what you think:

This is Pluto cartoon No. 5
To the previous Pluto cartoon: Pluto’s Playmate
To the next Pluto cartoon: The Army Mascot

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