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Directors: William Hanna & Joseph Barbera
Airing date: November 23, 1962
Stars: The Flintstones
Rating: ★★★★½
Review:
Until this point in the third season the Flintstones episodes were only mildly funny at best, and frankly more often than not dragged a little, but ‘Ladies Day’ is over before you know it.
The story starts rolling when Fred wants to go to the ball game, but he’s both flat broke and he has to work. When he learns from Barney it’s “ladies’ day” at the ball game he gets an idea. What follows is a comedy of errors that involves the wives, the police and Fred’s boss and the boss’s South American customer, who appears to be a ladies man.
For once the story stays surprising throughout and the writers play nicely around with the four main characters. Naturally, there’s less room for stone age gags, and we have to do with a single crocodile acting as Betty’s laundry machine. But it doesn’t matter, for ‘Ladies’Day’ is one of the best written Flintstones episodes of all.
Watch an excerpt from ‘Ladies’ Day’ yourself and tell me what you think:
This is The Flintstones Season Three episode 11
To the previous The Flintstones episode: Hawaiian Escapade
To the next Flintstones episode: Nuthin’ but the Tooth
‘Ladies’ Day’ is available on the Blu-Ray ‘The Flintstones – The Complete Series’ and the DVD-box ‘The Flintstones Season 3’
Director: Jack Hannah
Release Date: November 25, 1949
Stars: Donald Duck, The Bee
Rating: ★★
Review:
After his move into the Donald Duck series three months earlier in ‘Honey Harvester’, the bee returns. This time as a classical music lover competing with Donald over the radio.
While the bee wants to listen to classical music, Donald wants to listen to a world series baseball match.
The most inspired gags involve Donald and the bee reenacting the match in Donald’s garden. But the bee is hardly a funnier character than Bootle Beetle, and the cartoon never comes off: the violence remains restrained, the bee remains cute. Donald is reduced to a simply annoying character, a bully who is rightly ‘sent to the showers’.
Watch ‘Slide, Donald, Slide’ yourself and tell me what you think:
This is Donald Duck cartoon No. 81
To the previous Donald Duck cartoon: The Greener Yard
To the next Donald Duck cartoon: Toy Tinkers
Director: Friz Freleng
Release Date: February 2, 1946
Stars: Bugs Bunny
Rating: ★★★★★
Review:
It seems an almost certain loss for the age-old Tea-Totallers, who get plastered by the tough team of the Gas-House Gorillas…
Bugs Bunny, who’s watching the game, wearing an innocent straw head, boasts that he can beat the Gas-House Gorillas single-handed, so he gets himself a game. Playing in every position he manages to win the ball game in this wild and hilariously funny cartoon, which is noteworthy for its great dialogue, excellent animation, and superb timing. Especially when Bugs Bunny starts batting, the gags role in in a remarkably fast tempo.
Highlight among the many gags may be Bugs’s constant jabbering. Some of it was copied by Jones in ‘Rabbit Punch‘ (1948). ‘Baseball Bugs’ reuses several gags from the Woody Woodpecker cartoon ‘The Screwball’ (1942), but with much better results, making it a classic, where ‘The Screwball’ was not. If the short has one flaw, it’s that it’s over before you know it, with the end coming all too soon.
Notice the advert for ‘Michael Maltese, Ace Dick’ in Bugs Bunny’s first scene.
Watch ‘Baseball Bugs’ yourself and tell me what you think:
https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x6tj0co
‘Baseball Bugs’ is available on the DVD set ‘Looney Tunes Golden Collection, Vol. 1’
This is Bugs Bunny cartoon No. 35
To the previous Bugs Bunny cartoon: Hare Tonic
To the next Bugs Bunny cartoon: Hare Remover
Director: Jack Kinney
Release Date: September 4, 1942
Stars: Goofy
Rating: ★★★
Review:
‘How to Play Baseball’ is the third of Goofy’s sport cartoons, and the first with a title beginning with ‘How to’ (following the ‘How to Ride a Horse’ sequence in ‘The Reluctant Dragon‘ (1941).
The short forms the next and final step in Goofy’s evolution after the duplication of Goofies in the previous cartoon, ‘The Art of Self Defense‘: now multiple Goofies are together the stars of the cartoon. The character remains unique in the cartoon canon in this ability to duplicate himself and remain Goofy throughout, nonetheless.
The short has a highly entertaining way to explain baseball, ending with an exciting finale of the World championship. The gags come fast and plenty, depicting a lot of nonsense. Nevertheless, the cartoon is not only funny, it’s also surprisingly educational.
In the years following ‘How to Play Baseball’ baseball would return to the animated screen in the Woody Woodpecker cartoon ‘The Screwball’ (1943) and in the Bugs Bunny cartoon ‘Baseball Bugs‘ (1944).
Watch ‘How To Play Baseball’ yourself and tell me what you think:
This is Goofy cartoon No. 6
To the previous Goofy cartoon: The Art of Self Defence
To the next Goofy cartoon: The Olympic Champ
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