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Director: Walter Lantz
Release Date: February 9, 1942
Stars: Woody Woodpecker
Rating: ★★★
Review:
‘Hollywood Matador’ is Woody Woodpecker’s contribution to the bullfight cartoon, a trope that comes back to the animated screen from time to time, from the early Silly Symphony ‘El Terrible Toreador‘ (1929) to the late Pink Panther short ‘Toro Pink’ (1979).
Woody Woodpecker is introduced as matador without any back story. His opponent is ‘Oxnar the Terribull’, who ends sadly as ‘fresh bull burgers’, in a gag that echoes a similar one in the Popeye short ‘I Eats My Spinach‘ (1933).
‘Hollywood Matador’ is the least inspired of the early Woody Woodpecker films, but Darrell Calker’s music is spiced with Spanish flavor, and there’s a great gag in which Woody Woodpecker directs a huge crowd with an applause sign, making it applaud and stop applauding without pause. Tex Avery reused this gag to great effects in his own, vastly superior bullfight cartoon ‘Señor Droopy‘ (1949).
Watch ‘Hollywood Matador’ yourself and tell me what you think:
This is Woody Woodpecker cartoon No. 4
To the previous Woody Woodpecker cartoon: What’s Cookin’?
To the next Woody Woodpecker cartoon: Ace in the Hole
‘Hollywood Matador’ is available on the DVD-set ‘The Woody Woodpecker and Friends Classic Cartoon Collection’
Director: Dick Rickard
Release Date: November 25, 1938
Rating: ★★★½
Review:
This gentle film is based on the children’s book ‘The Story of Ferdinand’ (1936) by Munro Leaf and Robert Lawson, and tells about Ferdinand, a gentle Spanish bull, who loves to sit quietly and smell the flowers.
One day “five men with funny hats” come along, in search of suitable bull for a bullfight, and because the unfortunate Ferdinand has sat on a bee, his ferocious antics make him the one. However, once inside the arena, Ferdinand refuses to fight, much to the dismay of the matador.
Ferdinand is a really peaceful, pacifistic character, and a remarkable persona in 1938, when war already was around the corner. This character must have been an inspirational one at the time, and the film won an Academy Award. The short has a friendly atmosphere, and the only really funny part is the matador trying to persuade Ferdinand to fight by making faces, a scene animated with gusto by Ward Kimball.
Yet, there’s room for some more fun, as the banderilleros and picadors are caricatures of Disney personnel, drawn by Ward Kimball. We watch Ham Luske, Jack Campbell, Fred Moore, Art Babbitt as banderilleros, Bill Tytla as the second of the picadores (the other two are probably caricatures, too, but I don’t know of whom), and Ward Kimball himself as the moza de espada, carrying the matador’s sword. All humans are animated very well, proof that after ‘Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs’, the animators were more confident with the human body than ever.
Nevertheless, the human designs range from from very cartoony, like the Matador, to quite realistic, like the Spanish ladies, who all look like copies of Snow White. No wonder, as they were animated by Jack Campbell, who had been a key assistant to both the two units that animated the title heroine.
‘Ferdinand the Bull’ was the first Disney cartoon not to be part of any series. It could have been a Silly Symphony, as in 1938 that series had not ended, yet, but apparently, the studio chose the film to be no part of that. Perhaps, because in ‘Ferdinand the Bull’, music doesn’t play an important part, belying the series’ origin. Instead, the film uses a voice over to tell the tale, being the first Disney short to do so. The voice over technique is a rather lazy narrative device, but the Disney studio adopted it whole-heartedly. And so, unfortunately, voice overs would be deployed in many non-star Disney shorts and parts of package features of the 1940s and 1950s.
‘Ferdinand the Bull’ is the first of only two Disney shorts directed by Dick Rickard, the other one being ‘The Practical Pig‘ (1939). Rickard had been a story artist, working on a few Silly Symphonies and ‘Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs’ between 1936 and 1939. Otherwise he remains an enigmatic figure, as I cannot find any other information about him…
In December 2017 Blue Sky released their feature length adaptation of ‘Ferdinand the Bull’. I haven’t seen this film, yet, and therefore cannot compare the two films. Can you?
Watch ‘Ferdinand the Bull’ yourself and tell me what you think:
‘Ferdinand the Bull’ is available on the DVD set ‘Disney Rarities – Celebrated Shorts 1920s-1960s’
Director: Frank Tashlin
Release Date: October 8, 1938
Rating: ★
Review:
‘Little Pancho Vanilla’ is one of Frank Tashlin’s particularly Silly Symphony-like Merrie Melodies. Indeed, the short’s star, Little Pancho Vanilla, looks like a grumpy cousin of Disney’s Little Hiawatha (1937).
Pancho dreams of becoming a bullfighter, especially when his three sisters admire a Clark Gable-like toreador. To prove his worth Little Pancho Vanilla rushes off to the arena, trying to join a group of amateur toreadors, to no avail. However, he accidentally lands inside, crashing the bull by falling on it, twice, and thus becoming a success.
There’s little to enjoy in ‘Little Pancho Vanilla’, the main hero is far from sympathetic, and the bullfight scenes are hardly interesting. The best gag is when the bull kicks all amateurs in all corners as if they were billiard balls. The end gag, however, only depicts these Mexicans as ignorant people.
At best Warner Bros. produced Silly Symphonies-lookalikes like this cartoon were better than Fleischer’s attempts in the same field, but it was a good thing Warner Bros. soon moved away from them, and embraced their own unique cartoon style wholeheartedly.
Watch ‘Little Pancho Vanilla’ yourself and tell me what you think:
‘Little Pancho Vanilla’ is available on the DVD-set ‘Looney Tunes Golden Collection: Volume 4’
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:
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: November 17, 1933
Stars: Popeye, Olive Oyl, Bluto, Wimpy
Rating: ★★★½
Review:
‘I Eats My Spinach’ is the first cartoon in which an instrumental version of Popeye’s theme music accompanies the opening titles.
The short opens with the very walking cycle with which Popeye appeared for the first time on the screen in ‘Popeye the Sailor‘. He walks towards Olive’s house, and together they go to a rodeo to watch the “Great Bluto” perform. Immediately, Popeye challenges and outperforms the bearded brute. He wrestles a badly drawn bull, and fights another one. The cartoon ends with Popeye knocking a bull into a meat market in a rather shocking metamorphosis gag.
The designs in this short are more primitive than in other Popeye cartoons, making it look rather old-fashioned, even when compared with contemporary Popeye cartoons like ‘Blow Me Down!‘ or ‘Season’s Greetinks!‘. Surprisingly, this cartoon marks a return to the animal world of Betty Boop’s earliest cartoons, being the last short to do so.
Popeye would fight a bull again in ‘Bulldozing the Bull‘ (1938), but now most unwillingly and without harming the animal. By then Popeye had become on example to youngsters, both in comics and on film, and his aggression was toned down, luckily without losing its spunk.
Watch ‘I Eats My Spinach’ yourself and tell me what you think:
This Popeye film No. 3
To the previous Popeye film: Blow Me Down!
To the next Popeye film: Seasin’s Greetinks!
‘I Eats My Spinach’ is available on the DVD Box Set ‘Popeye the Sailor 1933-1938’
Directors: John Foster & George Stallings
Release Date: October 7, 1932
Stars: Tom and Jerry
Rating: ★★
Review
Somehow Tom and Jerry are shipwrecked and plagued by an evil octopus. Lucky for them they’re washed ashore in Spain, where they immediately go to a Spanish cafe.
At the cafe they encounter two female dancers, and an angry guy who orders them to take part in a bullfight. In the arena Tom and Jerry defeat a battalion of bulls with their bare hands. Then a telegraph arrives to tell them the 18th amendment has been lifted, and immediately Tom and Jerry head home again on their raft…
The 18th amendment, abolishing alcohol, was not lifted until December 5, 1933, more than one year after the release of ‘A Spanish Twist’ , making this cartoon strangely prophetic. Unfortunately, it’s hardly enjoyable otherwise. The Spanish dancers are extremely badly drawn, and the bullfight is anything from entertaining. In fact, ‘A Spanish Twist’ is arguably the worst bullfight cartoon before the equally dull Pink Panther cartoon ‘Toro Pink’ (1979).
Watch ‘A Spanish Twist’ yourself and tell me what you think:
This is Tom & Jerry cartoon No. 16
To the previous Tom & Jerry cartoon: Barnyard Bunk
To the next Tom & Jerry cartoon: Piano Tooners
‘A Spanish Twist’ is available on the DVD ‘The Complete Animated Adventures of Van Beuren Studio’s Tom and Jerry’
Director: Tex Avery
Release Date: April 9, 1949
Stars: Droopy, the Wolf, Lina Romay
Rating: ★★★★★ ♕
Review:
‘Señor Droopy’ is one of Tex Avery’s most classic cartoons and arguably the best bullfight cartoon of all time, another candidate being Chuck Jones’s ‘Bully for Bugs’ from 1953.
‘Señor Droopy’ is set in Mexico and features the wolf as an overconfident champion bullfighter and Droopy as his measly challenger. Both are in love with Mexican film star/singer Lina Romay, but it’s of course Droopy who wins her: the last scene shows live action footage of this forgotten film star petting our happy hero.
But it’s of course not the story that makes the short so memorable. It’s the gags, and they come in fast and plenty. The film is stuffed with Avery’s own weird logics and cosmic laws, which lead to many a hilarious situation. The best example of Avery’s unique logic may be the following gag: when the bull has vanished between two wooden doors, the wolf closes them together, then another time, but this time vertically, reducing their size by two. He continues doing so until the large doors have been reduced to a tiny cube. He then casually throws the cube behind him, which quickly unfolds to the size of the original doors, which open to reveal a stairway to a cellar, from which the bull rushes back into the arena. Seeing is believing.
‘Señor Droopy’ is not entirely flawless: the wolf’s transformation from über-confident to panic-stricken is not really convincing, and Avery reuses the road gag from ‘Wild and Woolfy‘ (1945), which makes less sense inside the arena. But who cares! The interplay between the wolf, the bull and Droopy is delightful throughout, and even a minor character like the Mexican announcer is animated with gusto.
Watch ‘Señor Droopy’ yourself and tell me what you think:
http://www.veoh.com/watch/v202445Gjy2WGzy?h1=Senor+Droopy+-+Droopy
Director: Hawley Pratt
Release Date: December 14, 1965
Stars: The Pink Panther
Rating: ★★★
Review:
In ‘Bully for Pink’, the Pink Panther wants to be a bull fighter and so he steals a magical cape to use it as a red sheet.
‘Bully for Pink’ is slightly funnier than contemporary Pink Panther cartoons, but it doesn’t come near the heights of bullfight cartoons like Tex Avery’s ‘Señor Droopy’ (1949) or Chuck Jones’s ‘Bully for Bugs’ (1953).
Watch ‘Bully for Pink’ yourself and tell me what you think:
Director: Walt Disney
Release Date: September 7, 1929
Rating: ★★★
Review:
‘El Terrible Toreador’ is the second entry of the Silly Symphonies. It has been far lesser known than the first, ‘The Skeleton Dance‘, which is no surprise, because it contains none of the ingredients which made ‘The Skeleton Dance’ a classic: there’s no interesting mood, no spectacular animation, and there are hardly any funny gags.
Unlike the other early Silly Symphonies, ‘El Terrible Toreador’ is more silly than symphony-like. That is: it’s more of a ‘story’ consisting of silly gags than the song-and-dance-routine typical of the Silly Symphonies up to 1931.
The cartoon consists of two parts: in the first part we watch a Spanish canteen, where a large officer and a toreador are fighting for the love of a waitress. In the second part, the toreador is fighting and dancing with a bull in the arena. Surprisingly, the story of the first part is hardly developed here: the cartoon ends when the toreador has pulled the bull inside out, thus ending the fight.
‘El Terrible Toreador’ is notable for being Disney’s first attempt at the human form since the early 1920s. However, the humans are a far cry from ‘Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs’ from (only) eight years later. In this early cartoon the human characters are extraordinarily flexible and they do not move lifelike at all (I noticed I thought of them as bugs some of the time).
The most interesting feature of this short is Carl Stalling’s score. His music already bears his signature and contains many citations from ‘Carmen’ by Georges Bizet.
Watch ‘El Terrible Toreador’ yourself and tell me what you think:
This is Silly Symphony No. 2
To the previous Silly Symphony: The Skeleton Dance
To the next Silly Symphony: Springtime
Dr. Grob's Animation Review 