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Director: Dave Fleischer
Release Date: March 31, 1939
Stars: Betty Boop
Rating: ★★★★
Review:
In ‘So Does an Automobile’ Betty Boop owns a car hospital for ill anthropomorphized cars.
Although this cartoon features a musical number, it mainly consists of inspired spot gags, making this short the only Betty Boop entry in the spot gag genre. And, in true gag cartoon fashion, this cartoon saves its best gag for last.
For a Betty Boop cartoon from the second half of the 1930s, ‘So Does an Automobile’ has a surprisingly silly atmosphere, which harks partly back to the early 1930’s, Betty Boop’s heydays. The number of gags and the silly atmosphere arguably make the short one of the best Betty Boop cartoons of the second half of the 1930’s, right behind ‘Betty Boop and Grampy’ (1935) and ‘Pudgy Picks A Fight‘ (1937). Unfortunately, ‘So Does an Automobile’ was to be Betty Boop’s last great cartoon, as her series stopped four months later.
Watch ‘So Does an Automobile’ yourself and tell me what you think:
This is Betty Boop cartoon No. 80
To the previous Betty Boop cartoon: My Friend the Monkey
To the next Betty Boop cartoon: Musical Mountaineers
‘So Does an Automobile’ is available on the French DVD Box Set ‘Betty Boop Coffret Collector’
Director: Rudolf Ising
Release Date: October 31, 1931
Stars: Piggy, Fluffy
Rating: ★★★★½
Review:
With Foxy gone, Harman and Ising conceived a new star, Piggy, who, like Foxy is exactly Mickey Mouse (including the trousers), but now in Pig form. As with his predecessor, the plagiarism is most visible in Piggy’s girlfriend Fluffy, who is as Minnie as Piggy is Mickey.
Piggy was even more short-lived than Foxy, lasting only two cartoons, of which this is the first. In it we watch Piggy and Fluffy visiting a theater. At a certain point Piggy hits the stage to perform ‘Silver Threads Among The Gold’, a 1873 hit song that by 1931 had become synonymous with old-fashionedness. No wonder he’s booed away. At that point three drunkards burst into the title song. Piggy gets drunk, too, and leaves the theater and his girlfriend.
Outside he provides his car with some booze, a story idea borrowed from ‘Traffic Troubles‘ (Mickey Mouse) and ‘The New Car’ (Flip the Frog) from earlier that year. Unlike the earlier two films, though, this leads to a wonderfully drunken scene, in which the whole background becomes wobbly. This is one of the most memorable scenes of all early Warner Bros. cartoons, making ‘You Don’t Know What You’re Doin’!’a must-see, despite the rather mediocre scenes preceding it. Moreover, the cartoon features some particularly hot jazz music, provided by Gus Arnheim’s Brunswick Recording Orchestra.
Watch ‘You Don’t Know What You’re Doin’!’ yourself and tell me what you think:
‘You Don’t Know What You’re Doin’!’ is available on the DVD ‘Looney Tunes Golden Collection Volume Six’
Director: Jack Kinney
Release Date: June 30, 1950
Stars: Goofy
Rating: ★★★★★ ♕
Review:
In this cartoon a particularly civilized type of Goofy, an “average man” called Mr. Walker, changes into a Mr. Hyde-like wildman called Mr. Wheeler, once he sits behind the wheel of his car.
‘Motor mania’ is a quite disturbing film about road manners, it even becomes nightmarish when we watch cars bark at a helpless pedestrian. It is as moralistic as it is funny. And it remains somehow strikingly relevant today, making it an original classic within the Goofy series.
‘Motor Mania’ is the only Goofy cartoon in which our hero is depicted as an unsympathetic and even evil character. But by now Goofy had lost all his former persona. He had changed into a random citizen, so it works very well.
‘Motor Mania’ forms another step in the evolution of Goofy into the American everyman. By now Goofy had replaced Donald Duck as a representative of the American citizen. Donald Duck had been the average citizen in the 1940s, but at the end of the decade his role had been diminished, evolving into a straight man for the antics of Chip ‘n Dale, the little bee and such. Jack Kinney’s Goofy took over, cumulating in the typical 1950s everyman, George Geef, in ‘Cold War‘ from the next year.
Watch ‘Motor Mania’ yourself and tell me what you think:
This is Goofy cartoon No. 25
To the previous Goofy cartoon: Goofy Gymnastics
To the next Goofy cartoon: Hold That Pose
Director: Hawley Pratt
Release Date: March 16, 1966
Stars: The Pink Panther
Rating: ★★½
Review:
In ‘Pink Pistons’ the Pink Panther buys a new car with anthropomorphic features, but after a race against an old lady he turns it back in again.
This cartoon has a great opening scene of the Pink Panther trying some new models. Unfortunately, the rest of the cartoon does not maintain that level.
Watch ‘Pink Pistons’ yourself and tell me what you think:
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