You are currently browsing the tag archive for the ‘eggs’ tag.
Director: Phil Roman
Airing date: April 9, 1974
Stars: Charlie Brown, Linus, Lucy, Marcie, Peppermint Patty, Sally, Schroeder, Snoopy, Woodstock
Rating: ★★★
Review:
The twelfth Peanuts special was another holiday special, this time celebrating Easter. As with all Peanuts specials the story evolves at a leisurely speed, this time mixing ca. three stories into very short cross-cutting scenes.
The first and most entertaining story is about Peppermint Patty trying to teach Marcie how to paint eggs, but this goes haywire, because Marcie has absolutely no clue on how to prepare the eggs. The second story is about Snoopy buying a birdhouse for Woodstock, who initially shivers in the cold rain. Then there’s a story arc in which Linus tells the gospel of the Easter Bunny, just like he did on the Great Pumpkin.
Several scenes take place in a department store, and some of them are charming, if totally independent of the main story material, like Peppermint Patty, Marcie and Snoopy dancing to some Christmas-themed music boxes. This gives the episode a rather disjointed, almost improvisatory feel.
Vince Guaraldi’s soundtrack is great throughout, giving Snoopy and Woodstock an especially groovy soul-jazz theme, while the Easter Beagle is accompanied by a jazzy version of Beethoven’s seventh symphony.
Watch ‘It’s the Easter Beagle, Charlie Brown’ yourself and tell me what you think:
It’s the Easter Beagle, Charlie Brown’ is available on the DVD-set ‘Peanuts 1970’s Collection Vol. 1’
Director: Alex Lovy
Release Date: November 20, 1939
Stars: Peterkin
Rating: ★★½
Review:
‘Scrambled Eggs’ stars a misschievous young satyr, called Peterkin.
After Lil’ Eightball (see ‘A Haunting We Will Go‘) and Andy Panda (‘Life Begins for Andy Panda‘) Peterkin was the third character Walter Lantz introduced with a color cartoon during the fall of 1939. Peterkin, however, only lasted this one cartoon.
Peterkin was conceived by Elaine Pogány, wife of the great Hungarian illustrator Willy Pogány, who did the backgrounds for this cartoon. These backgrounds are the short’s most striking feat, for they are ludicrously detailed, and while beautiful, way out of tune with Lantz’s cartoony characters, who don’t read well against the intricate background drawings.
Made at the very end of the 1930s, ‘Scrambled Eggs’ is a strange mix between the childish cute style of the mid-1930s and the more adult, urban style of the 1940s. Peterkin himself is drawn all too cute, with a matching voice and story. He changes several birds’ eggs for fun, but on hatching the dazzled parents abandon their strange children: the men go spend their time at the club, while the women go to their mothers, leaving Peterkin solely in charge of the hungry chicks. When he confesses his crime to the parents, the birds make him do all the laundry, which cost him work well into the night. This moralistic story contrasts wildly with some of the voices and animation of the birds, which are definitely contemporary and urban, aiming at adult audiences. This strange mix doesn’t work well, and as Peterkin is far from an engaging character, the cartoon is unfortunately a failure, despite some splendid animation, and of course, the elaborate background paintings.
Watch ‘Scrambled Eggs’ yourself and tell me what you think:
‘Scrambled Eggs’ is available on the DVD set ‘The Woody Woodpecker and Friends Classic Cartoon Collection’
Dr. Grob's Animation Review 