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Director: unknown
Production Date: 1960
Stars: Tom Puss and Ollie Bungle
Rating: ★★½
Review:
‘The Eastern Treasure’ is based on the great Tom Poes comic strip ‘De achtgever’ (1957).
In this cartoon Ollie Bungle is visited by an Eastern treasurer and his obedient servant, called Kowtow. Ollie Bungle takes over the job as treasurer, and immediately the servant joins his side. In the end Tom Puss manages to get rid of him by making the servant into the treasurer.
The strong story of the comic strip is condensed to its bare essentials, and has lost most of its strengths. Moreover, the two Easterners hardly look that way. ‘The Eastern Treasure’ was the last of the Tom Puss shorts completed, before Toonder discovered he had been swindled. His Tom Puss television series was never aired, neither in the US, for which it had been made, nor anywhere else. A lot of money, effort and work had just been wasted on a scam.
‘The Eastern Treasure’ is available on the DVD inside the Dutch book ‘De Toonder Animatiefilms’
Director: unknown
Production Date: 1960
Stars: Tom Puss and Ollie Bungle
Rating: ★★
Review:
During a stormy night Ollie Bungle brags he can teach everyone everything, and in one evening, too.
He’s overheard by a wizard, who immediately places his lazy son under Ollie Bungle’s tutelage. The little brat changes all kinds of objects into beds for him to sleep in, makes a pen write the writing lines he has to do, and makes objects taunting Ollie Bungle. Meanwhile Ollie Bungle doesn’t teach the boy a thing. Yet, the wizard is content, as his son has learned many new tricks during that one evening.
This short is one of the weakest of the eight surviving Tom Puss films. Tom Puss has hardly a role in it, and even behaves uncharacteristically fearful. In one scene he even looks like a real cat, instead of his normal rational self.
‘Little Faustus’ is available on the DVD inside the Dutch book ‘De Toonder Animatiefilms’
Director: unknown
Production Date: 1960
Stars: Tom Puss and Ollie Bungle
Rating: ★★★½
Review:
At the start of this cartoon Ollie Bungle is out of gas. He and Tom Puss meet a bearded fellow with a large box, and when they ask him for gas, he makes the large box change into a fuel station.
The little bearded man demonstrates that the box can change into virtually anything, and Ollie Bungle buys the machine on the spot. Unfortunately, the all-purpose machine turns out difficult to handle, and only causes for trouble.
The story makes little sense and is highly forgettable. Nevertheless, this short is noteworthy for its very beautiful limited background art.
Watch ‘The All-Purpose Machine’ yourself and tell me what you think:
‘The All-Purpose Machine’ is available on the DVD inside the Dutch book ‘De Toonder Animatiefilms’
Director: unknown
Production Date: 1960
Stars: Tom Puss and Ollie Bungle
Rating: ★★★★
Review:
‘Vengeance Valley’ is based on the Tom Poes comic strip ‘De wraakgier’ (which can be translated as ‘the revenge vulture’) from 1956.
The comic strip is one of the best in the series, and features Tom Puss encountering an island of vengeance-loving vultures. In the film the vultures inhabit a hick town in the mountains called ‘Vengeance Valley’. The whole concept of avenge, revenge and counter-revenge is played out well, and this short makes particularly well use of the limited animation. This makes this episode arguably the best of the whole series, despite the lame ending, in which a female vulture blows up the whole town, wiping it off the map, literally.
‘Vengeance Valley’ is available on the DVD inside the Dutch book ‘De Toonder Animatiefilms’
Director: unknown
Production Date: 1959
Stars: Tom Puss and Ollie Bungle
Rating: ★★★½
Review:
‘The Wonder Shoes’ is one of the nine Tom Puss films the Toonder studios made in 1959-1960 for the American television market, which the series never reached.
This particular episode starts with Ollie Bungle capturing a large boot while fishing. Oddly enough he orders a shoe maker to make two shoes out of the boot. This is particularly puzzling as Ollie Bungle never wears shoes. The shoes possess a magic quality and fulfill Ollie Bungle’s wishes. So when he wishes them to walk to the moon, he is in serious trouble. Luckily, Tom Puss is there to save him.
‘The Wonder Shoes’ is a weak story that is saved by some slapstick comedy and silly situations, featuring criminal Bul Super and police officer Bulle Bas. Both characters are familiar to readers of the Tom Puss comics, but remain unnamed in the cartoon. Special mention should go to the minimal background art.
‘The Wonder Shoes’ is available on the DVD inside the Dutch book ‘De Toonder Animatiefilms’
Director: unknown
Production Date: 1959
Stars: Tom Puss and Ollie Bungle
Rating: ★
Review:
‘The Bungle Cure’ is based on the Tom Poes comic strip ‘De Bommelkuur’ (1953), one of the weakest of all Tom Poes comics. And indeed, the film based on this story, is equally weak.
The short starts with Tom Puss driving the sick Ollie Bungle to the mountains, because the doctor has advised the sick bear to get some mountain air. Unfortunately, in the mountains they end up in a feud between two mountain tribes, the Grimps and the Knarks. The two tribes are equally fanatical in helping Mr. Bungle to heal. Their zeal make Mr. Bungle flee to a deserted island in a mountain lake, where Tom Puss discovers that Mr. Bungle has been cured, after all.
‘The Bungle Cure’ may function as a nice story for children, but has little to offer otherwise. As with the other Tom Puss & Mr. Bungle films the animation is extremely limited and the short relies heavily on dialogue. Most interesting is the minimal background art, which has maintained some of the panache of Marten Toonder’s own comic strips.
‘The Bungle Cure’ is available on the DVD inside the Dutch book ‘De Toonder Animatiefilms’
Director: unknown
Production Date: 1959
Stars: Tom Puss and Ollie Bungle
Rating: ★★
Review:
‘The Weather Crystal’ is the second of nine Tom Puss films that were made for the American television market, but which were never released.
This short is based on a Tom Puss comic made for the Dutch Donald Duck magazine in 1959. In this film Tom Puss and Ollie find find a crystal that controls the weather. Ollie Bungle immediately conceives a plan to sell the weather, but as every client asks for something different, all goes wrong.
This is a very weak story, with both Tom Puss and Ollie Bungle behaving completely out of character (in Marten Toonder’s original comic strip none of the two would think of exploiting a commercial enterprise). Moreover, the short places the two in a human world, instead of the fable world they usually live in.
‘The Weather Crystal’ is available on the DVD inside the Dutch book ‘De Toonder Animatiefilms’
Director: unknown
Production Date: 1959
Stars: Tom Puss and Ollie Bungle
Rating: ★★★
Review:
In 1959 an unknown American distribution company asked Marten Toonder to produce some animated shorts for the American television market starring Toonder’s comic strip stars Tom Poes (Tom Puss, a white cat) and Olivier B. Bommel (Ollie Bungle, a large bear).
Nine films were conceived, but the Americans were displeased with Ollie Bungle’s voice, which was provided by a black man. Even worse, the so-called distribution company turned out to be a fraud, and these films were never shown anywhere.
The DVD accompanying Jan-Willem de Vries’s Dutch language book ‘De Toonder Animatiefilms’ has included eight of these films. They are a strange mix of Toonder’s elaborate cartoon style and Hanna-Barbera-like cartoon modernism. For example, Tom Puss and Ollie Bungle look more angular than ever, and both suddenly wear bow-ties, an all too obvious Hanna-Barbera influence. The animation in these shorts is very limited, and unfortunately the films rely too heavily on rather tiring dialogue, but this is countered by some effective staging.
‘The Magic Hat’ is clearly based on the Tom Poes story ‘De kniphoed’ (1955), and apart of Tom Puss and Ollie Bungle, features Bungle’s butler, Joost, magician Hocus Pas and a rather unrecognizable chief constable Bulle Bas (all unnamed in the cartoon). As the 65 page comic strip has been squeezed into a five minute film, the story has been greatly simplified. The result is no masterpiece, but still makes a pleasant watch, and the film is a good example of the huge influence the Hanna-Barbera studio had on the rest of the world.
‘The Magic Hat’ is available on the DVD inside the Dutch book ‘De Toonder Animatiefilms’
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