Reviews of Merrie Melodies (1931) and related work

• Entry: “Lady, Play Your Mandolin!” (1931)
• Entry: “Smile, Darn Ya, Smile!” (1931)
• Entry: “One More Time” (1931)
• Entry: “You Don’t Know What You’re Doin’!” (1931)
• Entry: “Hittin’ the Trail for Hallelujah Land” (1931)
• Entry: “Red-Headed Baby” (1931)
• Entry: “Pagan Moon” (1932)
• Entry: “Freddy the Freshman” (1932)
• Entry: “Crosby, Columbo, and Vallee” (1932)
• Entry: “Goopy Geer” (1932)
• Entry: “It’s Got Me Again!” (1932)
• Entry: “Moonlight for Two” (1932)
• Entry: “The Queen Was in the Parlor” (1932)
• Entry: “I Love a Parade” (1932)
• Entry: “You’re Too Careless with Your Kisses!” (1932)
• Entry: “I Wish I Had Wings” (1932)
• Entry: “A Great Big Bunch of You” (1932)
• Entry: “Three’s a Crowd” (1932)
• Entry: “The Shanty Where Santy Claus Lives” (1933)
• Entry: “One Step Ahead of My Shadow” (1933)
• Entry: “Young and Healthy” (1933)
• Entry: “The Organ Grinder” (1933)
• Entry: “Wake Up the Gypsy in Me” (1933)
• Entry: “I Like Mountain Music” (1933)
• Entry: “The Dish Ran Away with the Spoon” (1933)
• Entry: “We’re in the Money” (1933)
• Entry: “I’ve Got to Sing a Torch Song” (1933)
• Entry: “Sittin’ on a Backyard Fence” (1933)
• Entry: “Pettin’ in the Park” (1934)
• Entry: “Honeymoon Hotel” (1934)
• Entry: “Beauty and the Beast” (1934)
• Entry: “Those Were Wonderful Days” (1934)
• Entry: “Goin’ to Heaven on a Mule” (1934)
• Entry: “How Do I Know It’s Sunday” (1934)
• Entry: “Why Do I Dream Those Dreams” (1934)
• Entry: “The Girl at the Ironing Board” (1934)
• Entry: “The Miller’s Daughter” (1934)
• Entry: “Shake Your Powder Puff” (1934)
• Entry: “Rhythm in the Bow” (1934)
• Entry: “Those Beautiful Dames” (1934)
• Entry: “Pop Goes Your Heart” (1934)
• Entry: “Mr. and Mrs. Is the Name” (1935)
• Entry: “Country Boy” (1935)
• Entry: “I Haven’t Got a Hat” (1935)
• Entry: “Along Flirtation Walk” (1935)
• Entry: “My Green Fedora” (1935)
• Entry: “Into Your Dance” (1935)
• Entry: “The Country Mouse” (1935)
• Entry: “The Merry Old Soul” (1935)
• Entry: “The Lady in Red” (1935)
• Entry: “Little Dutch Plate” (1935)
• Entry: “Billboard Frolics” (1935)
• Entry: “Flowers for Madame” (1935)
• Entry: “I Wanna Play House” (1936)
• Entry: “I’m a Big Shot Now” (1936)
• Entry: “Let It Be Me” (1936)
• Entry: “I’d Love to Take Orders from You” (1936)
• Entry: “Bingo Crosbyana” (1936)
• Entry: “Page Miss Glory” (1936)
• Entry: “When I Yoo Hoo” (1936)
• Entry: “I Love to Singa” (1936)
• Entry: “Sunday Go to Meetin’ Time” (1936)
• Entry: “At Your Service Madame” (1936)
• Entry: “Toy Town Hall” (1936)
• Entry: “The CooCoo Nut Grove” (1936)
• Entry: “Don’t Look Now” (1936)
• Entry: “He Was Her Man” (1937)
• Entry: “Pigs Is Pigs” (1937)
• Entry: “The Fella with the Fiddle” (1937)
• Entry: “She Was an Acrobat’s Daughter” (1937)
• Entry: “I Only Have Eyes for You” (1937)
• Entry: “Clean Pastures” (1937)
• Entry: “Streamlined Greta Green” (1937)
• Entry: “Sweet Sioux” (1937)
• Entry: “Egghead Rides Again” (1937)
• Entry: “Plenty of Money and You” (1937)
• Entry: “Ain’t We Got Fun” (1937)
• Entry: “Speaking of the Weather” (1937)
• Entry: “Dog Daze” (1937)
• Entry: “I Wanna Be a Sailor” (1937)
• Entry: “The Lyin’ Mouse” (1937)
• Entry: “A Sunbonnet Blue” (1937)
• Entry: “The Woods Are Full of Cuckoos” (1937)
• Entry: “September in the Rain” (1937)
• Entry: “Little Red Walking Hood” (1937)
• Entry: “My Little Buckeroo” (1938)
• Entry: “Jungle Jitters” (1938)
• Entry: “The Sneezing Weasel” (1938)
• Entry: “A Star Is Hatched” (1938)
• Entry: “Now That Summer Is Gone” (1938)
• Entry: “Katnip Kollege” (1938)
• Entry: “Have You Got Any Castles?” (1938)
• Entry: “Love and Curses” (1938)
• Entry: “Cinderella Meets Fella” (1938)
• Entry: “The Penguin Parade” (1938)
• Entry: “The Major Lied ’Til Dawn” (1938)
• Entry: “A-Lad-In Bagdad” (1938)
• Entry: “Cracked Ice” (1938)
• Entry: “The Isle of Pingo Pongo” (1938)
• Entry: “A Feud There Was” (1938)
• Entry: “Little Pancho Vanilla” (1938)
• Entry: “Johnny Smith and Poker-Huntas” (1938)
• Entry: “You’re an Education” (1938)
• Entry: “The Night Watchman” (1938)
• Entry: “Count Me Out” (1938)
• Entry: “The Mice Will Play” (1938)
• Entry: “Dog Gone Modern” (1939)
• Entry: “Hamateur Night” (1939)
• Entry: “Robin Hood Makes Good” (1939)
• Entry: “Gold Rush Daze” (1939)
• Entry: “A Day at the Zoo” (1939)
• Entry: “Prest-O Change-O” (1939)
• Entry: “Bars and Stripes Forever” (1939)
• Entry: “Daffy Duck and the Dinosaur” (1939)
• Entry: “Thugs With Dirty Mugs” (1939)
• Entry: “Naughty But Mice” (1939)
• Entry: “Believe It or Else” (1939)
• Entry: “Hobo Gadget Band” (1939)
• Entry: “Old Glory” (1939)
• Entry: “Dangerous Dan McFoo” (1939)
• Entry: “Snowman’s Land” (1939)
• Entry: “Hare-um Scare-um” (1939)
• Entry: “Detouring America” (1939)
• Entry: “Little Brother Rat” (1939)
• Entry: “Sioux Me” (1939)
• Entry: “Land of the Midnight Fun” (1939)
• Entry: “The Little Lion Hunter” (1939)
• Entry: “The Good Egg” (1939)
• Entry: “Coal Black and de Sebben Dwarfs” (1943)

Merrie Melodies (1931)

A spin-off from Looney Tunes (1930), focused on the musical genre, allowing Looney Tunes to develop narratives instead.

References here: “The Scarecrow” (1943/1946), Over the Garden Wall (2014), “Alternate Histories” (2019).

moving picture animation fiction

‣ “Lady, Play Your Mandolin!” (1931)

Seen in 2017.

First of the Merrie Melodies. Well made, anarchic, extending anthropomorphization to the entire building that forms most of the set, and showing alcohol-induced psychosis for comedy. It introduced Foxy, a copy of Mickey Mouse, and Roxy, who combines Betty Boop (launched a year earlier; her vocal flourishes are imitated here) with the redundant markers of femininity that are also applied to Bosko’s girlfriend Honey. The attempt to promote a Warner-owned popular song is more obvious than in the earlier Looney Tunes (1930).

References here: “Bosko’s Fox Hunt” (1931), “Goopy Geer” (1932).

moving picture entry animation fiction

‣ “Smile, Darn Ya, Smile!” (1931)

Seen in 2017.

Imitative of “Box Car Blues” (1930). Hobos chime in while cooking a living bird, and knocking it out, which seems entirely appropriate to the underlying grimness of the song.

References here: “Goopy Geer” (1932).

moving picture entry animation fiction

‣ “One More Time” (1931)

Seen in 2017.

Amid violence and urban alienation, it achieves the distinction of being especially nonsensical because the music it promotes is very poorly matched to the action. Perhaps it could be profitably remixed to Daft Punk’s song by the same name.

moving picture entry animation fiction

‣ “You Don’t Know What You’re Doin’!” (1931)

Seen in 2017.

More hobos, and an amusing advertisement for asbestos on the theater curtain, deliberately comical in the era of escalating concern with the negative health effects. There’s good anarchic energy in a few shots, but the nightmare scene doesn’t quite sustain the right intensity.

References here: “Bosko in Person” (1933).

moving picture entry animation fiction

‣ “Hittin’ the Trail for Hallelujah Land” (1931)

Seen in 2017.

More hobos, and Uncle Tom; one of the Censored Eleven for its obvious racism. I like the lights from the windows on the boat reflected in the water, Porky’s trick with the propeller, the third-act ripoff of “The Skeleton Dance” (1929), and the extreme (though not graphic) brutality of the melodramatic villain’s comeuppance.

moving picture entry animation fiction

‣ “Red-Headed Baby” (1931)

Seen in 2017.

References here: “Santa’s Workshop” (1932).

moving picture entry animation fiction

‣ “Pagan Moon” (1932)

Seen in 2017.

I like the slowly rising sun, and the last shot is fun.

moving picture entry animation fiction

‣ “Freddy the Freshman” (1932)

Seen in 2017.

Good potential for prefiguring the college comedies of a later era, with wild partying verging on the surreal, but it doesn’t live up to its potential.

moving picture entry animation fiction

‣ “Crosby, Columbo, and Vallee” (1932)

Seen in 2017.

I initially thought it might be Christopher Columbus in the title, but it really is Russ Columbo, even though the characters are racially caricatured in a 15th-century lifestyle. I suppose the most interesting thing about this short is the relative similarity of the girl and the boy, compared to the previous couples in this series and Looney Tunes (1930): The extreme feminine attributes of Honey, Roxy and Fluffy are absent here.

moving picture entry animation fiction

‣ “Goopy Geer” (1932)

Seen in 2017.

One good detail for ecocriticism: A waiter orders “One soup!” from a plucked chicken in the kitchen. The bird replies “Comin’ up!”, leaps from its shelf into a bowl of water on the stove, swims around, rubs its butt in the water a little extra before getting out, and then towels off. The waiter returns and takes a scoop of water from the bowl to serve his customer. Compare “Smile, Darn Ya, Smile!” (1931). The scene of the psychotic, drunken horse is repeated from “Lady, Play Your Mandolin!” (1931), but the wild energy of that film is sadly absent here.

References here: BoJack Horseman (2014).

moving picture entry animation fiction

‣ “It’s Got Me Again!” (1932)

Seen in 2017.

First Warner Bros. Oscar nomination for an animated short. It’s plain to see why: It’s much more European and poetic in its sensibilities than other early Merrie Melodies shorts, and much more sedate. The shot of the cat creeping across the roof in the rain is actually beautiful.

References here: “A Great Big Bunch of You” (1932).

moving picture entry animation fiction

‣ “Moonlight for Two” (1932)

Seen in 2017.

Worth watching purely for its painfully bad dance animation, which looks like a 1990s parody of this era’s cartoons.

moving picture entry animation fiction

‣ “The Queen Was in the Parlor” (1932)

Seen in 2017.

Evidently thoughtless faux-medieval romanticism.

moving picture entry animation fiction

‣ “I Love a Parade” (1932)

Seen in 2017.

Itchy & Scratchy logic: A lion beats a bass drum too hard, breaking the skin, and pushes it down a dog’s throat to fix the problem. Also a freak show of mostly-ethnic characters.

moving picture entry animation fiction

‣ “You’re Too Careless with Your Kisses!” (1932)

Seen in 2017.

I like the war sequence: From cavalry to modern warfare with an aircraft carrier and a submarine (U-Boot) that is a boot.

moving picture entry animation fiction

‣ “I Wish I Had Wings” (1932)

Seen in 2017.

Another sack of easy targets for ecocriticism. I like the rooster calling out the marching pace in German, just five months before the Reichstag fire.

moving picture entry animation fiction

‣ “A Great Big Bunch of You” (1932)

Seen in 2017.

Rather less successful in its European-style gentrification than “It’s Got Me Again!” (1932).

moving picture entry animation fiction

‣ “Three’s a Crowd” (1932)

Seen in 2017.

The atypically realistic character designs for Cleopatra and Tarzan look out of place. Indeed, Hyde here functions as a villain against the characters from other works.

Sambo and Uncle Tom are both present as literary classics, as would be expected from early Merrie Melodies; they’re the only ones present that would completely drop out of the canon in the 85 years between the production and my viewing. Unexpectedly, Hyde does not morph into a black stereotype like them after being splashed with ink.

References here: The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (1999).

moving picture entry animation fiction

‣ “The Shanty Where Santy Claus Lives” (1933)

Seen in 2017.

The design sensibility of the opening shots seems prescient, but it all devolves into a fantasy of wish fulfillment, racism and recycled footage.

moving picture entry animation fiction

‣ “One Step Ahead of My Shadow” (1933)

Seen in 2017.

No improvement over “The Dragon Painter” (1919). The title song is delivered in broken English. As usual, the WB animation studio likes to mix its racial stereotypes for variety, so there’s a Mandarin version of Amos and Andy in one shot.

References here: “Buddy the Gob” (1934).

moving picture entry animation fiction

‣ “Young and Healthy” (1933)

Seen in 2017.

The opening walk down the stairs is an ambitious effort in manual technical animation, but watch the bad geometry when figures are exchanged.

moving picture entry animation fiction

‣ “The Organ Grinder” (1933)

Seen in 2017.

Watch the background repeat. The monkey is pretty well animated when its gets going.

moving picture entry animation fiction

‣ “Wake Up the Gypsy in Me” (1933)

Seen in 2017.

The usual casual racism and exoticism dressed up for comedy. The comment on Rasputin is curious in its lack of apparent meaning. He’s just a scheming villain, disloyal to an unseen tzar. He’s not even hard to kill. The amusing figure entering his castle with a bunch of bombs—perhaps a 1910s-style anarchist terrorist vaguely influenced by Khioniya Guseva—is dropped without comment or consequence.

moving picture entry animation fiction

‣ “I Like Mountain Music” (1933)

Seen in 2017.

moving picture entry animation fiction

‣ “The Dish Ran Away with the Spoon” (1933)

Seen in 2017.

I like the many-eyed anthropomorphic potato crying, the anthropomorphic egg slipping in lard to fall and crack open, revealing an unharmed anthropomorphic chicken, and finally the literal doughboy who gets doped up on yeast and cooked by his enemies.

References here: Rick and Morty (2013), “Weenie” (2016).

moving picture entry animation fiction

‣ “We’re in the Money” (1933)

Seen in 2017.

I was reminded of my niece’s 2017 fascination with “Shopkins”, little anthropomorphic representations of consumer goods, a more recent form of imagining inanimate objects of desire as friendly creatures. It seems both Rudolf Ising and Friz Freleng did a ton of shorts on this theme, resembling “The Steadfast Tin Soldier” (1838).

References here: “How Do I Know It’s Sunday” (1934), Brewster’s Millions (1985).

moving picture entry animation fiction

‣ “I’ve Got to Sing a Torch Song” (1933)

Seen in 2017.

moving picture entry animation fiction

‣ “Sittin’ on a Backyard Fence” (1933)

Seen in 2017.

I like the long johns doing circus acrobatics in the breeze.

moving picture entry animation fiction

‣ “Pettin’ in the Park” (1934)

Seen in 2017.

moving picture entry animation fiction

‣ “Honeymoon Hotel” (1934)

Seen in 2017.

Catchy. The funniest thing about it is the deliberately broken coy causality. Observe the cut away from the shot of the thermometer, starting with a heart-shaped red bead of mercury and rising to indicate that the honeymooners are shtupping. High pressure breaks the glass (orgasm) and triggers the fire alarm. In isolation, that’s expected in the genre, but it becomes apparent that the same event somehow caused an actual fire too, which is not shown and upon which there is no comment whatsoever.

moving picture entry animation fiction

‣ “Beauty and the Beast” (1934)

Seen in 2017.

A gluttonous female protagonist, no less.

moving picture entry animation fiction

‣ “Those Were Wonderful Days” (1934)

Seen in 2017.

I like the villain’s well-timed dynamite toss and the damsel’s subversive preference for him.

References here: “Little Dutch Plate” (1935).

moving picture entry animation fiction

‣ “Goin’ to Heaven on a Mule” (1934)

Seen in 2017.

There is no implication that whites go to a segregated Heaven elsewhere. As a satire of Christian belief it’s pretty funny. It would have been less funny with a white Saint Peter, and funnier without the racial stereotypes.

References here: “Those Beautiful Dames” (1934), “Fish Tales” (1936).

moving picture entry animation fiction

‣ “How Do I Know It’s Sunday” (1934)

Seen in 2017.

No doubt the result of bored animators using their imagination in everyday life, hence more pleasant than “We’re in the Money” (1933).

moving picture entry animation fiction

‣ “Why Do I Dream Those Dreams” (1934)

Seen in 2017.

Surprisingly pedestrian. Three years earlier the animators would probably have done wilder things with the legend.

moving picture entry animation fiction

‣ “The Girl at the Ironing Board” (1934)

Seen in 2017.

moving picture entry animation fiction

‣ “The Miller’s Daughter” (1934)

Seen in 2017.

moving picture entry animation fiction

‣ “Shake Your Powder Puff” (1934)

Seen in 2017.

Joyful. I particularly enjoyed the careful characterization of individual band members, whereas collectives are undifferentiated in e.g. “Buddy’s Circus” (1934).

moving picture entry animation fiction

‣ “Rhythm in the Bow” (1934)

Seen in 2017.

Pretty well composed.

moving picture entry animation fiction

‣ “Those Beautiful Dames” (1934)

Seen in 2017.

Cognitive dissonance. It is a curious reversal of the several previous Merrie Melodies where toys party by themselves. See it for the implication that what destitute children need is the appearance of a middle-class lifestyle, not attentive parents, friends, money, education, talent, effort etc.

moving picture entry animation fiction

‣ “Pop Goes Your Heart” (1934)

Seen in 2017.

Colour and no real theme, plot or energy.

moving picture entry animation fiction

‣ “Mr. and Mrs. Is the Name” (1935)

Seen in 2017.

Observe the lobster, alive and well in the sea, yet red.

moving picture entry animation fiction

‣ “Country Boy” (1935)

Seen in 2017.

The sole highlight is the rhyming conversation between bad-boy Peter Rabbit—whether licensed or a knock-off I don’t know—and his classmates, who warn him not to steal from the farmer, because the teacher will find out. Also, the farmer is a human who will kill Peter and eat him “in a pot”; I like how the funny-animal setting makes this bogeyman threat uncommonly credible. The speaking, anthropomorphic prey animals wear (some) clothes, unlike the farmer’s mute cow.

References here: Charlotte’s Web (1973).

moving picture entry animation fiction

‣ “I Haven’t Got a Hat” (1935)

Seen in 2017.

A jump forward in character design and planning, including the thoughtful use of colour.

moving picture entry animation fiction

‣ “Along Flirtation Walk” (1935)

Seen in 2017.

Poorly put together, but recommended for ecocritical thinking. The animal glee club sings, but none of the animals talk.

References here: BoJack Horseman (2014).

moving picture entry animation fiction

‣ “My Green Fedora” (1935)

Seen in 2017.

moving picture entry animation fiction

‣ “Into Your Dance” (1935)

Seen in 2017.

moving picture entry animation fiction

‣ “The Country Mouse” (1935)

Seen in 2017.

moving picture entry animation fiction

‣ “The Merry Old Soul” (1935)

Seen in 2017.

moving picture entry animation fiction

‣ “The Lady in Red” (1935)

Seen in 2017.

A minor graphical upgrade on the recurring motif of small creatures running the show and repurposing everyday objects when there are no people around.

moving picture entry animation fiction

‣ “Little Dutch Plate” (1935)

Seen in 2017.

The twist ending is that of “Those Were Wonderful Days” (1934).

moving picture entry animation fiction

‣ “Billboard Frolics” (1935)

Seen in 2017.

Yet another animist Warner Bros. short about environments coming to life without people around.

moving picture entry animation fiction

‣ “Flowers for Madame” (1935)

Seen in 2017.

The first 3-strip Technicolor cartoon in the series.

moving picture entry animation fiction

‣ “I Wanna Play House” (1936)

Seen in 2017.

A marked improvement in the use of shot length and Technicolor. The plot is not yet clever and the characters are weak, but the basic technical building blocks are in place for the golden age.

References here: “Mickey’s Trailer” (1938).

moving picture entry animation fiction

‣ “I’m a Big Shot Now” (1936)

Seen in 2017.

moving picture entry animation fiction

‣ “Let It Be Me” (1936)

Seen in 2017.

I like the rural boyfriend getting up the nerve to head out in the winter storm and being blown through several rooms of his house and out the back.

moving picture entry animation fiction

‣ “I’d Love to Take Orders from You” (1936)

Tex Avery (director).

Seen in 2017.

Looks and feels like a conservative Disney production.

moving picture entry animation fiction

‣ “Bingo Crosbyana” (1936)

Seen in 2017.

An awkward combination of several of Freleng’s most common tropes: Musical bugs repurposing a domestic scene in the absence of people, melodramatic villainy threatening the women, and gentle, conventionally moral parody of a pop star.

moving picture entry animation fiction

‣ “Page Miss Glory” (1936)

Tex Avery (director).

Seen in 2017.

The Art Deco, with echoes of Fritz Lang, suggests Tex Avery’s talent and bright future.

moving picture entry animation fiction

‣ “When I Yoo Hoo” (1936)

Seen in 2017.

The final shot, of non-funny-animal cocks on the bleachers when their funny-animal owners and trainers fight, is no punchline. It is more interesting, ecocritically, that the two feuding hillbilly clans are both represented as biologically similar to one another and internally diverse.

References here: “The Martins and the Coys” (1946).

moving picture entry animation fiction

‣ “I Love to Singa” (1936)

Tex Avery (director).

Seen in 2017.

The Jazz Singer (1927) according to Tex Avery.

moving picture entry animation fiction

‣ “Sunday Go to Meetin’ Time” (1936)

Seen in 2017.

moving picture entry animation fiction

‣ “At Your Service Madame” (1936)

Seen in 2017.

Neatly contained, without anyone thinking too hard about the contents.

moving picture entry animation fiction

‣ “Toy Town Hall” (1936)

Seen in 2017.

moving picture entry animation fiction

‣ “The CooCoo Nut Grove” (1936)

Seen in 2018.

Wikipedia names over 20 celebrities, many more than I could recognize. For something so extremely heavy on reference humour for its time and medium, it is surprisingly well put together; there is even a restored version where the colour looks lovely. Though it alludes to the various celebrities rather than naming them, it is a more direct form of reference humour than the mere idioms of “Bosko in Person” (1933).

References here: “Porky’s Road Race” (1937), “Speaking of the Weather” (1937), “The Woods Are Full of Cuckoos” (1937), “Bambi Meets Godzilla” (1974).

moving picture entry animation fiction

‣ “Don’t Look Now” (1936)

Tex Avery (director).

Seen in 2018.

The two turtles dancing inside the male’s shell are cute.

moving picture entry animation fiction

‣ “He Was Her Man” (1937)

Seen in 2018.

moving picture entry animation fiction

‣ “Pigs Is Pigs” (1937)

Seen in 2018.

References here: The Simpsons (1989).

moving picture entry animation fiction

‣ “The Fella with the Fiddle” (1937)

Seen in 2018.

While the premise is offensive, the execution is not bad.

moving picture entry animation fiction

‣ “She Was an Acrobat’s Daughter” (1937)

Seen in 2018.

A brief Hitler cameo is used to illustrate the uselessness of seats crammed in very close to the movie-theatre screen, as was common at the time.

moving picture entry animation fiction

‣ “I Only Have Eyes for You” (1937)

Tex Avery (director).

Seen in 2018.

Pun title, misuse of Blanc. The only good part is the love interest’s ambition to marry any radio crooner.

moving picture entry animation fiction

‣ “Clean Pastures” (1937)

Seen in 2018.

moving picture entry animation fiction

‣ “Streamlined Greta Green” (1937)

Seen in 2018.

moving picture entry animation fiction

‣ “Sweet Sioux” (1937)

Seen in 2018.

As in “Bosko the Talk-Ink Kid” (1929), there is not much going on here except ethnicity viewed from the outside. Like Bosko, the Americans dance the czardas to mix things up. The individual jokes all fail, which leads me to believe that this game of ethnicities was itself considered a selling point.

moving picture entry animation fiction

‣ “Egghead Rides Again” (1937)

Tex Avery (director).

Seen in 2018.

Egghead looks a bit like a proboscis monkey.

moving picture entry animation fiction

‣ “Plenty of Money and You” (1937)

Seen in 2018.

moving picture entry animation fiction

‣ “Ain’t We Got Fun” (1937)

Tex Avery (director).

Seen in 2018.

Neatly condensed plotting.

moving picture entry animation fiction

‣ “Speaking of the Weather” (1937)

Seen in 2018.

There is a direct textual reference to “The CooCoo Nut Grove” (1936) in it, and I like the concept of magazines coming to life as a variation of the perennial series motif, but it it isn’t developed.

moving picture entry animation fiction

‣ “Dog Daze” (1937)

Seen in 2018.

Some of the individual acts are short enough for the Vine video sharing service of 80 years later.

moving picture entry animation fiction

‣ “I Wanna Be a Sailor” (1937)

Tex Avery (director).

Seen in 2018.

Avery switching fluidly between miniature musical numbers, pop-culture allusions and a thin plot, but the characters are weak.

moving picture entry animation fiction

‣ “The Lyin’ Mouse” (1937)

Seen in 2018.

moving picture entry animation fiction

‣ “A Sunbonnet Blue” (1937)

Tex Avery (director).

Seen in 2018.

moving picture entry animation fiction

‣ “The Woods Are Full of Cuckoos” (1937)

Seen in 2018.

Comparatively poor, perhaps because I recognize even fewer celebrities, but it doesn’t seem to have the same verve.

moving picture entry animation fiction

‣ “September in the Rain” (1937)

Seen in 2018.

Bad rotoscope dancing and a relatively dull take on the recurring motif.

References here: “Daffy Duck & Egghead” (1938).

moving picture entry animation fiction

‣ “Little Red Walking Hood” (1937)

Tex Avery (director).

Seen in 2018.

References here: “Red Hot Riding Hood” (1943).

moving picture entry animation fiction

‣ “My Little Buckeroo” (1938)

Seen in 2018.

A Western. I like the hero’s horse getting distracted.

moving picture entry animation fiction

‣ “Jungle Jitters” (1938)

Seen in 2018.

One of the Censored Eleven. The non-racist humour in it is based on references, apparently to Al Pearce, Clark Gable and Robert Taylor. So it’s two kinds of comedy that do not age well.

moving picture entry animation fiction

‣ “The Sneezing Weasel” (1938)

Tex Avery (director).

Seen in 2018.

moving picture entry animation fiction

‣ “A Star Is Hatched” (1938)

Seen in 2018.

moving picture entry animation fiction

‣ “Now That Summer Is Gone” (1938)

Seen in 2019.

A pretty good catalogue of the serial production tricks developed up to this point.

moving picture entry animation fiction

‣ “Katnip Kollege” (1938)

Seen in 2019.

moving picture entry animation fiction

‣ “Have You Got Any Castles?” (1938)

Seen in 2019.

moving picture entry animation fiction

‣ “Love and Curses” (1938)

Seen in 2019.

moving picture entry animation fiction

‣ “Cinderella Meets Fella” (1938)

Tex Avery (director).

Seen in 2019.

moving picture entry animation fiction

‣ “The Penguin Parade” (1938)

Tex Avery (director).

Seen in 2019.

moving picture entry animation fiction

‣ “The Major Lied ’Til Dawn” (1938)

Seen in 2019.

moving picture entry animation fiction

‣ “A-Lad-In Bagdad” (1938)

Seen in 2019.

moving picture entry animation fiction

‣ “Cracked Ice” (1938)

Seen in 2019.

moving picture entry animation fiction

‣ “The Isle of Pingo Pongo” (1938)

Tex Avery (director).

Seen in 2019.

The first handful of jokes about the black “aboriginals” on the island all undercut prejudice and exoticism. Only after that, the notorious racism of the Censored Eleven enters the picture. There’s enough other stuff going on to keep it funny.

References here: “Clown of the Jungle” (1947).

moving picture entry animation fiction

‣ “A Feud There Was” (1938)

Tex Avery (director).

Seen in 2019.

Especially poor shot continuity but some decent metafiction.

moving picture entry animation fiction

‣ “Little Pancho Vanilla” (1938)

Seen in 2019.

References here: “Ferdinand the Bull” (1938).

moving picture entry animation fiction

‣ “Johnny Smith and Poker-Huntas” (1938)

Tex Avery (director).

Seen in 2019.

Pretty intelligent anti-racist use of racist motifs. The native Americans are simultaneously portrayed according to stereotype and as modern Americans outclassing the white settlers on the Mayflower.

References here: “Scalp Trouble” (1939).

moving picture entry animation fiction

‣ “You’re an Education” (1938)

Seen in 2019.

moving picture entry animation fiction

‣ “The Night Watchman” (1938)

Seen in 2019.

moving picture entry animation fiction

‣ “Count Me Out” (1938)

Seen in 2019.

The correspondence course in boxing, which extends to coaching a title match in real time on vinyl, is the first noted use of an ACME product in a Warner Bros. cartoon. It’s a fine start.

moving picture entry animation fiction

‣ “The Mice Will Play” (1938)

Tex Avery (director).

Seen in 2019.

The closing punchline is good: Overhearing the heroic newlyweds’ talk of babies, the villainous cat who’s been stalking them throughout the film decides to hold off its attack. It’s a tame anthropomorphic animal deciding on animal husbandry, in further imitation of a human.

moving picture entry animation fiction

‣ “Dog Gone Modern” (1939)

Seen in 2019.

Poorly conceived and animated.

moving picture entry animation fiction

‣ “Hamateur Night” (1939)

Tex Avery (director).

Seen in 2020.

moving picture entry animation fiction

‣ “Robin Hood Makes Good” (1939)

Seen in 2020.

moving picture entry animation fiction

‣ “Gold Rush Daze” (1939)

Seen in 2020.

moving picture entry animation fiction

‣ “A Day at the Zoo” (1939)

Tex Avery (director).

Seen in 2020.

Very Lewis Carroll.

moving picture entry animation fiction

‣ “Prest-O Change-O” (1939)

Seen in 2020.

moving picture entry animation fiction

‣ “Bars and Stripes Forever” (1939)

Seen in 2020.

The joys of the US prison system.

Good title; the US prison system is unique and deeply connected to the country’s history of slavery. I assume this is not an intentional glamorization of it, but it’s hard to believe this sort of purposeful naïveté for comedy is harmless.

moving picture entry animation fiction

‣ “Daffy Duck and the Dinosaur” (1939)

Seen in 2020.

moving picture entry animation fiction

‣ “Thugs With Dirty Mugs” (1939)

Tex Avery (director).

Seen in 2020.

A fine parody of Warner Brothers’ gangster movies. I particularly like the recurring motif of various objects functioning as slot machines, infusing the whole world with a love of thrills and money.

moving picture entry animation fiction

‣ “Naughty But Mice” (1939)

Seen in 2020.

A transitional fossil between the “store coming alive” motif and Chuck Jones’s usual stuff. The only point of interest is the creative voice modulation for Sniffles’ drinking buddy, an electric razor.

moving picture entry animation fiction

‣ “Believe It or Else” (1939)

Tex Avery (director).

Seen in 2020.

A series of simple, mostly bad jokes parodying Ripley’s Believe It or Not. The best of them is a pun that layers in the studio system’s strict self-censorship in the Hays Code era: The narrator promises to show the birth of a baby and shows a baby on a berth. The integration of the Warner musical element that ostensibly drives Merrie Melodies is curious: Short performances mixed into the jokes.

moving picture entry animation fiction

‣ “Hobo Gadget Band” (1939)

Seen in 2020.

The soda fizz gag prefigures the “Diet Coke and Mentos” geyser meme popular in the ten years after 2005. The portrayal of the Great Depression’s homeless here is romantic and comedic, subtly dehumanizing but not disparaging.

moving picture entry animation fiction

‣ “Old Glory” (1939)

Seen in 2020.

This was before the pledge was adopted by Congress, and before the Christian faith was snuck into it, so Porky does not say “under god”. Regardless, the short would make no sense at all to a viewer who was not already familiar with US history as taught to its children. It’s pure propaganda, making no argument other than “love the country because people have died for it”, and only vaguely alluding to internal enemies who are not so fervently patriotic.

Despite Lincoln’s appearance, and despite native Americans and other people of colour having featured pretty heavily in previous Melodies and Looney Tunes like the preceding week’s “Scalp Trouble” (1939), there is no direct mention here of native Americans, slavery, the civil war, segregation, US wars of expansion etc., nor do they appear on screen. This delineation of the subject matter misrepresents history for the purpose of indoctrination. Its total lack of humour is typical of authoritarianism. In my opinion, to go from a comedic, cartoonish, squash-and-stretch colonial war one week to this rotoscoped sermon the next, with the same protagonist, is more vile than simply including caricatures of native Americans being killed in the earlier short, or even calling it “Scalp Trouble”. Yet, when the list of the Censored Eleven was drafted, I’m sure they never considered this piece of shit.

References here: A People’s History of the United States (1980), “American Psychosis” (2017).

moving picture entry animation fiction

‣ “Dangerous Dan McFoo” (1939)

Tex Avery (director).

Seen in 2021.

Good typewriter piano.

moving picture entry animation fiction

‣ “Snowman’s Land” (1939)

Seen in 2021.

moving picture entry animation fiction

‣ “Hare-um Scare-um” (1939)

Seen in 2022.

At this point, the lead animator gave the hare a name on its model sheet: “Bugs’ Bunny” because director Hardaway was already nicknamed Bugs.

moving picture entry animation fiction

‣ “Detouring America” (1939)

Tex Avery (director).

Seen in 2022.

A spoof of the travelogue short-subject genre.

moving picture entry animation fiction

‣ “Little Brother Rat” (1939)

Seen in 2022.

Near surrealism.

moving picture entry animation fiction

‣ “Sioux Me” (1939)

Seen in 2022.

Based on “Porky the Rain-Maker” (1936). Same premise.

moving picture entry animation fiction

‣ “Land of the Midnight Fun” (1939)

Tex Avery (director).

Seen in 2022.

Ah yes, the famous penguins of the Arctic.

moving picture entry animation fiction

‣ “The Little Lion Hunter” (1939)

Seen in 2023.

The only point of interest here is the introduction of Inki, a recurring character. Just like “Bosko the Talk-Ink Kid” (1929), Inki is based on blackface characters, only more so. Just like Bosko, there’s a symbolic association between “black” skin and ink, only less so. It is not clear whether Inki was intended as a remake of the obsolete character, but regardless, the point of interest is, more specifically, that the animistic freedom of 1920s animation went out of fashion in the USA before blackface.

moving picture entry animation fiction

‣ “The Good Egg” (1939)

Seen in 2024.

moving picture entry animation fiction

‣ “Coal Black and de Sebben Dwarfs” (1943)

The censors should have had more sense than to martyr this crap.

moving picture entry animation fiction