43. I Wish I Had Wings (1932)

Warner cartoon no: 42.

Release date: October 15, 1932.

Series: Merrie Melodies.

Director: Rudolf Ising.

Producers: Hugh Harman, Rudolf Ising and Leon Schlesinger (associate).

Cast unknown.

Animation: Rollin Hamilton and Paul Smith.

Musical Score: Frank Marsales.

The short starts off with a chicken inside a house in which it sleeps. The darkness of the room lightens as it's morning. I really like that effect that was created by Harman-Ising with the darkness of the room that lightens, it's a good achievement that they did - even though I bet other studios used that technique before. The chicken wakes up, as it crows for the new day. The chicken clenches his stomach while about to crow as a wake-up call. After a couple of attempts to wake up the sleeping chickens, it doesn't work. The chicken suddenly squawks in which all the chickens happen to wake up, and scram around the henhouse.

As the chickens have woken up, the angry rooster pulls off the perches of the sleeping ducks, and then orders them to do some type of assembly-dance that was reused from Hold Anything. There appears to be a shot of a chicken that's rather fat in which dozens of chicks run out from under the hen in which the hen gets thinner. Was that hen pregnant or something - don't they lay eggs though?

Meanwhile outside, there is a chicken with a stethoscope on, it seems to be that he's listening out for some worms (question is, how can you listen for worms?), so the chicken drills to the ground to find a worm, in which a bunch of baby chicks beg for the worm. The chicken places the worm in the meat grinder to make it fair for everybody in which every chick gets a worm.

There is a rather repeated chase sequence with one of the birds as a worm tries to get away, which is one of those chase sequences reused from Ain't Nature Grand? Practically, it's just all reuses, with that little worm escaping in that hole. Looks like Rudy Ising went too big on a budget there, and it was too short. Orders were probably, reuse something!

Meanwhile there is a hen that appears to be knitting while sitting down laying her eggs. Knitting? Well, it gives it some personality - so it's fine. The hen looks under to see if the eggs have hatched, and she's sitting on a hot water bottle to heat up the eggs quickly. Now that is a good gag, which explains the character's personality of her impatience with the egg hatching. Meanwhile, the father rooster enters the scene and notices that the hen was knitting. He demands that she hands in the jumper to see what it's like. As he sees the jumper, it looks great for the juniors and shouts "Whoopee!"

He runs out the hut to bring in the doctor to see if the eggs will be hatching, the doctor comes along who seems to look like a stork. The rooster waits outside the hut walking up and down worrying if his wife is alright. The stork arrives outside with a basket full of chicks, with the rooster's initial response "is it a boy?" A group of chicks jump out of the basket, with another chick with no wings that shouts in a Mickey Mouse voice "Hi pop!"

The chicks all hurry in a pile to a feeding trough, in which there is no room for the black chick, who is a mongrel to all the other ones that were hatched. He is rather upset that he can't find any food to eat, but at least he finds some leftover corn to eat. As he rubs his hands for the corn, all the chicks reach to eat the corn before he gets it. Well, rubbing hands is unfortunate timing. 

The bird continues to walk on rather sad, and also singing the title song I Wish I Had Wings, in which he wishes that he could fly and find some food he can eat instead of being trapped in a farm. He notices some corn hanging at the top of the poles, with birds "with wings" chirping. The bird then cries that he's hungry with nothing to eat, and wants to eat something outside but how's he gonna do it? As he hasn't got any wings, instead he's got arms.

The bird lands on a corset in which these chicks sing the title song in a chorus. The bird flies up in the corset, and lands on the chicken wire. The chick walks on to find a pair of underwear handing on a clothesline. He is now declared free as there is food surrounded for him to eat (not foods all over like buns, burgers, meat, etc.), but food like peas in a pod, in which he uses to swallow them one at a time down his mouth, with some good timing on the animation.

Meanwhile, a rather faceless scarecrow comes to life for some apparent reason. It's rather odd that scarecrows come to life, but that's alright. What really bugs me is that very gruff voice that he produces like "Shoo! Boo!", I know that it's meant to sound scary - but can the directors try something not too corny? There is then a chase sequence going with the bird and the scarecrow. The chick then hides on a wishing well, in which he pulls a rope in which the handle spins that hits the scarecrow in the face. He then goes flying and ends up rather dreary. The chick then grabs a lighter in which the scarecrow gets flamed immediately, that causes him to run off to the scene - and that's all folks.

This cartoon was a very bland cartoon, it was just a typical Harman-Ising cartoons in which the results usually are always the same. The storylines are just the same except it's a different setting. Although there were some interesting gags, but again there were some bad gags. The reuses didn't seem too much, but there was a sequence of reuses. It was just a cartoon that was very uninteresting and much of those Merrie Melodies were uninteresting cartoons. Hopefully, the next cartoon which will be a Bosko cartoon will be even better.