77. Buddy's Garage (1934)

Title card courtesy of Dave Mackey.

Warner cartoon no. 76.
Release date: April 14, 1934.
Series: Looney Tunes.
Supervision: Earl Duvall.
Producer: Leon Schlesinger.
Cast: Jack Carr (Buddy) and Bernice Hansen (Cookie).
Animation: Jack King and Sandy Walker.
Musical Score: Bernard Brown.

Before I begin my actual review, I have to say that this is an impressive title card I must say. There is an actual box package at the main title card which is just great and intriguing to an audience, comparing to the others when they're just plain black! Well, looks like this title card must go into my memorandum of "Reasons why Earl Duvall had potential as a Looney Tunes director".

Our carton begins with Buddy inside his garage who is sewing a tire by placing a patch on it. Buddy looks rubbery in that animation, and I guess that tells us it's an Earl Duval cartoon, while Honeymoon Hotel looked like Friz Freleng. He continues to sew the tire until it's finished, and then bites off the string attached to the sewing needle. We PAN to these kittens that are drinking milk out of a cat (in the fear of sounding dumb, but do kitten drink milk from their mothers)? One of the kittens then walk to a tire, and sucks it. There is then a tank of free water where there are ducks in there - makes sense to me (I don't think so). We see a fun gag that I enjoy is when there is a car that is scrubbing itself in the shower with a brush and soap - you even it's weird, then look at the sign closely that reads "Cars Washed". Buddy arrives with some oil and squirts it in parts of the car that is needed, it causes the inanimate car to giggle.

We see a shot of Towser sleeping (boy he sure looks older compared to Buddy and Towser). As Towser is sleeping, next to him is a flattened out tire that Buddy spots, so he finds a a pipe to place it on the wheel. Towser is snoring, but he still pumps up the tire. Mmm, if Towser could do that then he has strong lungs - still what could be a harmful gag since it's an Earl Duvall one.

Meanwhile there is a bee who's sitting down on one of the equipments, and he sharpens his blade stinger with a type of sharpener, as his plan is to pop the wheel with his stinger, and he so does it. Instead he uses his stinger like a drill - until the tire pops with air coming up and helium inside Towser. He then tries to chase the fly, but then swallows it. Don't swallow it you mongrel; it'll sting you! So Towser gets a funny feeling inside his stomach (with weary eyes) in which he spits out the bee.

Buddy then uses his hammer to hit on chisels as though he is playing the xylophone. Buddy then hears a "Yoo hoo" sound and notices that it's from Cookie. She brings a picnic basket that's for Buddy that excites Buddy. He tosses the fruit out of the basket in which it is all nicely prepared on the table. He then gets out a monkey wrench in which he uses it to crack walnuts, so at least it's telling us Buddy's tools even come in handy. We then get a random shot of Towser sniffing, but the inanimate gas pipe sprays gasoline on him, but gee - that's bad for him.

Cookie is also joining Buddy in his garage and he notices that Cookie's turkey is too small - so he thinks of an idea to pump it up so it will be good enough to eat. Buddy uses his knife to prods it to see if anything happens, but then it bursts leaving Cookie and Buddy to roar with laughter. Well that gag has been used many times in the past - and I guess it was funny back then but was it a popular gag back then from other studios?

Buddy hears a honking sound from outside and it means his lunch break is cut short, as he has to help a customer. Why it's the tough guy that Earl Duvall used - and sadly we don't even know his name, considering that he was never given one. The brute is inside his car waiting for Buddy and Buddy arrives in a committed attitude. The brute asks him "Get it loaded up", with Buddy's reply "Yessir". As Buddy gets his car recharging it's batteries by using gas, the brute finds a poster of a baby holding a candle and lights it with his cigar. What?? Don't be ridiculous, but what? I mean how is this true, what is this poster like 4 dimensional or something?

The brute steps out of his car with borden, while Buddy is getting on with his job. The brute then enters inside a shack where Cookie is powdering herself with make-up in front of the mirror. The brute then tries to get Cookie to kiss her in which she almost shrieks. Buddy is squirting oil, in which it squirts like a party whistle. Buddy hears Cookie's screams in which Buddy shouts "Hey you", but the brute feels threatened by Buddy and is about to get him. Cookie uses a drill to drill the brute's ass to stop him. The brute chases Cookie, then Buddy chases after him. The brute tilts a scaffold of tires onto him, in which he's completely stuck. (Sigh) this looks like another: say it kids: Villain chasing girlfriend sequence.

The brute manages to get away inside his own car (and it appears to be already full of gas already, since Buddy was still busily working on it). Luckily the smoke coming out of the exhaust pipe pulls the tires off Buddy, so he can continue the chase, and does so by using his cars to chase after the brute. She screams for help ad Buddy is doing his real best to try and stop the horrid man. An ice cream van and another van both jump from one side of their way, so those fast cars can go fast (couldn't they have stopped the tough guy from going anywhere?) but a hand comes out of the vans and shake hands.

The car where the tough guy and Cookie are ends up approaching a sign that reads road closed. So since the tough guy doesn't want to break the law. Argh jeez, why couldn't be just crash through that gate, it's like as though he doesn't want to get in trouble with the law, when actually abducting someone's girlfriend is breaking the law. Instead the car acts like a horse and jumps over the sign. Why couldn't he run it over, he is pretty bad-ass if you ask me. The brute's car then drives through a bridge and somehow the smoke goes through some of the planks of wood that it ends up taking all of it all (and how does that even work? You can't do that with wood, it's unnatural). Buddy's car who is catching up then splashes into the water since the bridge is practically almost damaged.

Buddy is still underwater, but he eventually catches up into the surface and does he by still driving of course, and with his tow; he catches a fish by luck. As Buddy is driving, he is distracted with the sounds of cats meowing, (are they the same kittens from the garage or kittens from out of nowhere?) The cats managed to eat up most of the fish leaving out the bones that is left. The car that the brute is and Cookie -- okay, I'm getting tired of keeping on repeating it - I'm just going to say the brute car, is that okay? So the brute car goes through a different direction, and Buddy's gets lost with the navigating, and it gets so the car has to sniff like a dog so that he can navigate his way to find the brute car.

Buddy's car then discovers his way on where the brute car is, so he drives along the path very fast and crashes into a laundry van. The car appears with several clothing on it such as a bra. The brute car drives fast, but skids when he reaches a house and drives through the other way. It seems that Buddy is acting all road rage by crashing into that house with a bed of children attached to his tow. I mean a lot of parts of the bed keep falling off and Buddy is causing more damage than the brute is - poor twins. As Buddy has now caught up with the brute car, Cookie continues to scream in which Buddy has an idea to use his tow hook on Cookie's skirt in and places her in his car.

Buddy then unloads his hook again, but grabs it on the villain's shirt and places him on the ground where he almost skids but he keeps on getting hit by each rock on the ground, and even on mud. Buddy then moves the brute on a wooden gate beside the car in which the tough guy gets attacked by each wooden end of the gate. Buddy and Cookie are reunited, but Buddy lets out of the fumes from the exhaust pipe to be placed on the brute - and that's all folks.

I liked the opening shorts of this cartoon in which it felt like what Earl Duval did to me, it had some fine gags in the beginning and it really felt as though we're sticking with the title of this short - Buddy's Garage. He seemed busy on the job, but everything sequences to a chase sequence right at the middle of the short to the very end, and I just feel that part was stupid with these lame gags albeit pointless plot. The tough guy seemed to be a favorite character by Earl Duvall, and obviously his creation - will be come back again? We'll find out. It feels to me as much like as though Duvall worked on most of the opening, but it feels like someone else was in charge of the rest of the cartoon - did Jack King finish off his productions when he left the studio?

I should tell you that this is Earl Duvall's last cartoon that he directed for Warner Bros. and probably the last he ever worked on. He got into an alcoholic argument with Leon Schlesinger that he should be the highest paid animation director in the animation industry, and the argument was quite grim. Hours later Duval came over to apologize, but it was discovered that his top animator Jack King was promoted to director by Leon Schlesinger, and Earl was barred from ever setting foot into the Leon Schlesinger Studios ever again.

74. Honeymoon Hotel (1934)

Warner cartoon no. 73.
Release date: February 17, 1934.
Series: Merrie Melodies.
Supervision: Earl Duval.
Producer: Leon Schlesinger.
Cast unknown.
Animation: Jack King and Frank Tipper.
Musical Score: Bernard Brown.

I'm going to be reviewing the first Merrie Melodies cartoon in colour (Cinecolor), this cartoon and Beauty and the Beast are produced in Cinecolor, then we are get to black-and-white until the Merrie Melodies series is stuck to colour permanently late in 1934.

The cartoon begins with these bugs that are on wooden scaffolds, and they are singing a town about Bugtown (what is it their anthem or something) and one of the bugs has a paintbrush and paints the lyrics to the audience, so that we can probably sing to the unfamiliar song?! The song is basically telling us to come over to Bugtown? Bugtown, how can I go to bug town - I might stampede all those bugs with my bare feet. Come to think of it, it might be fun.

The whole citizens of Bugtown are all dancing and prancing gayly as though it's such a happy town (must have been Duval's influence on the Disney cartoons). There is a busy taffic going on in Bugtown too. What we do see is that Bugtown seems to be an overall busy place where bugs actually use their time up (in a good way), with meetings, lunch bars, steam trains, etc.

The park seems to be a very popular place in Bugtown (especially for lovers) and there's no annoying little brats to shout out "lovebirds" in the middle of the park (like I get all the time!) We then a specific lovebug couple that are strolling around the park and the male finds peas in a pod, and tosses the peas out to form a canal. The male is so gentleman like, that he does the oaring so his fiancee can have such a great time relaxing. Why couldn't be all be like him (and as for girlfriends/wives/fianancies why not be as releaxed and happy as the lady bug - and never contstantly nags ;-) Only joking, folks. They both snuggle up with each other, and kiss each other on the lips.

 After the canal scene comes the wedding day, both Mr. and Mrs. Bug (shall we call them Bug-smith since Smith is a popular surname?) are now officially married. They both step into their car, with a banner on their car reading "Just married".  Well, there is some nice sentiment going on here with the love couple - I hope nothing will happen with a completely random story JUST LIKE in Pettin' in the Park.

The honeymooners then park their cat at a very fancy hotel named "Honeymoon Hotel". Mr. and Mrs. Bugsmith (Okay, I'm not going to go into that habit no more) enter the hotel, but the car whistles to them. The car seems to make a gesture as if they are a sweet couple - or a congratulatory note on being married. The couple walk in together romantically with a caterpillar who is the bellboy of the hotel walks in carrying the luggage, saying "I think I can carry all this luggage, because I work at Honeymoon Hotel. I see all the kissy and the huggage, Many other names as well." We then see the receptionist, who has a book with names that read "Mr. and Mrs. Smith" three times. Wait a sec, I said "Mr. and Mrs. Bugsmith", and then it says "Mr. and Mrs. Smith"? OH MY GOD, I jinxed it - how spooky is that?? I'm not making this up, but watching it through I completely forgot about that damn register book.

Meanwhile, up in the elevator they are still romantic with each other and they reach their floor with the caterpillar still holding their luggage. They arrive at their room - with the male bug tossing a coin to the caterpillar as though his part of the job is complete. 

Meanwhile there is a rather creepy looking hotel manager who seems to enjoy peeping through people's hotel rooms - (and yes, I've heard a story about that recently, a hotel manager drilled a hole in two 16 year old's rooms, with one of the boy's poster damaged). He spits on the floor as if what he will do is dirty, but very nosy. He peeps through the keyhole, but there is a fisher hook that comes up from the top window above the door, and moves the doorknob to the very top. He continues doing so at other people's doors, but instead the guests all take their revenge on him by using the doors to push him, with even one of the doorknobs that punches him like a fist, and both doorknobs turn into hands to shake them. 

Mr. and Mrs. Smith (still think Bugsmith would make more sense) are both sitting on the couch, the male bug tries to get his wife to snuggle up but is too shy to do so. Just as they were about to get settled, they are interrupted with the sounds of knocking - that gives them a sign to not go any further. Instead, there are these steward bugs and stewardesses that walk in with two glasses of wine, some ice and tea. The stewardesses walk in with pillows, sheets, etc. and they are singing the title song Honeymoon Hotel. The couple then want some privacy time together, and they go to song:

Husband Bug: "This is quite disturbing, why don't you say goodnight,"
Wife Bug: "If you only leave us, I'm sure we'll be alright.

The stewards and stewardesses then wish them goodnight while singing (Don't worry, they were used to use some singing in their shorts). The close the door, but it turns out that the stewards are in fact still looking through the door such as holes drilled, keyholes, the window above, and a telescope. As they are about to snuggle up again, a moon then looks at them acting nosy. So the husband bug then pulls down the blinds, but comes back up again with the moon still looking. The moon then goes to song, but sings that he can see then from hear, but the bug turns off the light, so that the moon won't see them. The moon suddenly turns red, for some particular reason.

As the bugs are kissing, but no reason even explained, the temperature suddenly rises where it gets to the point of fire.Although I must say I like the effects for the fire drill, and the temperature rising but why wasn't it even explained. Mike Barrier was extremely right in his book Hollywood Cartoons that the cartoons lacked coherence. So there is now a fire alarm in which the fire brigade have to arrive. Such as a caterpillar being the fire engine, and a comb as the ladder. They arrive at the burning hotel and they manage to rescue a couple of guests as they jump out of their windows and land on the parachute. 

Meanwhile back inside the hotel, the love-bugs (Mr. and Mrs. Bugsmith) are still inside their room that is burning with flames, and they are completely surrounded with flames and smoke. They then hide in their door bed, in which it closes on them. The fire effects is similar to what the Disney effects guys would do, but I must say that the smoke effects are just atrocious, it's just typical drawn smoke with nothing realistic, but I guess that's called the early 1930's animation to you. The firemen are still doing their best to put the fire out, but for some particular reason there is an explosion in which the hotel is mostly damaged. Okay, but there IS NO EXPLANATION as to why the hotel suddenly exploded. I mean if I go out and try to burn a fire, I'll find out and see if it suddenly explodes - nope nothing happened.Any

Anyway, the fire is out, but there is still such awful damage to the building. The male bug then places a "do not disturb" sign on the door and slams it. He then gets back to bed, but instead the bed moves back into the door (meaning that they will get laid), and the calendar with a February page of a baby winks at us meaning "You know what's going to happen?" What, was this cartoon made for adults and not for kids??? and that's all folks.

Well, of course this was the first color Merrie Melodies, but I feel that Earl Duval has declined slightly in his past three cartoons that he directed, but I wonder if this cartoon was actually made after Earl Duval's alcoholic rant with Leon Schlesinger or did Earl Duval finish production early with someone else like Friz Freleng taking over, because this cartoon really resembles to Freleng's cartoons that he made at THAT time. Unless, Earl Duval started off using that bland style for Merrie Melodies (although this doesn't remind me of Earl Duval at all), but maybe Friz Freleng reworked it with Earl Duval still getting screen credit. This is sort of an adult-themed carton, in which Earl Duval was known to do, so there is elements there that relate to his direction. The animation fire effects were pretty lousy, but I guess I can't blame them. The voices annoyed me rapidly, but back then there were annoying voices back then, but Bernice Hansen's voice back them and even carrying on through the 1930's annoys me even more (but I don't think she works on that short)!

71. Sittin' On a Backyard Fence (1933)

 

Warner cartoon no. 70.

Release date: December 16, 1933.

Series: Merrie Melodies.

Supervision: Earl Duval.

Producer: Leon Schlesinger.

Cast unknown.

Animation: Jack King and Don Williams.

Musical Score: Norman Spencer.

It's been a while since I reviewed a Merrie Melodie (well, last week) but this is the last review of 1933, and as Sittin' on a Backyard Fence was released on December 16, 1933 - it turned 78 years only yesterday. Pretty spooky, huh?

 The short begins with a couple of inanimate objects that are sleeping, such as a clock that is snoring, a telephone that is also snoring but the line is off of course. We then see a shot of books that causes the pages to flicker, and then we pan to see a glass with false teeth inside that snores too. We see these good gags of inanimate objects snoring that is good, but also bizarre.A man is snoring loudly in his bed, with his dungarees waving from the snoring air - fine gag, but used many times. So, as the man is fast asleep, a female feline sits on the window sill, and finds another cat sitting on a backyard fence, and they meow to each other. The female cat then jumps to the backyard fence where they both sing.

A bunch of cats then follow her, and from what I've noticed the designs of the cats now seem to have a cartoon style to it, as it was blandness designs by Tom Palmer. Again, this is why I feel Earl Duval was showing promise as a director, he's giving his characters some design and drawing style - he seems to be actually trying. The cats then walk through the fence and it looks like they are walking through some type of X-ray moon where we can see the inside of their bodies. At the bottom of the fence, we see these posters of a bull and cows, and it seems the bull is flirting with the female cows in the other posters but they sing the title song Sittin' on a Backyard Fence, which I find a little strange and so far this cartoon is crazy.

We see a dance routine that is being performed by a long pair of underwear which just spooks me because they remind me of ghosts dancing or something paranormal. They also do some aerobics on a laundry wire up in the apartments. The cats themselves get dancing as well, with some old barrels, brooms, etc. and turn it into a type of swing band. More singing is coming from the backyard fence (more of meowing) from the male and female felines, and it seems that the female cat is trying to snuggle up with the male cat playing a weird type of string instrument.

Meanwhile, there appears to be some type of homeless cat that is licking Kat nip that is lying on the dirty grounds, and then he puts on a record player on with a cassette inside, and I don't know what the cat is doing but it looks like as though he's trying to do an impression of a celebrity that I don't even know, and the reference is too dated for me to know on my own. The cat with the eye-patch does it to the female feline on a backyard fence was was engaged to the male, but instead she jumps off and dances with the eye-patched cat. Due to jealousy, the male cat jumps off the fence and wants to seek revenge on the cat. 

The female cat turns out to be a two-timer when dancing off with another cat, and is more interested. There are these quartet of cats that tap their tails to the rhythm. During the song, and they sing a verse where it mentions "tic tac toe", and we see these cats using their tails on a bucket of paint and paint on a wall while playing tic tac toe. As one of the cats gets his "o's" in a diagonal line, and wins the game - the cat blows a raspberry at him which I really like that comeback. As the new cat couple are dancing, the other cat uses a bin opener and opens it with a brick flying into the cat's face.

After that, the cats then start to chase each other (I'm starting to find the plot is sort of similar to Springtime for Thomas a Tom & Jerry cartoon made 13 years later). However, the chase sequence to begin with is pretty slow and unentertaining, as they tend to skid and run through fences, but it gradually gets exciting as they jump onto mirrors. But one of the cats seem to run around a power pole, in which we see these early use of speed lines which isn't achieved yet.

Both of the cats then climb on top of the telephone power pole, in which they start chasing one another, and sort of a puss fight on top of the wires (lucky that they aren't electrocuted). This riot turns out to be nail-biting for the female who is very worried about them. While they are fighting, a rolling pin coming out of an apartment window flies out, and their tails are caught on the rolling pin in which they get a ride through the wires, and they keep on bumping at every edge. They both continue fighting with each other, until they are covered in tins and pots, and they look like some type of robots to me. I don't particularly like the fighting stuff because their characteristics are just like real cats, and they are being attacked which doesn't work to me, while in a "Tom & Jerry" cartoon where you see Tom in pain, it is shown in a way to amuse people. 

They are then being chased by a type of bulldog, and the female cat catches them from up in a telephone pole looking rather curious on what's going on. They run to a fence, where they open the door with the bulldog running past it. They block the door, and the bulldog comes out of a narrow part that is missing a plank of wood, and the bulldog then beats up the cats. After the bulldog walks past, the door opens with the female cat who seems to be engaged to another striped cat but it looks an awful lot like a tiger, it is revealed that they made babies (had sex so quickly?) and there are kittens that comes out. One of the kittens blows a raspberry at the cats. The two cats then look at each other, shake hands, faint and that's all folks.

There is then a scary looking cat who says "So long, folks" to us audience - but truth is that back in 1933-1934, each character who played a role in a one-shot Merrie Melodies got a chance to say "so long folks", but that cat is so freaking creepy. 

Well, I thought that this cartoon was particularly strange and bizarre. Of course, it's interesting to find out what cats are up to when the adults and owners are asleep. There is certainly a plot going on - while the other cartoons in that era had really no plot. It's definitely more coherent that watching I've Got to Sing a Torch Song. The whole cartoon was just bizarre to me, but I guess that Duval was experimenting. The animation was in fact quite good, and there certainly was character personality gone on here, such as jealousy. 

If Earl Duval stayed longer, then he would've probably been the guy who starting kicking things up, and showing potential, but don't forget if he stayed longer, the Looney Tunes would've probably been very different if there was no Tex Avery or Bob Clampett around. But for what the Looney Tunes used to be, the cartoons would've hopefully improved with Duval stayed longer but it would be completely different to what we know. This was Earl Duval's first Merrie Melody and the final year in 1933 - it was a pretty poor end, as Harman-Ising did turn in some fine cartoons (a few fine) but as Leon Schlesinger took over with a completely new staff - it just weakened.

70. Buddy's Showboat (1933)

Warner cartoon no. 69.
Release date: December 12, 1933.
Series: Looney Tunes.
Director: Earl Duval.
Producer: Leon Schlesinger.
Starring: Jack Carr (Buddy) (?).
Animation: Jack King and James Pabian.
Musical Score: Bernard Brown.

The short begins with Buddy's show boat sailing through the river, and Buddy is playing around with some whistles. The atmosphere is rather jolly, the sound effects sounds like some ice cream van driving and attracting kids. As Buddy is blowing the whistle, the whistle doesn't make anymore sounds, and appears to be blocked, so Buddy grabs out a hanker-chief and blows the whistle's nose. After that, Buddy continues to happily play music through the whistle.

The next shot shows these group of black stokers and fireman dumping coal into the steam engine, and it is stereotyped here. The designs here are stereotyped, and this was censored from television but there is an uncensored version - I do not own it. They are singing a different musical number called Swanee Smiles while dumping coal into the engine. Notice how the engine has teeth? We then see these two men that are sleeping and holding out a fishing rod, and there are these two dachshunds walking on a rudder with sausages attached to the rod - alright, that was rather random, what's the joke?

Cookie is inside cutting off potato skins off potatoes, and is happy at the job. The tough guy (who we have seen in Buddy's Beer Garden) is using his knife to chip his toenails, and spits then into the river with a fish spitting water at the tough guy - that showed him. So, the tough guy is now a continuous character in the Buddy series? He has been used again. We then see some interesting animation of the tugboats that have faces on them - did this inspire anything on Little Toot ;-).

The show boat docks at a pier, with an inanimate sleepy anchor coming to life and dives into the water, with the anchor sleeping underwater. Meanwhile, there is a parade that is going on in town. We see a parade of soldiers, we see these type of jokers that are doing some type of aerobics with the snare drum and one of whom is reading some type of comic called "Fooly". Even a lady wearing a dress and his playing the saxophone, her dress falls down and it's revealed that she is riding a tricycle, with her girdle showing, and an entertaining gag. Then, we see a donkey and a rider with a huge drum, and ending with a parade of walking birds.

After the parade, Buddy is at a ticket liner selling tickets for people to enter his show boat for a popular show that features his girlfriend, "Mlle. Cookie, Capt. Buddy's Show Boat Star". Cookie is in her dressing room putting on some perfume, and blows a kiss to Buddy on a poster. The next room we pan through is the tough guy in the dressing room that blows a kiss to Cookie on the poster, which means he has a plan already. Buddy goes to the phone on the ship, and rings Cookie in her dressing room. Buddy picks up the phone with "Hello, sweetheart" and kisses the phone box, in which it signals through to Cookie's phone with kisses on her lips, Cookie does the same. That is a nice gag that works well.

The tough guy is standing behind Buddy, and as Buddy is finished with the phone call and walks out happily - the brute has his chance to try and impress Buddy. As his kiss has signaled to Cookie, Cookie signals back with a fist coming out of the phone and punches the brute in the face. Now that is just a classic gag - and that makes me think that Earl Duval had potential as a director.

After that incident on the phone, the show finally begins as there is a swirl that goes right to the camera, and to the umbrella shot of Cookie and Buddy. I really like that early swirl that was created, and something really unexpected of the Schlesinger shorts back then - and that's why I feel Earl Duval did show promise of great cartoons (even if it wasn't yet to be achieved). Anyhow, both Buddy and Cookie perform a duet dance sequence to themselves, where they are singing Under my Umbrella. Huh, Rihanna - did you get influence at all by this ;-) - only joking. We then see these can-can dancers in the background that look like ghosts - and alright, the animation of them isn't very good, and very discolored. Wait a minute? Singing and dancing; Buddy and Cookie? Looks like Bob Clampett was right about Buddy being a "Bosko in white face".

The next act in which Buddy introduces is some type of tribe that does an impression of Maurice Chevalier, and I can't make out the words that he is singing but it appears to be that he must be reciting some song or poem. The animation of the Chevalier animation is done pretty accurately, but I doubt it is McKimson as he probably hadn't returned from his brief stint at Harman-Ising. We then see the shot of a kangaroo playing the piano, with a baby joey under it's patch playing some piano, too. I don't know where the kangaroo part came from. The beginning shots of Buddy introducing the black tribe was censored.

Cookie is standing behind the curtains looking at what is going on, and she is dancing softly to the music. The brute is standing behind her, and uses a crook to capture Cookie, and oh boy - we are back at the "brute chases girlfriend" routine again, and don't worry - you'll be expecting it. Buddy enters the scenery on his boat and shouts "Stop! Unhand her!", but his response is a fist being smacked into his face, and his whole body ends up spinning onto the steering wheel. But Buddy flies, and hits the tough guy's stomach in which he lands onto something electrical that burns his bottom and yells in pain.

 

 The next trip that Buddy uses is a wooden lifeboat, and crashes it on to the tough guy, in which he crashes open a cage where a seal lived. The seal then chases it after it, and grabs it by doing tricks on the brute by using it's nose. The seal tosses the brute down a hole, in which Buddy uses a hook to grab the brute, and place it on the rudder where he is in pain. Buddy and Cookie are happy again, with the seal bowing to the audience - and that's all folks.

Well, this cartoon was a point for me that Earl Duval was showing real promise and potential that he could become a great director, and the first pictures may have not been excellent, but when you watch it you can tell he showed promise. There were some fun gags here, and the animation wasn't half bad, but he did of course needed to work on the characters more, as they had no character personalities. Larry Tremblay had the uncensored print in his YouTube account, and used them for the review and screen grabs, and thanks to him for posting the uncensored print.

69. Buddy's Beer Garden (1933)

Warner cartoon no. 68.
Release date: November 18, 1933.
Series: Looney Tunes.
Director: Earl Duval.
Producer: Leon Schlesinger.
Cast: Jack Carr (Buddy) (?).
Animation: Jack King and Frank Tashlin.
Musical Score: Norman Spencer.

Tom Palmer has been kicked out of the Studios due to his poor cartoons, and ex-Disney employee Earl Duval takes over the cartoons for a short period of time. Buddy has an even better look, but I feel that Tom Palmer must've started early production work on that cartoon, but was fired right at the start, with Earl Duval taking over production. Interesting to find Frank Tashlin animating in this cartoon, as he would later become a great director for Warner Bros. and even a live-action film director for Jerry Lewis.

The cartoon begins with as we see the entrance to Buddy's Beer Garden (also the title name), and they are all swining their mugs singing, and Buddy walks into the scene singing the song 'Auf Wiederseh'n (We'll Meet Again)') and the patrons at the beginning were singing 'Ach, Du Lieber Augustine'. Buddy is holding onto a tray with two glasses of beer with his dachshund walking with him carrying pretzels on his tail (is that meant to be Happy)? Buddy drops the glases of beer onto the table - with the beer flying right on the glasses. He then pulls the table cloth off in which the beer doesn't tip, shaves the cloth and swishes it back in there. It seems that Buddy must have skills to do something like that. Buddy then walks back singing.

Notice that Buddy has changed through his original Tom Palmer design, he looks even better than the Palmer one - when it was extremely bland and unappealing. Here, the version designed by Earl Duval; Buddy looks more appealing, and has a style look - although the character animation still seems to have Palmer influence (where the humans look very rubbery and comic-strip like, I wonder if Tom had any involvement in that cartoon, and started off production but was fired with Earl Duval taking over.

We see some German band members playing some music (with notes attached to a trombone - and a flute player moving its head to follow the notes). There is a tuba player playing, and then a clarinet player pops out of the tuba playing it's part. We then see a bartender, who is pulling different beer taps on different mugs, and as he places them on the table, there is a trombone player who moves the fotolia of the trombone in which the beer glasses slide down the left side of the table. Buddy is putting some foam on the beer as the beers come by, and it's sort done like in an assembly line. Cookie is making pretzels while the dog salts them with his tail, with all the pretzels coming to life and all jump onto the dog's tail.

We see another shot of these tongue sandwiches with actual tongues sticking out, and these inanimate mustards come to the tongue sandwich and sit. The tongues then lick on the mustard - lovely. From what I've seen in these shots and the looks, the setting looks as though this was set in Germany, with the band playing members, and the bartender - but I know that beer gardens were originally from Germany.

Meanwhile, there is a thug who is banging loudly on his table "Where's my beer?!", and then a small waiter runs into the scene with a huge glass of beer for him. The tough guy grabs the waiter, and guzzles the entire beer in one gulp. I believe that Frank Tashlin animated on all the scenes that showed the tough guy. At least there is some character in that scene.

More singing is coming from the patrons who are having a good time at the beer garden. We then see an entertaining gag that was from a patron who blew the foam off his beer mug, and the foam gets stuck on a bald man's head, in which he starts to comb his hair. Another shot features a guy who takes off the spaghetti off his plate and plays them like a harp. These two beer mug faces come to life and they kiss each other - which is just extremely odd to me in my opinion. Buddy then plays some music by playing on the beer lids, that makes it sound like some xylophone sound he's playing.

Cookie is working as a waitress for Buddy's beer garden, and she seems to be doing other jobs such as acting as a cigar lady, who is asking for any guys for some cigars. As she is walking, the tough guy from earlier asks what's her name, with her reply saying she's called Cookie. He replies that it is a sweet name, and he tosses a coin to Cookie, and takes a cigar and puffs. Did you see that? I actually thought that he was going to try and steal her (just like in Bosko cartoons), but instead he acts like a gentleman.

More music is being played from the band, but the genre of music changes when a guy coming out of the tuba plays the maracas. Cookie enters the spotlight in the middle of the beer garden and performs a sexy dance to the guys. Personally, I don't think it's very erotic, since she isn't quite as attractive, but her design hasn't changed, but her animation is better. Other creatures come to life and enjoy the entertainment, such as a goat in a poster that shows it's horns, the dachshund (Happy?) bouncing pretzels and even a piano that is dancing - which I meant is a good cartoon piano. Even the tough guy is intrigued with the music, and copies the movements of Cookie, which makes him look like an idiot.

Buddy continues to do his job working as a waiter, and playing around with the beer inside the bottles, and performing tricks, such as these barrels that are whistling to "Hi Lee Hi Lo". We then see a random shot of the tough guy who is chewing on these olives and spits them into a spittoon, with the last olive hitting the drum before landing on the spittoon. Buddy is busy with chopping some knives such as baloney and bread, and stacks them neatly together into a sandwich.

Buddy walks out with a tray of sandwiches balanced on his head, and is carrying two bottles of beer. He lowers his head, and the tray slides down his bottom and onto the gentleman's table, in which he gets a coin in return. While walking along, there are these two mugs come to life, and call each other "mugs", which is meant to be a joke. As Buddy is walking, another man walks past and the tray of mugs is swapped to his head, which surprises Buddy. The animation of the mugs speaking to each other was gone very well, and some neat timing on Buddy here, the hookah players.

Buddy enters the scene, and shares his spotlight, and announces: "Hold it folks, a big surprise. This will open up your eyes, introducing someone grand - give the girl a great big hand!" The audience clap, and Buddy runs out. We see a model of Mae West who is walking past (drawn with huge breasts and a huge bum, obviously a caricature), she is singing the song: I Love my Big Time, Slow Time Baseball Man the voice of West isn't very good, and completely out of tune. The tough guy is extremely interested her, and used his hands as if she's the perfect figure for him.

The tough guy walks extremely drunk, and Maw West is still singing, but the tough guy ends up hiding under the table. After the song is finished, the guy shouts "Ah, hello baby - give me one great kiss." He puckers up his lips, and the goat poster comes to life with the goat stabs the tough guy in the behind, in which he goes off flying, that sends Mae West stuck up in a tree branch dangling. The tough guy keeps flying away, and crashes into a window. What I find extremely weird is that goat coming to life, and overall the gags were very weird, and Duval seemed to be very influenced by Harman-Ising here, but I guess it is slightly more lively than their cartoons.

 

After falling down the tree, it turns out that Mae West was in fact Buddy dressed in disguise, with the wig falling apart, and Buddy is wearing a birds' cage strapped to his behind and some type of fake bra, he walks off very embarrassed. The parrot looks around and says, "Am I mortified?" and pulls on a Jimmy Durante voice, and then the caricature that features his big nose - and that's all folks.

Well, from watching this cartoon - this is a slight improvement from the first two cartoons by Tom Palmer. There is in fact some influence in the animation from Palmer, such as the rubbery-balloon like animation. Earl Duval made a slightly better cartoon, but this was just extremely weird, with some bizzare gags and he seemed to have been heavily influenced in Harman-Ising gags. I wonder if he created this cartoon due to his love for alcohol. Well, it was a nice Pre-Code cartoon that featured drinking, and acting drunk - as well as Buddy dressed as Mae West. 

There were some animation expressions from the tough guy that were slightly amusing, but the animation was only alright - to say the least. Personally, I feel that in the next Earl Duval cartoons he made, he had potential and promise to make good cartoons for Warner Bros. this was his first cartoon, so there wasn't much to say about his directing, even though it was some Harman-Ising influence, but he gave Buddy a much better design, and even had some style for the characters. The dog went into a different design and being a dachshund, notice that baby Elmer is no longer here in the cartoons, and Happy. Anyway, let's see what Duval does in the next following cartoons.

Sanek has created a mosaic with his claims on who animated what in Buddy's Beer Garden and with animation estimates, and I will post that sometime during the week.