The Cartune Classics Ranked
Amid the host of obscure Hollywood animated series of the 1930s, I’d think Universal’s Cartune Classics rank among the least seen. Perhaps it’s because there were only six installments, running from late 1934 through most of 1935, and those six installments weren’t exactly popular at the time either (although one was Oscar-nominated). But the studio, and its animation head Walter Lantz, made their first color series with Cartune Classics, using, from what I can tell, two-strip Technicolor. This means they lack the vividness of, say, Disney’s Silly Symphonies (although that studio’s exclusive license to three-strip was about to expire), which isn’t helped by some of the iffy prints out there. But overall, the Cartune Classics help paint the picture of American animation at a time of explosion and how each studio used their red-headed stepchildren cartoon subsidiaries to bolster their programming.
All films directed by Walter Lantz except where noted.
#6 — THREE LAZY MICE (1935)
THREE LAZY MICE also feels a little lazy in the music department. Shortly into the cartoon, a version of the Three Blind Mice melody starts playing…and never stops. The voices of the titular characters, who attempt to get out of working by playing blind, are also ear-piercing and ultimately annoying. There is some good background work when the trio exits “Mouseland” and their encounter with a cat is fine, I guess. But THREE LAZY MICE just lags without a propulsive chaos or quietly beautiful sweetness.
#5 — CANDYLAND (1935)
Watch enough cartoons of this period and you’re going to encounter random racist caricatures for no reason. Hell, you don’t even need to watch that many. That is to say, CANDYLAND opens with a neat illustration of “the Sandman” flying through the sky, which is ruined by him visiting little children of those aforementioned racist caricatures. The cartoon leaves them behind swiftly, thankfully, but it then takes a little boy and his dog to a not very imaginative Candyland. With a name like that, you’d hope the realm had more distinct imagery or characters. Instead, besides a gorgeous establishing shot of the castle in the sky, we get plain hallways and a mostly indistinguishable bunch of rotund chefs and bakers. There are some interesting images in CANDYLAND, but the gags and attempts at spectacle are lackluster.
#4 — TOYLAND PREMIERE (1934)
When TOYLAND PREMIERE was released in late 1934, the “celebrity caricature” cartoon was already kind of out of fashion after a voluminous (too voluminous) output of the trend from essentially all of the Hollywood animation studios. So that a large chunk of this cartoon deals in such caricatures (including a repugnant blackfaced Al Jolson) makes it feel tired. There are some interesting and basically beautiful backgrounds early in TOYLAND PREMIERE, when it’s dealing with just Santa, but even Oswald the Lucky Rabbit’s presence in this sister series doesn’t enliven the proceedings (and anyways, it’s not like Universal’s main animated mascot was doing too hot in his own cartoons at this time).
#3 — SPRINGTIME SERENADE (1935)
Oswald appears in a Cartune Classic again with SPRINGTIME SERENADE, which is a straightforward approximation of the Silly Symphony formula. Therefore, it sometimes gets a little saccharine sweet, but there’s also a little mean streak in the treatment of the groundhog that gives it a little more texture, as it were. Texture is also present in the great backgrounds. It’s a shame that SPRINGTIME SERENADE’s print (at least the one that can be easily found online) is quite washed out, as I have a feeling, even in two-strip, the Technicolor would really work with the imagery and subject of the cartoon.
#2 — JOLLY LITTLE ELVES (1934)
D: Manuel Moreno
The first Cartune Classic is also nearly the best. Indeed, it was recognized with a nomination for Best Animated Short Film at the 7th Academy Awards. JOLLY LITTLE ELVES does survive in a stellar print, which maybe enhances my enjoyment of an otherwise rote story. It’s the classic Elves and the Shoemaker story and it’s rendered in song and dance with different bunches of the creatures putting together footwear in mostly creative fashions. The cartoon’s strongest element, a kind of moody sadness, only lasts for a minute (if that) before devolving into a Silly Symphony rehash. But the somewhat strange character designs (there’s a very, ahem, voluptuous queen at one point), color, and background work make JOLLY LITTLE ELVES a pleasant watch, if not particularly electrifying.
#1 — FOX AND THE RABBIT (1935)
But the chaos of FOX AND THE RABBIT certainly is electrifying, at least by Cartune Classics standards. The moralizing tale about being a good little student and son comes to that conclusion only after a sequence of pretty funny gags in which the titular rabbit (and ultimately his mother) beat up the titular fox. At the risk of sounding like a broken record, the background work has a nice sense of illustrative depth, but the characters in FOX AND THE RABBIT also look the least (repugnantly) strange than any others in the rest of the series. This was the last Cartune Classic and apparently the Lantz studio was building to greater quality (although not linearly). For a while up through 1935, the Oswald series had been flagging quite a bit, and perhaps it stays that way. So I’m not sure how long until I get a Lantz series/cartoon that I can really stump for. As for the Cartune Classics, exactly half are decent watches. It’s a qualified success, but FOX AND THE RABBIT is the best cartoon of the series with its combination of static beauty and slapstick inclinations.
