The Willie Whopper Cartoons Ranked
After ending his Flip the Frog series, former and future Disney collaborator and Mickey Mouse co-creator Ub Iwerks created the Willie Whopper character and series. Willie told outrageous lies, which framed the outlandish circumstances the first lanky, then after a redesign, chubby kid found himself in. It’s a device that I feel isn’t totally necessary, especially for this era of cartooning when Mickey would be a cowboy in one short and a construction worker in another. In any event, Iwerks and his animators, which included Fleischer alum Grim Natwick, who fleshed out the initial design of the character, created a number of satisfying cartoons that advanced the animation medium in slight ways here and there. Willie Whopper ended due to or in conjunction with Iwerks’ loss of a distribution deal with MGM, which also shifted the release of his ComiColor Cartoons series to an independent model with Pat Powers’ Celebrity Pictures. Like a lot of Iwerks’ post-initial-Disney phase work, Willie Whopper has been largely forgotten in the scheme of Golden Age Hollywood’s early animation mascots, but there is value to be found in his series’ 14 cartoons released from 1933 through 1934.
All films directed by Ub Iwerks.
#14 — JUNGLE JITTERS (1934)
Iwerks was no stranger to using tired racist gags to supplement his anarchic animations like his American peers and JUNGLE JITTERS is the ur-text of this within Willie Whopper (but it didn’t start or end here). A classic jungle adventure story complete with Black caricatures as cannibals, the cartoon is also a strange example of how nudity could pass the censors so long as it wasn’t explicitly white. The native love interest does not wear a shirt and a lei doesn’t cover the top of her nipple-less breasts, even as she looks nothing like her presumed kinfolk. This short is just one crass example of the racism running explicitly through cartoons at this time. Any other discussion of JUNGLE JITTERS’ animation quality is purely academic.
#13 — INSULTIN’ THE SULTAN (1934)
INSULTIN’ THE SULTAN has essentially the very same problems as JUNGLE JITTERS. The racism that pops up uncomfortably often in Willie Whopper is even stranger considering the relative avoidance of such images in Iwerks’ preceding Flip the Frog series (although it wasn’t blameless either). In any event, this short isn’t better than the previous on this list because its racism is somehow tamer, but because the structure of the story and fluidity of the animation is more clear. I have to indulge in some of that “academic discussion” if I’m going to parse through the terrible cartoons at the very bottom of the Willie Whopper series, of which INSULTIN’ THE SULTAN is one.
#12 — ROBIN HOOD, JR. (1934)
ROBIN HOOD, JR. suffers from different issues than its racist predecessors on this list. The overarching problem is actually one sustained by essentially all of the cartoons in the Willie Whopper series: Willie himself isn’t too great a character. Sure, he’s a rascally cipher for all kinds of adventures and in that he’s not unlike Mickey Mouse until just about this time. The difference is Willie was never developed further and this cartoon, which just plugs him into the story of Robin Hood, reveals his blandness all the more. ROBIN HOOD, JR. isn’t exactly terrible, but its retelling of the famous tropes doesn’t do anything remarkable with its gags or visual inventions.
#11 — RASSLIN’ ROUND (1934)
RASSLIN’ ROUND, on the other hand, integrates a number of clever ideas into the well-worn framework of a wily character in the ring with a real bruiser. But because this is a 1930s cartoon, some racism pops up and really deflates most of the proceedings. The asides are less pervasive than in JUNGLE JITTERS or INSULTIN’ THE SULTAN, making them easier to perhaps forget than forgive, but they are certainly bummers. Still, the abilities of the Iwerks studio are on display in the fluidity of RASSLIN’ ROUND.
#10 — PLAY BALL (1933)
PLAY BALL was the first theatrically released Willie Whopper cartoon (more on that in a bit) and it features the character in his original thin design. That look immediately docks this short points, since besides the corpulence, the larger Willie design also had greater facial flexibility and evocative emotions. PLAY BALL trots out some pretty familiar jokes in its depiction of a baseball game just a bit too much more than it comes up with some generally original gags. But once again, the racist caricatures raise their ugly heads and dampen the humor. PLAY BALL isn’t as ugly for as long as other aforementioned shorts in the Willie Whopper series, but its relative blandness is certainly tanked even further by its stereotypes.
#9 — REDUCING CREME (1934)
With the premise that Willie gets into too much reducing creme and gets shrunken down to the size of a mouse, REDUCING CREME should have been perhaps more outlandish than it is. It does succeed with a madcap pace that never really lets up, as Willie has to contend with his cat that he’s been treating pretty poorly, let’s say. Its limited setting of his house is both a blessing and a curse, as some gags pull from an everday setting to good effect and others just play out in a manner similar to other cartoons. REDUCING CREME is really the definition of the middling Willie Whopper short.
#8 — VIVA WILLIE (1934)
Capitalizing on the success of VIVA VILLA! (1934) by parodying it like many other cartoons, VIVA WILLIE was also the last Willie Whopper short. As indicated, the series didn’t really go out on the highest note. Like its source material and peer parodies, VIVA WILLIE is a little uncomfortable in its exoticization of Mexican environs and people. To say it’s not that racist is just acknowledging the very low bar that has already been set so far. But it’s true that the cartoon’s admirable qualities, such as its totally buoyant movement and comically violent gags, make VIVA WILLIE much more than a complete embarrassment of cultural insensitivity.
#7 — THE GOOD SCOUT (1934)
I feel like a bit of a broken record and a racist apologist. Yes, THE GOOD SCOUT opens with a bizarre opening full of racial stereotypes. It reinforces my opinion that the opening segments are totally unnecessary, as well as that kind of humor itself. I know it was a shorthand to get certain audiences to understand and appreciate a comic character, but it seems to me that even if one was racist, they would tire of seeing the same jokes over and over again. Oh well. In any event, THE GOOD SCOUT thankfully moves past such depictions to be totally not about the racism and instead about Willie’s outlandish attempts to be, well, a good scout. The eccentric qualities of the accompanying soundtrack also make the short stand out. In all, THE GOOD SCOUT is like a lot of cartoons of this era: regrettable in certain moments, genuinely and funnily bonkers bananas in others.
#6 — CAVE MAN (1934)
CAVE MAN’s central fight with a brontosaurus-like character lags and doesn’t really sustain to fill out most of the cartoon. Even still, it demonstrates the Iwerks studio’s capabilities. The short’s pre-Flintstones anachronistic and anthropomorphic gags are delightful to see this early and its use of a multiplane camera to really flesh out its jungle backgrounds is quite gorgeous. CAVE MAN is one of the strongest Willie Whopper cartoons on the strength of its look, not as much its comedy, but both combine to make a solid effort.
#5 — SPITE FLIGHT (1933)
A rework of the at first unreleased Willie Whopper short (again, more on that in a bit), SPITE FLIGHT still features the thin version of the titular character. It fits into an already established trend of “race cartoons” (thankfully, different from the context I’ve used the word “race” so far). It’s like proto-WACKY RACES (1968–1969), complete with a Dick Dastardly-type villain withholding the mortgage from an old mother. SPITE FLIGHT isn’t tremendously distinguished from those earlier cartoons and the later iteration of the genre but it has some creative images going for it, like the villain’s twirled mustache morphing into a rattlesnake.
#4 — THE AIR RACE (1933)
THE AIR RACE was the first produced Willie Whopper short, but MGM didn’t like it for some reason and Iwerks remade it as SPITE FLIGHT, with PLAY BALL coming out in between as the first released cartoon in the series and this apparently coming after those two. I actually find this first attempt superior. There’s undoubtedly more going on in SPITE FLIGHT, but something about the elasticity of the characters’ expressions in THE AIR RACE plays better to my comic sensibilities.
#3 — HELL’S FIRE (1934)
There’s an obvious quality to HELL’S FIRE that distinguishes it from almost every other Willie Whopper cartoon. One of two produced in Cinecolor, still in a red-and-green tinge as three-strip Technicolor was still in the exclusive domain of Disney, this satanic comedy is full of the imagery I love from the “hell cartoons” of this era (and yes, that was a subgenre). HELL’S FIRE stumbles a bit in its depiction of real-world caricatures (another trope of this era of cartoons), but even those gags are kind of funny in their sheer boldness. That applies most to Willie and the Devil’s combined beating of the personification of Prohibition. I wonder how Iwerks and Co. felt about that particular piece of American policy. HELL’S FIRE is a great example of how Hollywood animation at this time could be subversive and totally anarchic in a way that wouldn’t be matched for some time.
#2 — DAVY JONES’ LOCKER (1934)
Also benefiting from Cinecolor, DAVY JONES’ LOCKER is full of wonderfully surreal above- and underwater images. With anthropomorphized clouds, a nasty personification of King Neptune, and a fun battle with the titular figure himself, the flow of the short as it plunges Willie and his flapper-ish love interest into the sea is dizzying. The background work is among the best in not only the Willie Whopper series, but also American animation also produced in 1933/34. Quite simply, DAVY JONES’ LOCKER is fun from start to finish.
#1 — STRATOS-FEAR (1933)
Although the two Cinecolor Willie Whopper cartoons contain obvious eye-popping appeal, the sheer mania of the black-and-white STRATOS-FEAR reigns supreme. This sci-fi cartoon is full of imaginative renderings of extraterrestrial beings and technologies, which employ certain tropes and designs of a pre-Atomic Age visual culture surrounding the genre to great effect. STRATOS-FEAR contains probably the only worthwhile frame story in the series, as Willie gets put under laughing gas at the dentist to enter this fanciful romp among the stars. A very Pre-Code design of an Egyptian mummy (she comes out of a coffin but certainly has no typical wrappings) reflects Iwerks’ ability to beat to a slightly different drum in the irreverent illustration and gags of the day. And the goofiness of the aliens and their messing with Willie propels the cartoon with a bare logic to service the greatest number of weird moments. STRATOS-FEAR proves that Iwerks’ creation was up to the task of rivalling the bigger names of the day, if perhaps not as frequently, and it stands as the best cartoon in the underseen and underappreciate Willie Whopper series.
