It's A Very Special Cel Bloc Xmas: Snow Foolin' (1949)

Snow Foolin' (A Paramount/Famous Screen Song, 1949)
Dir.: Izzy Sparber
Cel Bloc Rating: 5/9

If you have seen any old animated film shorts where a bouncing ball seems to leap from word to word (or syllable to syllable) in along a line containing song lyrics, then you have probably seen a Screen Song cartoon. Screen Songs were animated shorts that were created originally by the Max Fleischer Studios (and released via Paramount) from 1929 through 1938, and were a continuation of a previous series created by Max and Dave Fleischer (under various distributors and contracts) from 1924 through 1927 called Song Car-Tunes.

"Follow the bouncing ball!" was the catchphrase that led audiences to follow along with the lyrics to a song that was featured in the cartoon being viewed. That audience would then sing along at the top of their lungs in the theatres in what I presume would be considered a jolly good time by most in attendance. For me, personally, such behavior in a movie theatre would be excruciating to behold; I like people to just shut up when the lights go down. But Screen Songs were, I imagine, pretty popular in the earlier days of the cinema when studios were looking for any gimmick to get butts in seats. Sure, it hasn't changed one bit from then to now; studios are as money-hungry as ever, if not more. But if some studio or theatre chain decides to give singing show-obsessed Americans free reign to start caterwauling along with music out loud at my local theatre, I may switch to video for good at that point. Audience participation is not for me.

After the Fleischers closed up shop in the early 1940s and Famous Studios took over what remained of Paramount's animation production (including the rights to the Popeye franchise and with many from the Fleischer staff still employed), Screen Songs somehow made a comeback. Famous Studios created their first new Screen Song in 1947, Circus Comes to Clown, which not only featured the old chestnut The Man on the Flying Trapeze, but was also the first film in the series in color.

The Screen Song series had a formula that followed a through-line from some examples in its early incarnation up to the Famous revival. The first three to four minutes of the short would usually be comprised (though there are variations) of a series of simple gags involving actions or characters somewhat related to the subject of the song being featured in the film. After the gags were done, the audience would be led into singing along using the bouncing ball gimmick. The lyrics to the song would appear on the screen, generally broken up phonetically to give the ball even more to bounce upon (and probably to make it easier for the audience to read). The ball (which originally was just a painted ball on a stick in the earliest Fleischer days, but which was eventually totally animated) would leap across the lyrics in time with the music, so it was remarkably easy to learn to sing even lyrics that you had long forgotten (or most likely, never knew). The song would continue until the end of the film, where there was often a final animated gag to close things out on a humorous note.

Since there was usually not much in the way of a story, the Screen Song films themselves are pretty generic, with the only difference being the song selection and the characters chosen for the gag section. In this way, they are also largely forgettable. But circumstances sometimes make some cartoons stick out more than others, even films of a lesser quality. Through the 1980s and 1990s (mostly, but even up to today), VHS and DVD collections of public domain cartoons, usually at incredibly cut-rate prices of only a few dollars, would appear in the cut-out bins of big box stores. I, like many people, cannot resist at least digging through these bins for supposed treasure at the bottom that everyone else has passed over. I bought a lot of cheap cartoon collections this way desperately searching for cartoons that I hadn't already found elsewhere.

And at Christmas, the fervor only grew. I can't even count how many cheap-ass VHS tapes I had with six or seven low quality prints of holiday-oriented cartoons crammed on them in the hopes of finding a rarer film I hadn't seen before. (The lists of films on covers rarely reflected what was actually on the tape, so you were pretty much working on faith here.) And one of the cartoons that showed up most often in these low- rent, dime-store collections was a Famous Screen Song from 1949 called Snow Foolin'.

Built around a sing-along for Jingle Bells, Snow Foolin' starts off with the Screen Songs jingle, an overly chipper tune belted out by what must have been some highly caffeinated singers:

"Start the day with a song
and sing the whole day through!
Even while you're busy working,
do just like the birdies do!

Though the day may be long,
you never will go wrong!
Off key, on key, any old key,
Just start the day with a song!"

After the title card is shown, with a quick bit of Jingle Bells behind it, the gag section opens with a rabbit dressed in a shirt and pants who steps out of a doorway in a tree trunk to look at a calendar that says "Dec. 20" upon it. Stretching and yawning, he lifts the paper to reveal the next date on the calendar. "December 21st," he says. "First day of winter!" He tears off the previous date, but as soon as he does, the rabbit is flattened by a massive amount of snow, as winter literally just drops down onto the landscape in a single blow. The rabbit, now completely covered in the white stuff, pops his ears out of the snow, turns around, and tunnels his way back to his door and slams it behind him.

A bear, fox, and skunk, each dressed in a t-shirt and shorts, run across the frame in front of the wintery background towards a cabin with a sign reading "Fur Storage". The bear enters, and when he comes out the other side, he is fully clad in his normal fur so he may keep warm for the cold months ahead. But when the fox comes out, he is wearing the skunk's fur. It doesn't fit him properly, he is easily twice the size of the little skunk, and he sniffs at the odd aroma emanating from it. The skunk ambles past him, and he is more than covered by the fox's fur coat, dragging the white-tipped tail behind him. This angers the fox, and he swipes his own fur away from the skunk, tumbling him over in his underwear (which is completely different from what he was wearing entering the fur storage, I might add). The skunk is then hit by his real fur as the fox throws it at him, and in seconds he is dressed properly. The skunk stands up and sniffs himself, and then turns to the camera and says pointedly, "Nauseating, isn't it?"

A trio of scowling alley cats are seen next, throwing snowball after snowball from behind a wall built of snow blocks. Their missiles are targeted at a trio of mice running across the snow, and one of the snowballs hits a mouse and covers him so completely that his legs pop out of the bottom of the snowball, and he runs blindly away. The cats continue to pelt snowballs in the direction of the mice, but then the felines duck as the sound of what seems to be cannon fire is heard. A giant boulder of a snowball rams itself into their wall of snow blocks. Looking up cautiously, they see that the mice have a snowy fortress of their own, and have enlisted the aid of a rather cute little elephant. The mice feed a snowball into the elephant's mouth, and then by swatting the pachyderm in the rear with a giant paddle, the snowball rockets out of the elephant's trunk at a highly dangerous rate of speed.

On a nearby skating pond, a mother rabbit skates by, followed by about a dozen baby rabbits mounted upon a single, elongated skate. A penguin wearing a top hat and cigarette holder has a little more trouble staying on his feet but passes by, followed by a stork who switches legs, keeping one in the air at all times while riding a single skate. A caterpillar wearing about a dozen skates zips past, and beneath him, we see through a hole in the ice, that a pair of fish are skating on the underside of the ice (in other words, upside-down).

A pig attempts a figure eight successfully, and shows off his effort, but an ostrich comes forward and does two number fours at the same time, proclaiming "Eight, the hard way!" An alligator has a third skate on the end of his long tail, but his confidence gives way to disaster as he smashes hard into a tree and ends up skating off as a quartet of alligator skin suitcases instead.

A trio of hippos speed down the hill on what a sign declares is a "Suicide Bob Sled Run". A pair of hens sitting next to the sign have all of their feathers blown off when the hippos' bobsled passes by them, and the girls are left wearing nothing but their scarves. The hippos continue their manic run at high velocity, handling the course with the grace of professionals. But suddenly, a mouse on a tiny runner sled handily overtakes them, leaving them to gasp in amazement.

At the top of a very steep hill, a kangaroo prepares to perform a ski jump. Her joey, handling a movie camera, sits in her pocket and is ready to record the action as it happens. All is going well until the mother kangaroo reaches the apex of her jump, and she starts to panic and kick her legs out as she falls to the ground below. She hits the snow-laden ground with a heavy impact, and is completely dazed from her fall. But her joey escaped the crash by being outfitted with a parachute, and he drifts down safely back into her pocket.

A mother hen passes by them singing Jingle Bells merrily. In front of her, the hen pushes a sled upon which lies a carton holding a dozen eggs. As she sings "Oh, what fun it is to ride in a one-horse open sleigh," each egg pops open in synchronization with each syllable, revealing in each slot a baby chick wearing earmuffs. Except for the twelfth egg. It bounces up and down unhatched, and the mother hen turns to the camera and asks, "And how about you folks joining in, and singing this merry old song?" As the egg keeps bouncing, she adds, "Just follow the bouncing hen-fruit!"

The egg switches to a more spherical shape and leaps onto a backdrop bearing a Currier and Ives-style sleigh. The ball starts to bounce across the words as we hear a choir sing along as well to encourage the crowd to participate...

"Jing-le bells! Jing-le bells!
Jing-le all the way!
Oh what fun it is to ride
in a one horse o-pen sleigh!

Jing-le bells! Jing-le bells!
Jing-le all the way!
Oh what fun it is to ride
in a one horse o-pen sleigh!"

Of course, most of us know the song, or at least the chorus and first verse, but I have included the lyrics here so you can see how the words were broken up for the sing-along portion of the cartoon. The song continues as the background changes to that of a different image of a sleigh...

"Dash-ing thro' the snow
in a one horse o-pen sleigh.
O'er the fields we go,
laugh-ing all the way.

Bells on bob-tail ring,
Mak-ing spi-rits bright,
oh what fun it is to ride and sing
a sleigh-ing song to-night! 
OH!"

Probably so Famous could reuse animation (it makes sense), the background switches back to the one originally used for the song's chorus, as it is played once again. Then a third background is shown as the cartoon continues on to the second verse of the song (which some, but not all, readers may not know too well)...

"Just the oth-er night,
While rid-ing in my sleigh,
I passed a pret-ty miss,
Walk-ing 'long the way.

I asked her if she'd like
to join me for a ride,
She an-swered "Yes" and soon she was
sit-ting by my side.
OH!"

A third chorus using the original sleigh background is sung, leading into the third verse of the song. This time, the background is that of a young couple basically making out in the back of the sleigh. The song continues...

"We didn't have a care,
Ro-mance was in the air,
It was a per-fect time,
to kiss my la-dy fair.

She did'n't seem to mind,
her heart was light and gay,
and now we're on our hon-ey-moon
in a one horse o-pen sleigh.
OH!"

And now is the time for the big finish. With the rising of a new set of lyrics for the final chorus, the font has changed and appears in all capital letters fully for the first time. If that wasn't enough to excite the graphic designers in the crowd, a tiny snowman leaps onto the screen, smashing the first "Jing" and then proceeds to happily squash each syllable as he makes his way across the first line. At the halfway point, his movements uncover a sleigh in the background. When the second line appears, the sleigh becomes animated, and the horse starts to walk over the top of the words, pulling the sleight and its occupants behind him. They continue across the remainder of the chorus to the song's conclusion, as snowflakes have started to fall and cover the screen.

There is an iris out that takes us out of the song portion and the scene dissolves into that of a turtle wearing a hat, mittens, and a muffler while skating across the ice. Working as a vendor, the turtle calls out, "Hot coffee! Get your hot coffee!" to everyone in hearing distance. A tired sounding, feminine voice asks for a single coffee politely, and the turtle stops below a tree branch and opens his shell from his front (the underside, that is). Inside the turtle, where we would assume his stomach to be, he has a hotplate and a coffeepot, and on the interior of his outer shell, there are five coffee mugs, three of them resting on a shelf in the middle of the shell. The turtle pours a cup, and then climbs (unseen) up the tree to hand the coffee to a cold mother bird on a nest. "Uh," he starts to ask, "I thought all birds spent the winter in Florida?" The bird takes a swig of coffee, and as the camera pulls out to reveal her nest mounted on top of a stove sitting upon the tree branch, she responds in a voice very reminiscent of actress Zasu Pitts, "Oh, dear! At these prices, who can afford Florida?"

Yes, as I stated, this is an extremely generic cartoon, and really not all that clever or funny. This is not to say that it can't be appealing, and certainly, come the holidays, when the airwaves are filled with some increasingly crass material, Snow Foolin' comes off as rather innocent and comforting. You get to see some simple, gentle humor delivered by cutely designed animals, and you get to sing Jingle Bells at the end of it. If starting the day with a song is also your mantra, then you will probably enjoy this. Screen Songs were probably made precisely for you.

As for me, I still have about a dozen copies of this cartoon. And I kind of feel obligated to watch each and every one of those copies every single Christmas. I had better get going on the next one...

RTJ

*****

And in case you haven't seen it:

Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer (1948)

Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer (1948)
Director: Max Fleischer
Prod.: Jam Handy Organization
Cel Bloc Rating: 5/9

It's not Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer's fault that he isn't Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.

Well, what I mean is it's not this innocent, Max Fleischer-directed, animated short from 1948's fault that it isn't the stop-motion television special created by Rankin-Bass in 1964. Barring the occasional heckling from someone who is just sooooooo post-post-post-post-everything they have to kick such universally beloved things to the wall, the 1964 special is justifiably considered to be a Christmas classic. I would be lying if I said that simple hour of holiday silliness wasn't one of the most formative ingredients in the way that I have approached all art and entertainment since I first laid eyes upon it.

And yet, fun as the stop-motion version is, it's really a dramatic expansion (and often outright reconfiguration) of the original story written by Robert May for Montgomery Ward in 1939. For a closer look at the real story, look no further than the 1948 version, where Rudolph is just some punk kid reindeer abused by the neighbor kids who gets accidentally discovered by Santa one exceedingly foggy Christmas Eve night. Since headlights aren't in Santa's magical bag of tricks (and yet, he and his elven slaves can create electric train sets, racing cars and robotic toys), it's lucky he wanders into Rudolph's home to fill the little whippersnapper's stocking and gets blinded by the glow from Rudolph's abnormal -- nay! -- mutated schnoz.

Since Jam Handy released oodles of promotional films for Chevrolet and other big companies [click here and here for my reviews of their pair of Cinderella car commercials], I half expected Santa's sleigh to actually start shifting about and have panels slide and wheels maneuver into place, and then suddenly the right jolly old elf would be riding about in some sort of coach car. Instead, the film is merely there to entertain, and seemingly to promote the newly written -- but not yet famous at the time -- song version of Rudolph by Johnny Marks, May's brother-in-law. The next year, Gene Autry would reluctantly record it, and as these things go, the rest is history: one of the biggest-selling singles of all time. [The Autry version would later be edited into the credits of this already released cartoon; the version I am reviewing does not include Autry's voice, but rather a choral arrangement of the tune.]

The animation is decent enough -- comparable to what was passing for quality at Famous Studios or Terrytoons at that time -- but the sound quality for the voices is abysmal, with the taunting reindeer sounding like they were recorded down the hall from Rudolph, their voices echoing harsher than their empty threats. I doubt the effect is stylistic, because such things just were not done. I should state here and now that the sight of reindeer walking about on their hind legs is just a tad creepy in my mind, and furthermore, even the male deer seems feminine within this aspect. In fact, they almost seem nude, like they lost their pants. Rudolph's mother, on the other hand, seems to be the only deer that dresses in actual human clothes, greeting her downtrodden son at the door in a smart housedress. (Is it just me, or is Rudolph's mom kind of a RILF? I think it is just me...) Unlike the cave in the Rankin-Bass version, Rudolph actually lives in a home with furniture, and he hangs a stocking on the end of his bed, imaging a boatload of toys and goodies that will be left overnight by Santa, the way in which all human children dream too. But then his conflict over the teasing he receives from his constantly shining nose gets the better of him, and he cries himself to sleep.

The next section introduces Santa, and he is a magnificent rotund figure indeed (if not a bit flouncy in his gestures). Sadly, whoever is doing the voice for the great man seems to not be aware of just how jolly Santa is supposed to be, and comes off sounding completely blasé about the whole project. Any exclamation points in his lines seem to have been replaced by stifled yawns. (He does a much better job with his speech at the end, but it's no excuse for an overall lackluster performance, especially for someone who should as loud and boisterous as Santa.) Claus encounters endless interruptions of his route -- crashing into trees and roofs, and almost getting done away with by a plane, which he and his reindeer negotiate by prancing across the wings. Santa finds Rudolph just in time, and the scarlet-schnozzed one leaves a note behind, beginning it "Deer Mommy and Daddy..."

Rudolph, naturally, saves the day, taking Santa all the way to Bunnyville (who knew all the rabbits in the world lived in one town?) and then the film concludes with Rudolph being honored before the entire population of his reindeer hometown with an elaborate ceremony in the town's stadium. His former taunters have been turned to admirers (though I like to believe that most of them are actually evil deer bullies who are jealous of his newfound fame and are plotting to spoil his reputation). Rudolph is named "Commander-in-Chief" of all the reindeer, and he blushes, causing his fur to equal his nose in intensity. He wishes us "Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night", as the final lines of the song run out, and the film closes.

It's so hard to imagine a time when this wasn't an already established part of the culture. We accept holiday folklore as having always been around, and it is surprising to learn that these traditions, in the form we know them, aren't really all that ancient. We just accept Santa's antiquity as a child, and as far as we can surmise, Rudolph has always been there with him. I saw this film long after the Rankin-Bass, and I was offended by how boring it seemed against a film filled with a singing snowman, misfit toys of a dozen varieties, a flying lion king, and an abominable snowman who gets his teeth yanked by an amateur elf dentist and places stars on top of Christmas trees. Even though it was first aired just after my birth, I accepted the '64 film as gospel from the time that I first saw it when I could understand it. That was, and still is, tradition to me (in fact, I am watching it right after I conclude writing this).

But I then think of those that preceded the arrival of both myself and that film, and how perhaps they looked to this simple animation as its own sort of tradition, and even perhaps as new and hip as the later one must have seemed at first glance. It bore a popular song of that day (by the same songwriter as the later film), and animated to the standard of its time. If I had grown up seeing this one instead every year of my childhood, perhaps I would hold far more nostalgia for it.

As it stands though, I don't. It's cute, but this Rudolph's nose simply doesn't shine bright enough for me.

In case you haven't seen it,
this about the highest quality version that you will find on the internet:

I'M FOREVER BLOWING BUBBLES (1930)

I'm Forever Blowing Bubbles (A Max Fleischer Screen Song, 1930) 
Director: Dave Fleischer
Cel Bloc Rating: 6/9

No, despite the old joke, this is not a song about Michael Jackson involved in illegal congress with his famous chimpanzee, though it's not hard to imagine such an activity. (Try scrubbing that image out of your head before you go to sleep tonight.) Rather, this is an old standard that the Fleischer brothers chose to bring to life in one of their famous Screen Songs, where the audience was instructed to sing along with a popular song while a bouncing ball hopped emphatically from syllable to syllable. But before the song would show up, three or four minutes of animated nonsense would ensue, sometimes only having a light relationship to the lyrics of the song, sometimes not. Released in 1930 (though the title card bears a 1929 date), I'm Forever Blowing Bubbles at least has bubbles galore, as the animals that make up the orchestra, which is supposedly playing the music in the cartoon, clean up before their performance.

As the program starts, a series of mice are lined up at a well, each one holding a pail to retrieve the water that is being pumped by the wagging tail of a puppy, which is tied to the pump handle. Each mouse carries his bucket behind a Chinese screen sitting in front of a large waterhole. The first mouse covers his eyes against whatever is occurring behind the screen; the second mouse sneaks a peek through his open fingers; and the third mouse cheekily tosses the contents of his bucket at the screen, knocking it down and revealing the rather detailed backside of a bathing elephant. When the pachyderm turns about to scrub under his armpit, it sees the audience, murmurs in surprise, and covers itself up quickly with a towel.

While a pig and a kitten sit in a basket, a mouse scrubs what appears to be some sort of cloth against a washboard. Then the rodent wrings out the object, and when it is satisfied, the mouse drops the cloth to the ground, and it turns into a freshly scrubbed and yowling kitten. The mouse grabs the next kitten to repeat the process. Finally, it sets the pig in the washtub and starts scrubbing away. A well-dressed dog in top hat and tails comes coughing into view, and he is carrying what is either medicine or liquor (the bottle does not bear the tell-tale inscriptions of either "XXX" or "RX"). He tries to unplug the bottle, but has his rear end poked by the curly-cue tail of the piglet, which only serves to introduce the thirsty canine to a great way to uncork the bottle. The action completed, the dog joyously splashes the liquid all over himself and through the air, finally pulling out an umbrella as he leaves the screen.

A mouse cleaning a giraffe can't quite reach up on the creature's neck, so he pulls his own tail upward to give himself more height. The trick only works momentarily, and after the giraffe mocks him for his attempt, the mouse looks about and comes up with a better plan. He slides the giraffe to where a hippopotamus is asleep on its back. The mouse climbs on its enormous stomach, and when the hippo snores, the mouse rises up and down accordingly, which gives it the chance to fully wash down the giraffe. He even scrubs inside the ears, which riles the giraffe and makes it growl at the mouse. Meanwhile, the puppy at the well has fallen asleep, causing the pumping of the well to cease. Another mouse holds up an alarm clock and triggers it. The noise wakes the puppy up, but the job is not finished. The mouse pulls a pair of dice from his pocket and forms them into a nice bone for the puppy to chew upon. The canine wags it tail in time with its happy chomping, and the cleaning continues.

We soon see mice helping to bathe every animal in the orchestra, and then a bunny rabbit in front of a circus tent pulls out a horn and blows Reveille. The animals stampede the tent and mash the bunny to the ground. The bunny gets up and shakes his bugle, and all of his teeth fall out of the horn, which form into a set of false teeth. The rabbit places them back into his mouth, but they squeak in a noticeable and annoying fashion, so he oils them prodigiously before moving into the tent. Also the conductor for the orchestra, he signals the band to warm up before addressing the audience directly. He speaks in a halting and exaggeratedly slow fashion, enunciating each syllable very clearly before moving to the next. "Well, folks," he begins, "we're all cleaned up for that old pop-u-lar song, I'm For-ev-er Blow-ing Bub-bles. The orch-e-stra will play the mu-sic, you sing the words, and I'll beat the time like this..."

The rabbit pulls a baton out of his pocket and taps it on the bottom edge of the screen, which fades from the animated scene to reveal the almost three-dimensional image of a series of bubbles riding forever upward along a darkened backdrop. A white ball starts to bounce in the left-center of the screen, and Billy Murray, the famous bandleader, implores the audience further in a voiceover: "You just heard what bunny boy said. Now sing along, folks! The trick is in following the bouncing ball. It's very simple. Let's see how well you can do it. Everybody ready? Let's go!" The lyrics for the song start to scroll up line by line up the now totally black screen, and the ball hops to each syllable, and the longer a note is held, the longer the ball bounces on that syllable. The lyrics:

"I'm dream-ing dreams;
I'm schem-ing schemes;
I'm build-ing cas-tles high.
They're born a-new;
Their days are few,
Just like a sweet but-ter-fly.
And as the day-light is dawn-ing,
They come a-gain in the morn-ing.

I'm for-ev-er blow-ing bub-bles,
Pret-ty bub-bles in the air.
They fly so high,
Near-ly reach the sky,
Then like my dreams
They fade and die.
For-tune's al-ways hid-ing,
I've looked ev-'ry-where.
I'm for-ev-er blow-ing bub-bles,
Pret-ty bub-bles in the air."

Through the song, tiny cartoon images have appeared underneath the word, somewhat envisioning what is being said in the lyrics. Near the song's end, however, when the chorus is presented for a second and final go-around, the background goes to white, the bouncing ball disappears, and the bunny starts playing with the words in the lines. He hops from word to word in the first line, and each word turns into a bubble pipe that blows a bubble that the bunny climbs like stairs to the next line. Sitting below the words, he blows bubbles from a pipe that carry off each syllable as they are sung; he grabs the word "air" and it stretches out into a dachshund, and when he releases the dog, it turns back into a bubble and floats away. 

"They fly so high" turns into a pond scene with a quacking duck, lily pads, rocks and cat-tails; in "Nearly reach the sky", the bunny, trapped inside a bubble, fights to escape and his exertions cause stars and then the moon to appear. When he falls out of the bubble, he grabs the moon, and his weight stretches the moon and causes it to blurt out like a trumpet. "Then like my dreams" gives the bunny a ride in an automobile, and "they fade and die" causes the machine to collapse in pieces, and the bunny places flowers on the steering wheel and then says a quick prayer. 

"Fortune's always hiding" reveals a trio of taunting, dancing money bags, which the bunny covets enough to sing the next line himself, but the syllable "-where" gets sung as "wh-ahhh!!" as a large moneybag sprouts out beneath his feet. It doesn't work out, though, as the bunny's tug on the string reveals a mocking jester's head on a spring. The bunny sings the last two lines himself, as well, and on the final words, each bounce reveals one of the orchestra animals, who blow bubbles from their instruments and are carried off the screen. The last animal is a little mouse, whose saxophone bubble pops and he starts to fall, only to be saved at the last second by a tiny parachute. Iris out.

The animation? Rudimentary, rough and primitive, and like many studios, possibly more than eager to prop up the picture with a gang of Mickey-like mice. On the other hand, everything is cute and pleasant, the animal designs are very appealing, and there is a quick and mild touch of raunchiness (being able to almost see up the elephant's backside was certainly a surprise), though if any films were ever designed to appeal to the entire audience at once, it was these films. Fleischer has developed the bouncing-ball picture back in 1924, and by this time, had the formula down pat, though the films by this point were including the music as part of their soundtrack.

In a different time, in a far more innocent-seeming era (though it really wasn't), with a less-jaded audience, these films must have been tremendous fun and offered an exciting breaking of that magical fourth wall. I, myself, do not like to sing along with anything where other people are concerned, and to say that I am a little shit during karaoke is a severe understatement. Rather, if the idiotic activity starts, I am out the door in a flash. Which is kind of weird owing that I come from a background where everyone I know can't stop singing, but then, when you think about it, this might be the very reason I dislike it so. But, I think given the right circumstances, I would be eager to help bring a night of these fun films back to life, with my own off-key warbling mixed in with the rest of the crowd, if only for a few hours.

[Oy! The things I will do to get people involved in appreciating older animation...]

"IIIII'mmmm for-evahhh blooowwwwing bub-bllllessss..."

Bunny Mooning (1937)

Bunny Mooning (A Max Fleischer Color Classic, 1937)
Dir.: Dave Fleischer
Animation: Edward Nolan and Myron Waldman
Cel Bloc Rating: 5/9

OK, it's not so much that I hate weddings. I do not begrudge anyone the opportunity to get married if that is what is important to them, though I do ask that young loving couples be a little sensible and not put themselves or their loved ones into a ridiculous amount of debt just so a pair of people can get laid "legally" later that evening. I find wedding culture nonsensical to the extreme, and it is one of many traditions of which I would be just as happy to not be invited. You're getting married? Great... now, wear a condom or have your nuts jarred in formaldehyde after the first couple of brats. Let's not be popping young out like friggin' bunnies.

Speaking of bunnies and weddings, there is a Max Fleischer Color Classic cartoon called Bunny Mooning, and though nowadays one would hope that such a title would be offered up on the Playboy Channel (does that piece of crap station still actually get viewers?), as this film was released in 1937, it is most likely going to actually have something to do with bunnies of the fur-bearing, twitchy-nosed, and hoppy-legged type. And if you think cute little bunnies holding a wedding are going to get me change my mind regarding the damnable events, then you've obviously been smoking the baby's breath, Cheech.

This is what you get when a bunny is your friend: cuteness unhindered by any rational thought. On a giant moonlit mushroom, a bunny boy cuddles with a bunny girl, and offers her a 1-karat ring, which is actually a carrot on a ring, which she accepts. I assume that it is about twelve grueling, money-draining, nerve-wracking, ball-tightening, wits-ending months later, but soon every hand belonging to every animal in the forest is grabbing cutesy invitations (I wonder who did the printing? Note: Need to check on that...) from a stack of leaves hanging from a tree. They read: "WEDDING: Jill and Jack Rabbit will be married in the Woods at Tree O'Clock. This will Leaf you in." Ah, isn't that punny and sweet? (Note regarding the note before: Need to check with that printer to commend him on this.)

Soon, a song begins as the animals of the forest — and judging from the wide array of African animals on display, I would guess that the Dark Continent would be the location, but it does nothing to explain the moose that we meet in a little while, so it is more likely it is a general Animal Land type of fantasia — make their preparations for the party:

"Everybody's getting
ready for the wedding!
Oh, they're so excited!
Everybody's getting
ready for the wedding!
They've all been invited!"

(There are more lyrics, but I couldn't care less about figuring them out or writing them down...)

We first see a barber pole in front of a shop, where the winding stripe on the pole is provided courtesy of an employed snake, or a series of employed snakes, since the pattern repeats over and over again. Inside the shop, an elderly ostrich buzzes short the quills on a fussy porcupine; a lion (in a striped shirt that gives it the partial look of a tiger) has its razor-sharp claws honed down on a grinding wheel; and the aforementioned moose asks for a "poi'menent" whereupon hot curlers are dropped on her antlers and, when raised, tight little curls decorate the ends of each point. (She may be a deer, but her face is more like a moose's, as is her rack, but the problem there is that female moose do not grow racks.) Other animals about the forest prepare themselves to look their best, too: a hippo applies makeup to her face, using a paintbrush to coat her mouth with a generous dollop of lipstick, and then puckers up to complete her mission; a crocodile brushes the sharp teeth making up his infamous smile; and a well-bred giraffe affixes his spats and tab collar, though when he fixes his tie, several other successively smaller collars pop about to cover the length of his neck.

Mr. Bunny calls his beloved to tell her that it's "tree o'clock", and he does this by dropping a coin in an elephant's trunk, and then the pachyderm opens his mouth to reveal the telephone. His intended tells him she is ready, though she actually has a couple final adjustments to make. She puts on her false eyelashes, and then her stereotypical black maid of a bunny fusses with her headpiece. The bride complains about the length, and her maid proclaims, "Don't worry, honey! I'll fix dat!" and she snips the offending piece in half with the aid of her ears, which shear the fabric like scissors, while the maid chuckles. Mr. Bunny arrives to escort her, and the happy pair skip and "la-la-la" their way to the ceremony. (So much for not seeing the bride before the nuptials.)

The guests have already arrived, and there is a great array of gifts set out on incredibly long tables, with about fifty or sixty of the gifts being several sizes of baby chairs. (Hmm... I wonder why? What could they possibly be implying about bunnies here?) A hippo carves a slice out of a cake, and then eats the rest of the cake instead. Mr. Cow tries to dip into the punchbowl (which is most likely spiked with something), but Mrs. Cow catches him and angrily "cows" him with "Mmmmm-ox!" (I guess his name is Max? Or would the cow equivalent be Mox?) A monkey grinding a music box with his tail accompanies a chicken who clucks the wedding music, and the resulting cacophony brings tears to the eyes of the bride's mother. At the close of the song, Mr. Cow takes another try at getting some punch, but is again thwarted by his “butter” half. (Yes, my own pun is clearly intended...)

The peacock minister takes the stage to perform the ceremony, and a monkey uses his tail to play The Bridal Chorus on a row of bluebells growing in a flower box behind him. A choir joins him in the brief section of song as the bunny betrothed jitter their way down the aisle to a slightly more swinging groove. The minister then speeds them through the reading, and finally, the bunnies kiss (cutely, of course). The wedding is over, but not without a word from our sponsor! The peacock turns around and displays, instead of his usual feathery glory, an advertisement reading "BUY BABY BLOOMERS AT BIMBLE'S BASEMENT"! (Apparently, these bunnies are going to be very, very busy...)

Like most weddings, this one also leaves me cold. Sure, I guess that I feel happy for the couple, but why did I need to be here? If it were a little jazzier or a tad more swinging, I would probably have a better time with Bunny Mooning. Cuteness is as cuteness does, and sometimes it is merely the theme that determines whether I am willing to go along with a too cute premise. I had no problem at all with the honeymooning and far livelier and grittier (though still cute) couples in Fleischer's Dancing on the Moon [reviewed here], so don't think that I am just using this cartoon as a connubial punching bag. It's just that Bunny Mooning, except for a handful of amusing moments (I especially enjoy the barber shop series, and the giraffe is swell, too), the show is just a little too underwhelming to hold my interest in repeated viewings.

As for my pronounced despising of weddings? It's not so much weddings, but parties in general that I tend to not enjoy as much as other people. I am better in groups of four, five or six people; larger parties, I tend to wander off (I don't know why!), find a quiet spot, perhaps write a little in a notebook, and if I can find someone off adopting a similar non-social attitude, I will have a nice conversation with them. But the party itself? Not my thing, people. Even with my best friends surrounding me (more on this in a second), you will notice me eventually drifting off from the group at large, and finding a quieter place to disengage myself from the proceedings. This happens at Halloween parties (purportedly my favorite, which they are), Christmas, Thanksgiving, and even cast parties, of which I have been to far too many to count, and even in the ones where I am involved in the setup, I will eventually lose myself, often going home at the earliest possible convenience.

In late July, Jen and I have to fly to Texas for the wedding of our very close pal Bubba. (Yes, I know a "Bubba", but it's a nickname, not a birth name. The boy has even posted on here.) I may hate weddings and I may hate Texas and I may not relish the thought of going there in July, but I'm going to the wedding. It's Bubba. He's one of my closest pals; he's one of my brothers; he's part of my gang. Sure, I've groused a lot about having to go, but it's the same way that I complain about everything in life. At work, I am given impossible projects, and I yell and bitch and throw things... and then I figure out how to get it done. It's just the breed of cat that I am. So, I will be at Bubba's wedding. Brothers stick together, and I am proud that he finally cracked down and finished grad school, got a great job, and met a swell girl. As long as she's good by him, I'm all for his getting hitched. But, there will be a point in the wedding when I will just disappear for a good chunk of the time. It's the way that I am.

As the Mighty Mighty Bosstones said, "I guess I really don't know how to party..."

[This article was updated with new photos and edited on 11/24/2015.]