It's A Very Special Cel Bloc Xmas: Jack Frost (1934)

Jack Frost (Ub Iwerks, 1934)
Dir.: Ub Iwerks
Cel Bloc Rating: 7/9

I miss frost. Since leaving Alaska, I mostly get to experience a very modified version of "winter". Winter in Southern California where we are is, at the lowest, in the low 60s during the day, and into the mid 30s at night. And that is if I am lucky. It's usually still in the high 70s most of the time, though we did have a nice run of much chillier weather through the long Thanksgiving weekend, and another one coming up this weekend (at least it is forecast that way currently).

But apart from a work retreat a few years ago up to Big Bear, the fun I used to have with snow and frost is no longer a factor where I live. A couple of quick trips up to Alaska keep me remembering how I spent my entire life: shoveling snow, snowball fights, sledding, scraping car windows, slipping on ice and falling, more snowball fights... OK, so I like snowball fights. (I'd say "so sue me," but you probably would if I hit you with a snowball nowadays.)

Yeah, leaves fall here, then the leaf-blower guys come along and blow all of the color away, and with it goes autumn. Then the next week, you're taking a walk along the beach like winter never comes around. And then, without anyone blinking an eye except for me, you are suddenly celebrating winter holidays without winter ever actually coming around. Definitely a form of seasonal shock at work here.

Seasonal shock hits the residents of a small woodland area in the 1934 Ub Iwerks film, Jack Frost, though in the opposite way from me. Here, they actually get a fall and a winter, and they are, for the most part, prepared for it. We first see the critters of this fairytale forest prancing about in a way that only cartoon forest animals can, with the predators happily playing without malice or evil intent with other creatures that usually constitute their prey. With squirrels and bird leaping about joyfully in the trees on a fine summer day, the bears, foxes, and lynxes play a friendly game of leap frog.

One small grizzly cub has a good go of it leaping over the other larger animals, but has a bear of time when he gets to his own father, many times his size and the largest animal at the party. He tries and tries, but can't quite leap over the bigger grizzly, but then he gets an idea. Since some of the animals are done up in modest clothing in the manner of Thornton W. Burgess' Old Mother West Wind books (an early influence of mine), the cub pulls on the suspenders worn by the bigger grizzly and propels himself up and over the bear. However, he is flung into a nearby washbasin, and spins around and around on the handle of the mangle before dropping into the water. The cub spits out bubbles when he surfaces, slaps the water, and giggles.

As he shoots the soap out of his paws up in the air, the cub hears a wild wind and sees crisp leaves blow past him. He cries out, "Jack Frost!" and all of the other animals lift their heads one by one to look up into the trees. There on a branch is a gnomish looking fellow, holding a painter's color palette. Jack Frost bows to his constituents, and with a brief fanfare as an introduction, he starts to dance as he sings:

"Hi-dee-hi!
Here am I,
Jackie Frost,
quick and spry!
Listen to me, while I say...

Summer's gone,
play no more!
Winter's knocking 
at your door!
Better go and store your food away!"

A group of beavers by a pond start to dance and slap their tails together. Their response in song is:

"Thanks, Mr. Jackie,
for your advice!
We'll hurry home to our wives."

Squirrels pick up the tune as they gather nuts and fling them up to other squirrels in the trees:

"Well have our cupboards
filled with supplies
when Ol' Man Winter arrives!"

But the little grizzly cub is having none of this nonsense, and he growls out "Bah!" He continues to soak in the washbasin as he sings:

"I don't have to worry!
I don't have to care!
My coat is very furry,
I'm a frizzly grizzly bear!"

What the cub doesn't notice is his mother walking up behind him and scowling down at him. She sings, somewhat presciently:

"If you meet Ol' Man Winter,
you'll sing a different tune!
It's time that you were safe in bed,
for he will be here soon!"

Mama Bear leads her cub into their home inside a tree, which I think probably rivals Doctor Who's TARDIS in terms of being bigger on the inside. She dresses the bear in pajamas and tucks him into his carved-log rocking bed, but as she tucks, the cub scurries down to the end of the bed and climbs out without her noticing. He starts to tiptoe away, but she catches him, and swoops him onto her lap. Mama Bear lifts the pajamas over her cub's head, and swats his bear behind hard several times. She puts the now loudly crying cub back into bed and leaves the room. Rock-a-Bye Baby plays on the soundtrack as he continues to weep and snuffle his nose.

Mama and Papa Bear fall fast into hibernation mode, snoring so loudly that the image of a handsaw cutting through a large log materializes over their heads. Sawdust rains down towards their open, snoring mouths, but they blow it away again and again on their next snore. Finally, the log is cut all the way through, and a section of ghostly log somehow hits Papa Bear square on the forehead. Stars swirl about his noggin as he sits up and smiles, still deep in his slumberous state, and then he lightly settles back down into his pillow for his long winter's nap.

The cub has had enough, and he decides to run away. He crawls out of bed, lays out a bandana, gathers a few toys into it, and makes a bindlestiff. Throwing it over his shoulder, he says with a sniff, "You'll be sorry!" but then turns back to blow a kiss in his parents' direction. Music box sounds are heard, and the cub looks towards his window and smiles. Outside, Jack Frost is painted a frosty scene on the window, sticking out his tongue as he concentrates on his happy work. He capers off to another duty, and Billy opens up the window and follows him outside.

And thus begins the best part of the film. Jack Frost has a quartet of pumpkins before him, pumpkins that seem to have no color to them at all. He points his brush at each one in turn, and they first are colored orange, and then a second point at each one creates a smiling Jack O'Lantern grimace. Billy Bear strolls up to Jack, and the gnomish creature admonishes him in song:

"Billy Bear,
have a care!
Ol' Man Winter's in the air!
You'll be sorry
if he catches you!"

But the cub's response is the same as before:

"I don't have to worry!
I don't have to care!
My coat is very furry,
I'm a frizzly grizzly bear!"

(It must be pointed out that when Billy gets to the "I'm a frizzly grizzly bear!" portion of his verse, that he lifts up his fists and throws a few fake punches.)

Jack saunters off, and the four pumpkins grow legs and start dancing before the now named Billy Bear. They hop atop each other to form a stack, and begin howling at Billy, scaring the young bear off and away. He runs up to a scarecrow who is slumped in a lifeless sleeping pose on a stake. next to a mostly empty cornfield.

With the blowing of the autumn leaves, the stake supporting the scarecrow disappears, and the scarecrow casually springs to life! He starts to dance and sing, but there are no words. In a voice very much meant to sound like the famous jazz bandleader and singer, Cab Calloway, the scarecrow sings in a nonsensical but musical scat language. His dancing takes himself and the bear cub over to a group of trees, barren of leaves, who bob back and forth in time with the music and provide backing vocals to the scarecrow. When the scarecrow finishes his scat singing and twirling, Billy Bear either took the nonsense to be a further admonishment of his being out with Ol' Man Winter on the way, or he is just plain stubborn. The little cub sings yet again:

"I don't have to worry!
I don't have to care!
My coat is very furry,
I'm a frizzly grizzly bear!"

As he finishes his verse, Billy nightshirt is whipped up by a blast of freezing air from out of nowhere, and he stumbles about blindly. Snow has started falling, and the scarecrow reassumes his position when Billy first walked up to him, his arms stuck straight out as if resting once again on his stake. In my favorite part of Jack Frost, the scarecrow is slowly covered by freezing wind and snow, and gradually transforms into a stereotypical snowman. Billy is frightened by the transformation (as he should be, because it is actually kind of chilling), but before he knows it, there is another swirl of arctic wind, and Ol' Man Winter appears!

He is tall and blue and thin, and he has wild white hair and a long beard icicles hanging off of it. He has gapped teeth and a wicked grin, and he arches his arms over the top of his head as he tries to grab Billy Bear. The cub starts running in place to build up speed and then zips off as fast as his little legs can carry him. But Ol' Man Winter gives chase, and he stays just far enough behind Billy to blow freezing air at him with his breath, bowling the cub over in the snow and causing him to roll up into a snowball. The snowball grows ever larger, and its largest point, it rolls and smashes into a tree.

Billy, no longer encased in snow, sees a small door on the side of the tree and tugs on it hard to open it. We don't see what creature lives inside, except for a large nondescript foot that sticks out and boots Billy away. Billy runs to the next tree and tries that door. This time, a large white first is propelled by what seems to be one of those extendable, mechanical arms and punches Billy in the face. Sent sprawling once more, Billy sees a third door and runs inside. Seconds later, he runs out again, for it is the home of a skunk. Billy stands away from the door as the skunk comes out and invites the cub back inside where it is safe and warm. But Billy pinches his nose in disgust, and upsets the very friendly skunk, who has no idea of her offensive smell.

Ol' Man Winter runs at Billy Bear once again, and the skunk ducks back inside her home. The chase leads Billy to a log, where he runs inside to hide, but Ol' Man Winter knows exactly where he is. He ducks his down close to where Billy hides and says, "So, you would run away from home!" He points a claw at the log and icicles drip down from the top and form bars as if in a jail cell. Ol' Man Winter then disappears in a whirl of wind and snow, and Billy is left to his fate.

Suddenly, Jack Frost arrives to the rescue. He sings:

"You would roam
all alone.
I told you not to leave your home!
But you were a frizzly grizzly bear!"

Billy, weeping and snuffling his nose, sings his apology:

"Gee, Mr. Frost,
I'm sorry!
Oh, help me out --
please do!
Take me home
to my nice warm bed.
I'm freezing
through and through!"

Jack Frost takes his magical paintbrush and dabs some paint on each of the bars trapping Billy in the log. The icicles transform into candy sticks with delicious looking stripes of varying colors wrapping about them. Billy Bear starts salivating and hungrily licks at the candy icicles, slowly melting one of them away enough so that he can tuck his body through the gap and escape the log. He is free! Jack Frost sets his color palette on the ground, and both of them climb aboard it as if it were a sled. Jack uses his brush to row the palette across the snow, but a rainbow trail starts to appear behind the palette and they are rushed up and through the air!

Jack Frost and Billy Bear fly over the forest, causing a fully arched rainbow to appear in the night sky, and then they land at Billy's window. Jack tucks the sleepy little bear back into his log bed and pulls the covers up tight. After he climbs back outside and closes the window, Jack Frost picks up his brush once more and starts to paint on the window. This time, he draws a single large word in cursive. The word is "Finis," signifying the end of the story. As the music swells, Jack looks at the camera and winks to the audience. Iris out.

I had seen this Iwerks cartoon numerous times since my youth, but a large segment of today's population probably knows Jack Frost best from its appearance as one of the films that the King of Cartoons played -- albeit in truncated form -- on Pee Wee's Playhouse back in the '80s. Stuck alongside much more memorable cartoons that were used like Balloonland or The Sunshine Makers, this one has always seemed like an also-ran to me. Watching it a few more times recently, however, has raised my opinion of it a notch or two. It tells its story well, and the transitions between seasons are very well illustrated, especially in the transformation using the scarecrow. The least successful part is of the rather generic forest animals at the beginning, and I think maybe I picked up on that blandness when I was younger and discounted the film as a whole.

I also think that Ol' Man Winter is never portrayed quite as scary as he could have been, especially given how well Iwerks and company would bring off the Pincushion Man in Balloonland a year later. Maybe Winter was an early run at such a character, and they packed what they learned into the later villain. Still, I know several people who swear by how frightening they still find Ol' Man Winter in this cartoon, and I will admit he is pretty creepy. Also creepy is Jack Frost, who is the hero here, but that doesn't make him any more appealing as a cartoon character. I can also see some people nowadays being taken aback by the spanking laid down on Billy Bear by his mother, though I don't remember thinking anything about it when I watched this as a kid.

Getting back to the topic of winter, it is now December 8th, and I will be spending the day at Disneyland taking in the "Xmas atmos," as Blackadder's Prince George would say (he claims Jesus always ruins it for him). That's right, it's forecast to be 81 degrees in the middle of the afternoon, and I will be celebrating Christmas in a theme park while dressed in shorts and a t-shirt. It's hardly winter at all, the snow is all going to fake (except in the Frozen area that takes place inside), and the only frost that will be seen is painted onto windows and doors. Sure, Jack Frost painted his frost onto things as well, but that was the real deal... only in a cartoon.

Man, I miss frost.

In case you haven't seen it:

There's Good Boos To-night (1948)

There's Good Boos To-night (Paramount, 1948) 

Dir: Isadore Sparber

Cel Bloc Rating: 5

Roughly three years passed before Paramount decided to give Casper the Friendly Ghost another go, and in that three-year period, someone at the studio apparently gained a thirst for blood. Not content to let Casper simply find a living friend with whom to pal around gaily, the studio decided that the best way to get a chum for the fat little ghost was to cold-bloodedly kill something. I'm not complaining -- someone needed to inject some excitement into this series -- but since the Casper films are generally considered to be kid-friendly, this is about as shocking as you can get. Who expected this bland series to get all Bambi on us

There's Good Boos To-night starts out almost exactly like the original Casper flick, The Friendly Ghost (reviewed yesterday here), with the hero ghost earnestly reading while his fellow ghosts plot and exact an air raid-like attack on all of humanity. The book on this go-around is called "Animal Friends", and it is filled with pictures of children befriending furry little creatures. The ghosts implore Casper to join them as they did before, but he will have nothing of it. Again, he decides that it is best to strike out on his own rather than remain in the company of these warlike savages, and off he goes to make friends.

This time, the first recipient of his well-meaning but misunderstood ghostly affections is a calf, which runs worriedly away to its mother. When she goes to check out Casper herself, she is frightened enough that she runs to the nighttime horizon and jumps clear over the moon! Casper follows an adorable skunk for a stretch, but when the striped stinker discovers who is riding caboose, he bolts off, but leaves all of his odor behind to latch onto the ghost. Casper then grumpily takes a bath, rolling himself through the wringer to squeeze out the water. He begins to cry, which sets into motion the normal reply: a new friend comes calling, a small and very cute red fox.

The fox nuzzles Casper and licks his face. Casper names him Ferdie and they become fast friends and boon companions. In the midst of their play one day, a hunter arrives with two hound dogs in tow. It is clear from the music that he is after foxes. The dogs give chase to Ferdie as the hunter fires hordes of bullets at the fox. Casper steps in at the last second to try and stop the assault, and he scares off the trio in his normal manner. He turns to Ferdie to see if he is alright, but the little fox shows no signs of life. Casper picks him up and tries to revive him, but it is no use: Ferdie is dead. The final scene shows Casper at the gravesite of his only friend (apparently the children he saved and befriended in the first film no longer found him pleasant or interesting anymore), and as he bemoans his fate, the ghost of Ferdie Fox rises from the ground and begins to nuzzle and lick Casper once more! Hooray! And they died happily ever after! THE END

My favorite touch in the film is at the beginning with the opening narration. The first film’s narrator told you immediately that there would be nothing to fear despite the foreboding imagery that opened it; this film tricks us with an opening that is actually somewhat creepy as the narrator affects a tone befitting the great Thurl Ravenscroft, asking us "Now, isn't this a perfect setting for a spine-tingling ghost story? Well, this is a ghost story. Do you scare easily? Do you have nightmares? Do shadows on the wall frighten you?" The camera pans across a misty, murky swamp scene, with bats flying out of the darkness, and moves to the outside of a cemetery. The narrator then pulls the switch and says, "Well... relax. This isn't that kind of a story." For about thirty seconds, the film has a good mood going, and then turns into practically the same film as the first one... but with that one major difference.

For while this may not be that kind of a ghost story, it is a ghost story where a cute little fox dies tragically. I wonder if the fact that Casper's friend is actually a predatory animal had something to do with it being socially acceptable to kill him at the end. I also wonder if they would have done the same thing if Casper's buddy was a lamb or the baby calf from earlier in the film. I think most likely they would not have done so. I also wonder that if we didn't miss some interesting scenes by not having Ferdie live; I would have enjoyed seeing goody two-shoes Casper's reactions when Ferdie went out and killed a baby bird or bunny for his evening meal.

As for the bloodshed that did make it onto the screen, I have one question: if Paramount was so eager to kill something in one of their cartoons, why didn't they cross Casper over into the Popeye series, and then do in one or all of Popeye's annoying nephews, Pip-Eye, Pup-Eye, Poop-Eye and Peep-Eye? Now, that would have been a good cartoon, and it would have immediately improved the fortunes of two stagnant cartoon series. That's a bargain any way you carve it up.

RTJ

P.S. This review was written just before I found out that Myron Waldman, a chief animator and director with the Fleischer and Paramount/Famous Studios died Saturday morning at the age of 97. He was an animator throughout the Casper series, in addition to creating Pudgy the Pup and Hunky and Spunky for the Fleischers, and while I may seem cynical about the Casper series over the next four days, there is no denying Waldman’s incredible contribution to animation history. (You will notice that while I may have taken silly or odd story elements to task, I have not done so with the animation.) Read more about Mr. Waldman here at Cartoon Brew.

*****

And in case you haven't seen it...

[This piece was edited and updated with video and new photos on 10/4/2016.]

Chicken Little (1943)

Chicken Little (Walt Disney, 1943)
Dir: Clyde Geronimi
Cel Bloc Rating: 8/9

Isn't a film telling you not to believe any propaganda that you read or hear also to be considered propaganda? Especially if the studio that is producing the film is doing so at the insistence of the government? Wouldn't the film negate its own intentions by its very existence?

In 1943, Walt Disney Productions took its first crack at the story of Chicken Little, the classic sky-is-falling folderol that kids are regaled with time and again throughout their childhood days. My problem with Chicken Little is that, like many of the fairy tales and fables out there, there are multiple endings to the story, depending on which happy ending brigade, whiny parents' group, or censorship squad has gotten hold of the story and changed it to suit their needs or make it "safer" for their children's sensitive little brains to absorb. The version I prefer is the one where Foxy Loxy says he knows the path to the king's palace, the birds believe him, and then the clever fox eats all of the idiot poultry who fall for this line. There is another version for the babies where the king's men come to the rescue just in the nick of time and kill or chase off the fox. (No one ever mentions that the king's men will probably eat Chicken Little when he/she is not so little anymore, along with all of his/her pals.) There are other endings to the story, and since the origin of the story is unclear, it is hard to say how it was originally written. However the story ends, Chicken Little believes that the sky is falling because an acorn hits the dumb cluck in the head, Chicken Little tells one bird, and then another, and then another, until all of the birds in the vicinity blindly follow Chicken Little to either their doom, or to their near-doom, depending on which version your parents or preschool deem acceptable for you to hear.

The problem with the multiple endings is that there is only one that makes any frickin' sense, and that is the "downer" ending. (From Foxy's point of view, that's the happy one.) If Chicken Little doesn't get eaten, along with the gossipmongers who never think twice about the jive the tiny little squab is handing them, then there is no lesson for the child to learn. If Little and Co. merely have a close encounter with death, kids will likely learn and believe that they can get away with anything, no matter how foolish, because they will always be rescued at the last moment. Chicken Little, much like the Boy Who Cried Wolf, has to die. Sorry, but them's the breaks.

The usually happy-ending mad Disney knew this in 1943. The company forgot it when needed in other retellings of classic fairy tales, but in their first version of Chicken Little, they got it right. Here, the barnyard seems to take on the appearance of a small town, with Cocky Locky as the mayor, and with the various other poultry representing various small cliques within the town: the turkeys stand in for the upper-crust "smart set" complaining about the ills of society (I think they are cast somewhat ironically); the hens spend all day knitting, playing bridge, gossiping non-stop, and sitting at the beauty salon getting a "red henna rinse" (har!); and Goosey Poosey and Ducky Lucky hang out at the local tavern (the water trough) and get sloshed with the other game ducks and geese. Outside of these cliques, Chicken Little is a yo-yo wielding numbskull who often conks himself in the face and head with his errantly-slung toy missile. (My favorite part, outside of the ending, is when he first delivers his horrible news to the hens, but before he can begin, the yo-yo slings back into his face... and it doesn't slow him down one iota.)

Into this serene little barnyard comes the wandering eye (literally, appearing in succeeding holes in the fence surrounding the "town") of one Foxy Loxy, who reads psychology books in order to find the best way to mislead the masses, and then lead them into his stomach. (Any resemblance in the fox's behavior to any fascistic or social organizations at large in the early 40's is purely intentional.) He sizes up Little as the weak point in the town's social structure and begins to work on him, beginning with snapping a star off of a nearby astrology sign and dropping the blue-painted wooden hunk onto the dope's noggin. To be sure, he also has to tell the dazed chick that the sky is falling. (You can never be too precise when you are starving for a chicken dinner.) Little tells the entire town, but Cocky Locky sees through the nonsense, and calms everyone down.

The fox then begins to spread rumors through the various social groups that Cocky Locky has a) lost his marbles, b) become a "totalitarian" and wants to be dictator, and c) "been hitting the mash." The rumors about Cocky fly throughout the barnyard, and the birds lose confidence in him. Foxy then sets up a puppet regime by convincing Chicken Little that only he is fit to lead the birds from the terror that is sure to fall from the sky. Chicken Little brings all of the resident poultry to the fox's cave, which the fox stealthily helps them locate, in order to hide from the falling menace. The fox runs in after them, sealing the entrance behind him, also putting up a sign outside that reads "In To Lunch." The narrator assures us that this will all end happily. But when the camera moves inside the cave, the fox is finishing the last bird, and there is a graveyard nearby marked with the wishbones of each bird. The narrator protests to the fox, telling him that this is not the way the story ends in the narrator's book. The fox, with cigar and Psychology book in hand, responds snarkily, "Oh, yeah! Don't believe everything you read, brudder!"

This is a nine-minute near-masterpiece of propaganda about propaganda. It is also one of the darkest films to ever come out of the House of Mouse. It makes its point, and almost doubly so, because you do not expect this sort of ending from Walt Disney. Beginnings, yes... but endings, no. I actually did a double take the first time I saw this film, for I swore that it had to be the product of the Warner Bros. wartime department. That's not to say that Walt couldn't bring you down when he wanted (look at Bambi and Old Yeller), but generally death in Disney (except in the villain's case) meant eventual resurrection (in just about half or more of the animated features that they made). I have to think that his normal modus operandi went out the door when the wartime stakes got bigger and more intense (as it clearly was in 1943).

I have yet to see the new Disney version of Chicken Little, thus I will refuse to compare it to this version, nor shall I critique it until I have seen it. I will, however, state that I am 100% sure that Chicken Little and the rest of the town of barnyard critters do not get eaten in it, neither by Foxy Loxy nor by the aliens that are said to be the invading villains of the film. And that's just fine, because I just recently acquired a new book on psychology. It is very heavy and thick and full of big words, and once I have read it cover to cover, I'm going to be awfully hungry...

[Editor's note: The text and photos for this article were updated on 11/3/2015.]