Some Cartoons For Saturday Morning #46

Hello my friends and welcome back to another Saturday morning full of classic cartoons. 

We begin with an offbeat Disney short from the early 1960's. By this time the Disney studio was no longer producing animated shorts regularly as they had done in the 1930's or 40's. However the studio had not stopped producing these films as a whole and cartoons like this would appear at times. These films were of the same high quality that Disney cartoons had always been. As a country music fan, this following short has a special interest for me as its music is provided by Rex Allen and The Sons of the Pioneers. So enjoy The Saga of Windwagon Smith (1961).

Anyone familiar with the Columbia Krazy Kat cartoons knows they bare little to no rebalance to the George Herriman comic strip on which they were supposedly based. Krazy was turned into a Mickey Mouse clone and the supporting characters disappeared completely. There was however one exception to this and that was the cartoon, Lil' Ainjil (1936). This film does a surprisingly good job at capturing the feel of the classic comic strip. This is especially true of the background art, which had the same distinct look that appeared in the comic strip. The cartoon also features other characters from the strip including Ignatz Mouse, Offissa Pup and Mrs. Kwack. Much of the story also revolves around the idea of Krazy enjoying Ignatz hitting him/her with bricks. Cartoon buffs may recognize Offissa Pup's voice as that of Billy Costello, the first voice of Popeye.  Interestingly with how this cartoon was so different from any other in the Columbia cartoon series a review in The Film Daily called it "The usual troubles of Officer Pup while trying to keep Ignatz Mouse from socking Krazy Kat with bricks." The same review called this film "Just fair." This is not a perfect cartoon, but it is quite fun to see how this series could have been had it been more faithful to the strip.

Dancing Mice (1931) could have been an appropriate title for many of the black and white Terrytoons, consider how full of mice these films often were. However it was the name of this one. This is a very typical yet enjoyable example of the Terrytoons cartoons of this era.




When Gene Deitch took over the Terrytoons studio in 1956, he drastically changed the style of the studio's output and got rid of all the studio's reoccurring characters in favor of new ones. However there was one Terrytoon from this era that used the one of the previous characters. That character was Dinky Duck and the cartoon was It's A Living (1957). This cartoon served as a satire on the films the studio used to put out, Cinemascope (which this film was made in) and TV commercials. This is an excellent and very funny film that is one of the best Terrytoons from this era.

This week's selection of cartoons ends with an especially good Pink Panther cartoon, Dial P For Pink (1965). Enjoy.


Thanks for joining me come back next week for more animated treasures.

-Michael J. Ruhland