Happy Saturday Morning my friends. Hope you are all ready for some classic cartoons.
Today's cartoon selection begins with the last black and white Silly Symphony, Bugs in Love (1932). This is a rather typical Silly Symphony of its time, following the well established formula of animated characters having a grand time to music until the villain of the piece appears and tries to wreck their fun. As you can guess by the title this film's story involves various bugs. Bugs were a common site in the early Silly Symphonies and the newspaper comic strip. In fact the newspaper comic strip featured a complete remake of this cartoon. The Silly Symphonies were a series that at this time was constantly improving and audiences and exhibitors quickly took note of this improvement. For evidence here is an exhibitors review from 1934 (two years after the film's original release), "BUGS IN LOVE: Silly Symphonies—An old Silly Symphony. Not as good as the new ones. Running time, one reel.—A. B. Jefferis, New Piedmont Theatre, Piedmont, Mo. Small Town Patronage." Of course the Silly Symphonies were quite appropriately one of the most popular cartoon series of the time. The following is an exhibitors review from The Motion Picture Herald, "BUGS IN LOVE: Another great Silly Symphony. Give it extra billing.—Charles Niles, Niles Theatre, Anamosa, Iowa." Not everybody was so impressed with the series though as shown through the following exhibitors review from The Motion Picture Herald, "BUGS IN LOVE: Silly Symphony—This is just an- other Walt Disney cartoon comedy. Nothing good about it; just ordinary and is only fair entertainment. We have only played one good comedy of this series and every time we hope the next one will be better. Disappointed in these. Running time, nine minutes. - J. J. Medford, Orpheum Theatre, Oxford, N.C., General Patronage."
Next comes one of my favorite early Popeye cartoons, Blow Me Down (1933). This cartoon is everyone I love about Popeye, it is filled with wild crazy gags and slapstick violence galore. The ending gag is a special favorite of mine, and I love the Olive we have in this cartoon more than the later version of her. The following is an exhibitor's review from the Motion Picture Herald, "BLOW ME DOWN: Popeye the Sailor—One of the best cartoons we have played. It got a lot of laughs. —P. G. Held, New Strand Theatre, Griswold, Iowa. General patronage."
Next comes an early and very funny Woodpecker cartoon, Pantry Panic (1941). This cartoon would be reissued to theatres in 1948 and 1949.
Next comes one of my favorite Out of the Inkwell shorts, The Cartoon Factory (1924).
Today's selection ends with a Garfield Quickie.
-Michael J. Ruhland
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