Some Cartoons For Saturday Morning #142

 Hello my friends and happy Saturday morning, once again it is time for some classic cartoons. 

Mickey’s Fire Brigade (1935) teams up Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck and Goofy for the second time (and the first time in color). This time they were firemen. Walt had earlier used the idea of firefighters for slapstick comedy with the silent Alice Comedy Alice the Firefighter (1926) and the Mickey Mouse cartoon The Firefighters (1930). This cartoon opens on a fantastic note. The title of the film appears on screen like an average Disney cartoon of this time. However soon a fire burns the title letting the cartoon officially start. This imaginative opening sets us up perfectly for the great cartoon we are about to watch. Though Art Babbitt did not animate on this cartoon the personality he had already injected into Goofy can be seen here. This is especially true of a scene where Goofy tries to throw things out of the window (animated by Woolie Reitherman) and a scene where he tries to tell Clarabelle Cow her house is on fire (animated by Bill Tytla). In this film Clarabelle Cow spends most of the time taking a bath unaware of the fire around her. However, she is very upset by “peeping toms” Mickey, Donald and Goofy, who of course are just trying to tell her about the fire. Her animation is mostly handled by Grim Natwick and Bill Tytla. There is of course some great slapstick humor in this short. Though the studio was doing much less gags involving long stretching or detachable body parts they were still doing quite a few impossible gags that can only be done in a cartoon. Such an example here has to do with the treatment of the fire itself. It is given human characteristic and often appears to be having its own thoughts and feelings. One of the best uses of this is when the fire chases Donald up a ladder and is seemingly taunting him along the way. The following is an exhibitor's review from the Motion Picture Herald, "Mickey's Fire Brigade: Mickey Mouse: One of the best of the Mickey Mouse series. Running time, eight minutes. -M.H. Harrington, Avalon Theatre, Clatskanie, Ore. Small Town and Rural patronage." A review in the Flim Daily stated, "This is one of the liveliest and funniest of the Walt Disney cartoon creations."

Next comes the third of The Dogfather films, Heist and Seek (1974). This film is a remake of the Bugs Bunny cartoon, Bugsy and Mugsy (1957) which was a remake of the Sylvester short, Stooge For a Mouse (1950). This cartoon also reworks the ending gag from the Bugs Bunny film, Bugs and Thugs (1954). 

Next comes the first star of the Looney Tunes Bosko in Bosko's Holiday (1931). Unlike later Looney Tunes character Bosko was human instead of a funny animal. However with the strive at the time to imamate Disney, he ended up resembling the funny animals that the other studios were doing. Once a porter asked animator Jack Zander about this character stating, "I want to ask you something about that character you've got. I know Mickey Mouse and Krazy Kat and Oswald the Rabbit … but Bosko the what?" 




   

Now we join The Three Stooges in What's Mew Pussycat (1965). This is one of the trio's The New Three Stooges TV cartoons, where they voiced themselves. 

Now it is time for a commercial break. 

Now for one of the all time great animated short films, Bambi Meets Godzilla (1969). This film came about because Marv Newland was unable to get a shot of a sunrise for a live action short he was making. Because of this he would turn and make this cartoon during the last two weeks of his semester at Art Center College of Design in Los Angles. This short became the first animated film to be produced at the school. The film was placed at #38 in Jerry Beck's book, The 50 Greatest Cartoons.

Now an important message for those of you who ride skateboards. 

Now we join Popeye in The House-Builder Upper (1938). 

In the mid-1960's Warner Brothers began to team up Daffy Duck and Speedy Gonzales for a series of cartoons were they were mostly adversaries. Up next is one of the best of these films (and one where Speedy plays a smaller role than usual), A Taste of Catnip (1965). 

Let us end this post with a song.

Thank you for joining me. Come back next week for more animated treasures. Until then may all your tunes be looney and your melodies merry. 

Resources Used

https://cartoonresearch.com/index.php/mickeys-fire-brigade-1935/

The 50 Greatest Cartoons Edited by Jerry Beck

Of Mice and Magic: A History of American Animated Cartoons by Leonard Maltin

Walt Disney's Mickey Mouse: The Ultimate History by J.B. Kaufman and David Gerstein