Movies With Michael : Some Cartoons For Saturday Morning #182

Saturday, July 2, 2022

Some Cartoons For Saturday Morning #182

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

Today's cartoon selection starts with a classic Sylvester short, Stooge For a Mouse (1950). This movie features Sylvester as best friends with bulldog Mike and enemies with an unnamed mouse. The mouse decides to get revenge on Slyvester by causing a feud between him and Mike. Later Bugs would cause a similar riff in Bugsy and Mugsy (1957), which used many of the same gags.

Next comes the final Herman and Katnip theatrical cartoon, Katnip's Big Day (1959). This movie is a takeoff of the popular TV show, This is Your Life. This is a cheater cartoon and relies on clips from earlier shorts. These shorts include A Bicep Built For Two (1955), Cat-Choo (1951), Mousetro Herman (1956) and Drinks On The Mouse (1953). When you compare the new scenes to the older clips it becomes obvious just how much the animation quality has dropped from the early 1950's to the late 1950's. In the clip from A Bicep Built for Two, Katnip sings the song, I'm in the Mood for Love. This song was the signature song of Francis Langford and she had first sung it in the Paramount feature film, Every Night at Eight (1935).

Now we join Betty Boop in She Wronged Him Right (1934). The following are some exhibitor's reviews from The Motion Picture Herald. "She Wronged Him Right: Betty Boop Cartoons - Paramount's cartoons are good but their two-reelers are terrible. Running Time Eight Minutes - Walter Beymer, Lido Theater, Providence, Ky. Small Town Patronage." "She Wronged Him Right: Betty Boop Cartoon minus the usaul good musical score. Running Time 7 minutes - A. B. Jeffries, New Piedmont Theatre, Piedmont, Mo. Rural and small-town patronage." "She Wronged Him Right: Betty Boop - This is a good cartoon comedy with many laughs and will please both the kids and adults. This issue is not as good as many of the others but will be liked just the same. This entire series is good and very entertaining for both young and old. Running time eight minutes - J.J. Medford, Orpheum Theatre, Oxford, N.C. General Patronage."

As I have stated many times, director Jack Kinney's Goofy cartoons, are some of my favorite cartoon shorts. Up next is a great example of why, Cold War (1951).

Now it is time for a commercial break.

Up next is the Jerry on the Job cartoon, Cheating the Piper (1920). This silent movie is one of a series based off of Walter Hoban's newspaper comic strip, Jerry on the Job, which debuted in 1913.

Next comes a strange early Mickey Mouse cartoon, When the Cats Away (1929). What makes this short film so strange is that Mickey, Minnie and the rest of the mouse are actually the size of mice instead of the size of a short human. They are dwarfed by normal household objects in way they would never be in later Mickey cartoons. This film ends rather abruptly. However an early script provided a more conclusive ending, where a parrot, annoyed by the mice calls the cops and the mice disappear before the police show up.