001 An Elephant Never Forgets

Title: An Elephant Never Forgets
Studio: Fleischer
Date: 01/02/35
Credits:
Director
Dave Fleischer
Animation:
Seymour Kneitel
Roland Crandall
Original Music:
Sammy Timberg
Jack Scholl
Series: Color Classics
Running time (of viewed version): 7:19
Commercial DVD release: Somewhere In Dreamland, Pee Wee's Playhouse Season 3 episode To Tell the Tooth (truncated)

Synopsis: Wild animals go to school. (insert young people joke here)




















Comments: And after a two week break from cartoons subject to my official numbering, I return to the entry grind with a Fleischer cartoon on a DVD set I was using for the '39 blog; Somewhere In Dreamland. Title card is matted per usual for tv prints. Opens on a scrolling stereoptical background, with a moving school bell. Quite a deep voice on the elephant. While I can accept a pig in a jungle school, a seal? The teacher, a gooselike ostrich possibly, is in the same vein as Gandy Goose would be like in later Terry entries, as is a more goose proportioned bird in the class. The hippo is built like an ape. The ape has a washboard. I think it's a gag I don't get. Horribly irritating fake children's voices in the class. They move in unison as a group; it looks primitive. It's a madhouse, a madhouse! The elephant's trunk seems ribbed for someone's something. This is the first cartoon I'm watching for this year; it's possible it won't ultimately be 001 after in some future version, tho, as things might get renumbered later. While you can see how '39 Fleischer music evolved from this sound, there's definite difference in the sounds. First non title card screenshot for the year? A model some guys built. Lots of physical impact in this one (I mean, not compared to a road runner cartoon, but you get my drift). Active use of color in the elephant blushing. What is the black and white thing without ears that doesn't look like the seal? A different seal? A sloth? I think the giraffe must be a goy; he certainly doesn't seem circumcised. (Jerry Beck on the commentary says the deep voice is likely Gus Wickie, the Bluto of the time; this seems reasonable to me.)