063 Mary's Little Lamb

1935 Number: 063
Title: Mary's Little Lamb
Studio: Iwerks
Date: 05/01/35
Credits: P.A. Powers Presents...
Produced by
Ub Iwerks
Musical Score by
Carl Stalling
Series: ComicColor Cartoon
Running time (of viewed version): 7:26
Commercial DVD Availability: CTTFUICv1, VOD

Synopsis: Pushy lamb hams it up during talent show performances by humans.



















Comments: First '35 I've watched for the blog since November 2010 (1/1/12). I wonder if there's a stylistic change in my writing.
Interesting title card. Weird little dancing walk cycle. Like tap dancing maybe? A main character in an Iwerks not designed to be as ugly as possible; how odd. (Explanation: Mary turned out to not be the main character.) Well, the teacher counterbalances that. Little Elmer; lots of Elmers. Deep voice. Lost opportunities in backgrounds, with things written but not provided as jokes. Reuse of animation. Little redheaded Percy seems to be just as girly as titular Mary. And then everyone in the class does a kind of limp wristed salute to him. ...'K. Even the ugly teacher does a slutty dance. Happy birthday plays a bit. It must have been almost new at the time. The teacher gets covered in soot without it becoming a black face gag. Mary more or less disappears from the narrative; she was only a delivery vehicle for the lamb. Silhouette crowd shot. Moving the background at a different rate than the foreground in the desk crawling scene. Integrated classroom without any racial gags. Inexplicable interlude with an anthropomorphic cow and horse; the cow is fully dressed, the horse has gloves and shoes. Cartoon opens with a pretty long background; a continuous shot for 57 seconds.

This is the first actual cartoon of a pretty full month. 18 cartoons and two that don't exist.