Title: Springtime Serenade
Studio: Lantz
Date: 05/27/35
Credits:
Series: Oswald / Cartune Classic?
Running time (of viewed version): 8:10
Commercial DVD Availability: WWv2
Synopsis: It's spring and there's cleaning and then it's not spring anymore. In color!
Studio: Lantz
Date: 05/27/35
Credits:
Series: Oswald / Cartune Classic?
Running time (of viewed version): 8:10
Commercial DVD Availability: WWv2
Synopsis: It's spring and there's cleaning and then it's not spring anymore. In color!
Comments: Irritating songs. Turtle courting. Groundhog (coincidentally
writing this Groundhog week). "Bevare!". The tepid reds don't do much
for Oswald. Living gloom. Murder gloom for greater happiness! Black face
gag. Pretty late in the season for a spring cleaning cartoon. I note a
'34 copyright on the title; I wonder what happened. It may just be the
dates are wrong for this one. Oswald skin color is not pure white.
Reusing the groundhog footage. Maybe they'll put out his eyes so he
can't see his shadow. It's hard to remember that it was supposed to be
funny to see crows associated with scarecrows. The combination is now
only intellectually ironic.
This and two of the three next cartoons are on commercial DVDs.
This and two of the three next cartoons are on commercial DVDs.
Overall, this is a bad cartoon. Maybe it have a good backgrounds (for Lantz), but overall, this cartoon is bad. Disgusting song and character designs even more depress the already hideous opus. Maybe Lantz was fascinated by еру idea of a color cartoon that he forgot about the plot, but look at Columbia, or even Van Bueren - they produced a regular bunch of color cartoons every year. While Lantz, with at least famous character (even if there were such people, who remembered Oswald from the 1920s!) did not achieve anything.
ReplyDeleteThis cartoon isn't winning any prizes, but I think it is generally better than Van Beuren's output in that it is funnier than the average VB. To be fair, that is not a high bar to cross, as Van Beuren cartoons aren't funny as such. Burt Gillette clearly did a better job with color than Lantz's people did here (again, not a high bar), but I usually default to "funny" as my criterion for what makes a good cartoon. I think the most attractive screen shot is the last one here, where it's pretty much black and white.
ReplyDeleteThe oddest thing about this otherwise uneventful short is that Fanny is back as Oswald's girlfriend again, after at least awhile spent as his sister (...while Oswald dated cats and dogs...).
ReplyDelete