Buddy the Gee Man (1935) Poster

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5/10
Is This A Prison Or A Country Club?
ccthemovieman-113 March 2007
Warning: Spoilers
"Federal Agent Buddy" receives a telegram stating, "Conduct secret investigation as to the treatment accorded prisoners by ward at Sing Song Prison. signed, Fuller Pepp, chief."

Buddy dons his mustache disguise and brings along his dog, who is dressed like Sherlock Holmes, to the police station where a big crowd watches the bad guy get escorted to Sing Song prison. Buddy follows and takes notes while he's in prison. The warden is named "Otto B. Kinder," and he's a nasty guy. Buddy recommends he be fired. The government agrees and puts Buddy in charge!

The ultra-liberal buddy gives the prisoners manicures, shoe shines, ice cream cones - anything they want. It's so great in there that no one wants to leave and the whole town is almost barging down the door to get it. Buddy happily hangs a "no vacancy" sign on the building and waves at the crowd. End of cartoon!

What a stupid message! Liberals have always been liberals, I guess, meaning as naive as Buddy demonstrates here.

I enjoyed the music in this cartoon. They had several short songs beginning with the prisoners singing "Lulu's Back In Town."
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4/10
Buddy the Gee Man was another partially amusing cartoon starring perhaps Warner's blandest leading man
tavm27 February 2009
Warning: Spoilers
This was another cartoon starring perhaps the blandest character created for Warner Bros.-Buddy. In this one, he's a detective who's hired to spy on the goings-on at a prison. He finds out the warden is cruel to all his prisoners so Buddy makes sure he's fired! Then Buddy takes over and gives them all treats! In between, there's a few numbers in "Sing-Song Prison"...It's the score that keeps this animated short moving to somewhat entertaining end. There are some slightly amusing gags and like many of these '30s efforts, the animation moves briskly. It's just the leading character that fails to charm. Still, I'd recommend Buddy the Gee Man be seen once if you're a Warner cartoon completist.
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4/10
Buddy's less than inspired swan song
TheLittleSongbird20 September 2017
Now a fairly obscure character, Buddy was the second Warner Brothers Looney Tunes character, after Bosko and followed by Beans the Cat. Buddy didn't last long, being retired in 1935 after 23 cartoons starting in 1933.

The Buddy cartoons are intriguing to see how very early Looney Tunes characters, before the iconic ones with far more interesting and funnier personalities were introduced, fared. His filmography is very much variable, most ranging between mediocre and decent though 'Buddy's Adventures' is one of the rare very good Buddy cartoons. His swan song cartoon 'Buddy the Gee Man' is one of his weakest and one can see why it was his last and why Buddy himself didn't click and last longer.

'Buddy the Gee Man' certainly has things that make it a one-time watch, if only for completest sake. The animation is nicely drawn and detailed with the black and white looking crisp, some of it is inventive. Even better is the very energetic and cleverly orchestrated music score. Music played a big part in the Buddy cartoons and it was essential for it to work.

It has the occasional mildly amusing moment and the voice acting is good.

However, 'Buddy the Gee Man' has the same issues that hinder his average or less, and mostly his cartoons in general, hence the reiteration. is very weak in terms of story, one would be forgiven for not remembering there being much of one and what there is is so formulaic and hastily put together one is a couple of steps ahead of the cartoon the whole time, which takes away from the enjoyment. Pacing is often very dull, which makes a very short cartoon feel longer.

Regarding the humour, 'Buddy the Gee Man' is very much lacking. There is nothing genuinely funny here, the best sporadic moments only being mildly amusing at best. The supporting characters don't register enough and it all gets too cutesy at times. Buddy is part of the problem too, like in all his lesser-just straining average cartoons he just isn't a particularly interesting or compelling in personality character, pretty bland actually, and his comic timing is barely there.

Overall, mediocre lesser Buddy swan song that is a one-time completest watch and nothing more. 4/10 Bethany Cox
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Easy to See Why It Was the Last
Michael_Elliott10 April 2012
Buddy the Gee Man (1935)

** (out of 4)

Looney Tunes short has Buddy working for the government and he goes undercover at Sing Song prison to try and find the bad guys. Actually, I'm not sure what his mission was inside the prison as it's never too clear but that might be due to the fact that this turned out to be the final Buddy film so perhaps those involved just weren't trying to be too creative. Overall this is a pretty bland short that doesn't have too much going for it. None of the characters are given anything interesting to do and by the time the thing was over it felt as it it had gone on for at least twenty-minutes when it fact it only runs for seven. Overall I'd say the animation was quite nice and I also enjoyed the music score but this here just isn't enough to carry the entire film. With the lack of any good characters it's just really impossible to get caught up in the story and in the end you just can't help but feel it to be very boring.
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8/10
This animated short summarizes FDR's "New Deal" . . .
oscaralbert28 February 2015
Warning: Spoilers
. . . for Federal prisoners. Under Herbert "Hang 'Em High" Hoover, infamous for ordering once or future generals Eisenhower, MacArthur, and Pershing to massacre starving WWI veterans and their families as they waited for soup on the White House lawn, the convicts could not speak to each other as they were forced to break down boulders into gravel with their bare hands, BUDDY THE GEE MAN DOCUMENTS. However, when outraged voters swept Franklin Roosevelt into the White House, inmates soon were able to sing while they worked under new wardens such as Buddy. This short illustrates how the New Deal included supplying prisoners with jackhammers to assist them in their grand manufacturing responsibilities. Since gravel is America's bedrock, convicts also received all the free ice cream they could eat, to keep up their strength. (On the advice of Rush Limbaugh's grandpa, who lived near Buddy's penitentiary at the time, residents there also got an unlimited supply of cigars as an additional moral booster.) BUDDY THE GEE MAN provides many other historical perspectives on the 1930s, America's most important decade. It would make a great subject for a doctoral thesis at USC or UCLA.
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