User Reviews

It always baffles me when viewers mention how bad 1930s animation is. Back then, all the studios whose product was financed by a major company used full animation--24 drawings a second, one drawing for every single frame of film. You can't get any fuller than that, at least up until the age of computer graphics. Maybe these viewers meant to complain about the early character designs; in any case, the movement in most of these cartoons is as fluid and liquid as you can get.

I have a special liking for cartoons with sick humor....cartoons like "The Wise-Quacking Duck" (in which Daffy acts like he's been beheaded, spurting ketchup and all), and "Sock-A-Bye Baby" (in which Popeye proves he's even more of a bully than Bluto himself, pulverizing anyone in sight). The present cartoon doesn't quite rank with those two but is a gutbuster nonetheless. Lots of sick bomb gags, and taking place during a war, the film's full of anthropomorphic bombs with actual facial features and, of course, minds of their own. Their accuracy is 100%. One extended scene has a horsey fellow trying to dodge one of these bombs (it has unlimited ammunition), with the horse finally getting blown up to heaven.

Porky Pig and his sidekick Beans the cat (it was really meant to be the other way round) get down to some long-awaited plot business in the trenches when Porky cowers under one of the bunks and says "I sh-sh-sh-should've stayed on the f-f-f-f-f-farm!" Beans (who's munching on a can of them) says, "Take it easy, Porky ol' pal, take it easy!" (establishing why the other guy became a star and not him). They search for and rescue their leader, General Hardtack, and eventually the three of them get blown to smithers and end up in a hospital bed, where they divide up the medal they earned.

. . . not to mention Death by Friendly Fire, or craven cowardice on the front lines? That's the main question posed by BOOM BOOM, a Looney Tunes animated short released by Warner Bros. in 1936. Some 13-year-olds that saw it then were blown up at Pearl Harbor. Strangely enough, the close of this eight-minute piece anticipates "Don't Ask, Don't Tell." Porky Pig and his rodent friend manage to rescue canine Gem. Hardtack as the latter's being tortured by German police dogs. If this were a Disney release, the returning trio's first stop after recrossing No Man's Land would be Anaheim. But since Warner Bros. released BOOM BOOM, the threesome instead wind up frolicking in a single bed together! The implicit message is that such things are an inevitable outcome for men without women. While last year's FURY had to throw in some village broads for sexual relief, BOOM BOOM comes off as more mature in recognizing the Spartan realities of War. Quite a coup for an otherwise thoroughly silly cartoon.