User Reviews

. . . London Town, would it have been a big hit? Doubtless he could have featured cameo bits for Good Queen Liz, Sir Francis Drake and Sir Walter Raleigh. Perhaps the bard could have differentiated Bloody Mary from Scottish Mary for future generations, by showing which one was the beheader and which the beheaded. At any rate, by focussing on contemporary Real Life people doomed to be dead and forgotten by the third or fourth revival, a fleeting pop culture event such as HAMLET, MACBETH & OTHELLO GO LONDON TOWN might have required as many footnotes for future audiences as MOTHER GOOSE GOES HOLLYWO0D does for We Modern Viewers of the 21st Century.

Aside from a curious double edged piece of racism, this "Silly Symphony" Cartoon is pegged on the film stars of the 1930s. I suspect more people than we can think of actually can remember most of these stars. They include, Katherine Hepburn (as "Little Bo Peep" - rallee she is); Charles Laughton, Spencer Tracy, and Freddie Bartholemew as the Three Men in a boat (Laughton is Captain Bligh, Tracy is Manuel from CAPTAIN'S COURAGEOUS, and Freddie is David Copperfield); Hugh Herbert as Old King Cole, Ned Sparks as his "merry" Jester, Groucho, Chico, and Harpo Marx as his fiddler three, Joe (UGH!!) Penner as the servant bringing him a bowl (actually a kettle) and asking if he wants a "Duck" (Donald Duck); Stan Laurel as Simple Simon and Oliver Hardy as the pie-man; Eddie Cantor as Little Jack Horner, and his four and twenty blackbirds include Cab Calloway, Fats Waller, and Lincoln Perry (Stepin' Fetchit); Wallace Beery as Little Boy Blue; Greta Garbo as Marjorie Daw, taught a lesson by Edward G. Robinson; and at the conclusion they have Fred Astaire (unfortunately dancing alone), Zazu Pitts, Edna Mae Oliver and Mae West playing horns (Oliver Hardy and Stan Laurel and the Marx Brothers also return playing instruments, and we see George Arliss playing a saxophone and Clark Gable on another instrument), and Martha Raye and Joe E. Brown dancing and kissing.

Most of these figures are still pretty easy to remember (Penner and Arliss I think are the most obscure - the former quite understandably). The reason is the films of most of these people (or the recordings of Calloway and Waller) are accessible by DVD or video.

The interesting thing is how the Disney people were watching the movies of the day or the culture. As pointed out in another review of this cartoon only three Marx Brothers pop up - Zeppo had left the act in 1933. W.C. Fields is Humpty Dumpty, and he is pestered by Charlie McCarthy (this was the same year as their film together, YOU CAN'T CHEAT AN HONEST MAN). When they do the three men in a tub, Laughton is Bligh, Tracy is Manuel, and Bartholemew is young David Copperfield (oddly enough, not Harvey Cheyne - the role he played opposite Tracy's Manuel in CAPTAIN'S COURAGEOUS). Garbo had said "I want to be alone" in GRAND HOTEL in 1933, but the line was still her best known one - it would be spoofed by Sig Ruman in NINOTCHKA, opposite Garbo. The Laurel and Hardy jokes show careful study of how Stan always does something that Ollie can't and when Ollie figures he can do it he comes a cropper. But Ollie later changes the range of Stan's clarinet playing from tenor to base by hitting Stan on the head with a mallet. That is similar to a joke done by Ollie to a singing Stan in WAY OUT WEST in 1937. Oddly enough Raye and Brown would be in a comedy together (ONE THOUSAND DOLLARS A TOUCHDOWN) in 1939, so possibly rumors about such a teaming were in the air. Somebody was doing his homework here.

The racist jokes dealing with the four and twenty "blackbirds" is as I said a two - edged sword. On the one hand the caricatures are definitely racist, in particular Perry. But the fact that all three were included strikes me as showing they are considered celebrities. Why have them otherwise if they weren't be recognized by the audience watching the cartoon (the Fleischer cartoons at Paramount frequently used Cab Callaway too). The only inexcusable racist joke (aside from exaggerating Perry's shtick) was that a blackberry pie hits Hepburn in the face, turning her into an African-American "Bo - Peep" for a moment, and she starts talking with a southern drawl.

Hepburn knew of the cartoon - she mentioned it on a program she did in the 1990s about her life for PBS, and said the cartoon's sequence of her "Bo - Peep" riding an outboard motor passed the three men in the tub, was the first time on screen her persona and Tracy's shared a scene or sequence. Odd to think it happened here.

"Mother Goose Goes Hollywood" is an American 8-minute cartoon from 1938 and this one was nominated for an Oscar from a time when Disney was truly dominant, was nominated for 4 out of 5 Oscars in the cartoon category and of course also had the winner that wasn't this one here though. I can see why people quite loved this one back then as it was a nice tribute to the industry including cartoon versions of many of the big stars back then, which made this film also really popular beyond the cartoon industry of course. But the problem today is that when you watch it, you will know hardly anybody unless you really are familiar with stars and movies from that time. But above-average won't be enough as recognizing the names and guessing like "this could be x and that may be y" won't be enough and you may also want to know what makes them who they are, their routines, their trademarks etc. And I'd say only 1% of audiences will be on that level and judging from the ones I recognized (Laurel and Hardy), their scenes honestly aren't that funny compared to their live action selves. But maybe the other ones I couldn't identify are funnier. I wouldn't bet on it. This approach also takes a bit away from the Mother Goose story appeal, the other area where this film tries to make an impact. Overall, it may be the weakest nominee at the Oscars in its category back then. I give it a thumbs-down. Don't watch.

I may be biased as I love Disney and grew up with their cartoons, movies and shows, and still love most of them now. Mother Goose Goes Hollywood is an example of Disney at its finest. It is beautifully animated, colourful and fluid as animation should be with thankfully no ugly over-exaggerated character features, and as usual the music is energetic, dynamic and helps to enhance the action. The story is simple, but the revelation was the concept, so clever to incorporate big Hollywood names of the time into nursery rhyme characters. The whole in-a-book structure was also inspired. But the real delights of Mother Goose Goes Hollywood are the caricatures themselves and the jokes. The caricature of Stepin Fetchitt may amuse some, but annoy others(I didn't mind it), and while harmless the gag where the pie hits Katharine Hepburn turning her black-face can be seen as politically incorrect but the scene where the gag comes from is a great one anyway so I didn't mind that either. The running gag may be Katharine Hepburn trying to find her sheep, but I didn't think it was the best one. Even better were the MGM Lion Parody, WC Fields being heckled by Charlie McCarthy, the Marx Brothers(minus Zeppo) as the Fiddlers Three and the Simple Simon Piemen scene with Laurel and Hardy. Plus if you love the 1935 film Mutiny on the Bounty, you will be delighted at Charles Laughton as Captain Bligh saying "It's mutiny, but I love it". As for the caricatures, I don't think I have seen a cartoon with so many caricatures and so cleverly incorporated, Hugh Herbert, Charles Laughton, WC Fields, The Marx Brothers, Laurel and Hardy, Greta Garbo, Zasu Pitts and Clark Gable, and that's not even all. I also noted the brief appearance of Donald Duck jumping out of the pot in the Joe Penner sequence, and the well-choreographed swinging dance at the end. All in all, incredibly clever and enormous fun, one of Disney's finest. 10/10 Bethany Cox