User Reviews

Tubby invites Lulu to the beach. However, Lulu has to babysit Alvin, so they take him along. He escapes, but things improbably turn out all right in the end.

Famous Studios seems to have just been going through the motions throughout much of the 1960s, so for some name brand recognition, they revived their license for Little Lulu. However, except for the shape of Lulu's hair do, there is very little elaboration in this cartoon, either in the drawings, animation or plot. There is one nice wipe to take care of a change of scene, but that's about it. You can do yourself a favor by skipping this one.

The first Little Lulu cartoon dated from 1944 and 25 further cartoons followed up to 1948, with mixed results (some great, some good, some average, some mediocre at best). The series was briefly revived with 'Alvin's Solo Fight' and 'Frog's Legs' in the early 60s thirteen years after the last 40s cartoon 'Dog Show Off'.

It was with these two later outings of Little Lulu, in an attempt to revive the character, that strongly suggested that the series had long run its course. If one thought that 'Dog Show Off' showed signs of tiredness and running out of ideas in places, those feelings are amplified in the 60s offerings, made after Famous Studios budgets became smaller, time constraints tighter and their material tired and repetitive. 'Alvin's Solo Fight', the first of the two 60s Little Lulu cartoons, shows no signs of a return to form.

Where it fares best is in Winston Sharples' music score. The infectious theme song of the 40s cartoons is not heard unfortunately, and the theme music here is nowhere near as memorable or as fitting. However Sharples' music always was a high point of the cartoons they featured in and often in later period Famous Studios cartoons was the best thing about them, something that is true with 'Alvin's Solo Fight' with the music being as whimsical, beautifully orchestrated, luscious, energetic and characterful as always.

Voice acting also fares quite well, with Jack Mercer in multiple roles particularly excelling. Little Lulu and Tubby have a nice chemistry, as they did in their earlier cartoons though with much better material, and effort is made in making them as engaging as possible.

However, the same cannot be said for Alvin. Even for a character meant to be bratty, Alvin is just obnoxious and irritating and very little is done to make him likable or funny. The animation is far removed from the vibrancy, refinement and imagination that was seen in most of the earlier Little Lulu cartoons, and is instead dully coloured and scrappy, whoever knew that such an exotic and popular setting such as the beach could look as far away from that as one can get.

'Alvin's Solo Fight's' story is not much of one at all, mostly an excuse to string along stale gags that are familiar territory and have been done better. So much of it is predictable and repetitive too, with failed attempts to be cute. The gags generally do feel rather tired as does the momentum, as a result of too little content and a story far too slight for the running time.

Overall, pretty poor Little Lulu cartoon from the 60s. 3/10 Bethany Cox