User Reviews

'Scrambled Eggs' (1939)

Opening thoughts: When Walter Lantz was on form, his work was very good and more and at its best excellent. 'Scrambled Eggs' is not one of the very good and more cartoons or one of the excellent ones. It is still a well above average and nice cartoon, with a lot to admire while seldom being outstanding. 'Scrambled Eggs' is not one Lantz's best cartoons, but it is also a long way from being one of his worst. It may not be one of his funniest or most original, but it is also a long way from being one of his worst. It may not be one of his funniest or most original, but nothing is executed disastrously as such once you get past the lead character. As far as Lantz's work goes, it is solid middle.

Bad things: It is admittedly very slight and predictable and is a little bit of a slow starter.

Did find that Peterkin took time to warm to and that Bernice Hansen sometimes overdid the voice acting.

Good things: Even when the story is uneven in pacing the energy and character in the music are consistent and in a great way. It is just so infectious and clever. The animation is also great, it is lush and colourful with very rich attention to detail in the backgrounds and well drawn characters. It is especially good on the animation for the trees and nests.

The cartoon does pick up quickly, with a fun and lively climax in particular. It is far from short changed when it comes to the gags, and many of them are well timed and amusing. It is also very cute while never being too cutesy or cloying. Loved the bird characters.

Concluding thoughts: Concluding, nice if not great.

7/10.

"Scrambled Eggs" (1939) is a cartoon about a mischievous supernatural forest character named Peterkin who is drawn as a boy satyr (human form with pointed ears, tail and goat legs) who plays a flute and causes mischief in the forest. When the birds tell him to be quiet, he decides to get back at them by sneaking under the birds' nests positioned on a massive "Maternity Tree" and switching the eggs in the various nests so that when they hatch, every bird couple is greeted with a different species of bird. E.g., the canaries hatch a pirate-talking parrot and the English sparrows hatch a mockingbird, which quickly begins "mocking" the sparrow father by speaking in an English accent, too. The father birds get very suspicious of their wives and fly off to "the club," while the mother birds "go home to mother," leaving the baby birds hungry and crying for food, which leaves Peterkin the only one who can take care of them, a task he attempts gamely but is profoundly unsuited for.

It's a cute cartoon with some amusing gags, but it's of interest mainly for the bright Technicolor spectrum, the beautiful forest background designs, including some remarkably detailed tree trunks, and the artful designs found on each of the nests. There's a pretty impressive array of bird species on view also, including, in addition to those already mentioned, finches, warblers, blackbirds, and a stork doctor. Foreshadowing the emergence in the next year of Walter Lantz's most popular character, Woody Woodpecker, there's even a Woodpecker couple.

The story is by Elaine Pogany, with designs by Willy Pogany, both of whom are given prominent credit. Apparently, there were no other Peterkin cartoons by Walter Lantz, although the character was featured the following year in a children's book called "Peterkin," created by the Poganys, a husband-and-wife team, with Elaine doing the story and Willy doing the artwork. A prominent book illustrator, Willy Pogany also did art direction on some major films in the 1930s, including PALMY DAYS, FASHIONS OF 1934, and the Busby Berkeley musicals, WONDER BAR and DAMES, in addition to directing the delirious Technicolor finale of Eddie Cantor's KID MILLIONS. This cartoon was one of the first done in color by Lantz and it's found in the Woody Woodpecker and Friends Classic Cartoon Collection DVD box set.