A sentient hotdog getting spanked and two cats singing on a fence
getting hit with a chamber pot, it’s an Ub Iwerks animation all right.
Also Mickey appears in here as the hotdog seller and Minnie
as well as a dancer. These really early
shorts are so hit and miss for me. Sometimes
I really like the off the wall comedy by today’s standards and at times like
this not so much. It’s the hotdog thing
that’s really bothering me. The idea of
singing meat being spanked for not wanting to be eaten is getting into gallows
humour for me and that’s just not something I enjoy.
The cats on the fence are really the Goofy and Pluto comparison
again. At least there Goofy stands
upright and wears clothes where Pluto doesn’t do either. Here the ring leader cat doesn’t even have
the distinction of wearing clothes. It’s
just bigger than the ones on the fence.
Also the animation is obviously still figuring out so many
things. The lip movements bug me, you
can see the lack of squash and stretch, but the animation of a party favour
being unfurled towards the camera is excellent.
I like the fade out of the tile card to just show the carnival kid
title. I like that there’s a time
transition card and that it’s animated too.
I really like the shadow that looks like Minnie only to reveal that it’s
really the cat manipulating a puppet. I also
love Mickey’s quip about it being scam and to keep your money in your pants, a
great use of his rogue personality without making him into an asshole.
To sum up this short is mediocre for me. Some sections of animation are really nice
others not so much when compared to what would come from the studio later. I like Mickey’s quipper attitude here and
desire to actually romance Minnie as opposed to just demanding it ala ‘Plane
Crazy’. The thing with the hotdogs I don’t
enjoy and the lack of distinct character design for characters that aren’t
Micky and Minnie is jarring.
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