A blog reviewing all the available American animated cartoons of 1939, in approximately release order (or reverse order from the perspective of someone reading the blog after it is done).
Monday, July 26, 2010
099 Snowman's Land
Title: Snowman's Land
Studio: Warner Bros.
Date: 7/29/39
Credits:
Supervision
Charles Jones
Story by
Dave Monahan
Animation
Ken Harris
Musical Direction
Carl W. Stalling
Series: Merrie Melodies
Running time (of viewed version): 7:40
Synopsis: Idiot mounty gets his man.
Comments: More dog men. Musically this bears a resemblence to later cartoons. Idiot hero sounds to be Pinto Colvig. Hard to take a villain seriously in a super droopy night cap. In some ways, Dirty Pierre is Homer, and the hero is Flanders... The winter background improves the cartoon, as it so often does. I'm not sure why they're frightened of a snowman version of Dirty Pierre. Perhaps they think it a ghost. The characters look more maturely Jones-y.
I believe it was Jerry Beck or Will Freidwald who said that looking at this cartoon makes you appreciate Chuck Jones' later comedy work even more. On the positive side, nobody can claim Jones was going for any Disney-style cuteness in this one, compared to his other 1938-41 releases -- even "Daffy Duck and the Dinosaur" had the funny-but-coy ballet scene. Chuck's choking animals (gagging for gags?) in this one...
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