122 Sheep In the Meadow

Title: Sheep In The Meadow (titled "Little Boy Blue in Sheep In the Meadow" on the retitle)
Studio: Terry
Date: 9/22/39
Credits: none listed on print
Series: -
Running time (of viewed version): 6:11

Synopsis: Shepherd sleeps, wolf crossdresses to take a sheep, shepherd boxes to get sheep back.















Comments: The audio seems very mature (perhaps refined would be a better term) for Terry. The wolf is still kind of spineless as a villain, tho he has some good ideas; a clear pre-cursor to Ralph Wolf . Tho he is a wolf in bo peep's clothes... First he strips the lamb, then starts chasing it around. The character interaction has a more abstracted sensibility I associate with slightly later cartoons, fighting against its hackneyed rural setting. The pretty girl dog is a reasonable precursor to Terry's eventual leading mouse ladies. The wolf is self aware of the movie audience when stripping. It's a hard and ugly kiss given in the midst of the film, and a disturbingly trunk like kiss at the end. The fight clouds are almost sausagey, but do not maintain a shape; there are sectors of the fight cloud tho.

121 Crop Chasers

Title: Crop Chasers
Studio: Columbia
Date: 9/22/39
Credits: none on print (supposedly by Ub Iwerks)
Series:
Running time (of viewed version): 7:34

Synopsis: Crow thugs running a protection racket harass some living scarecrows, until the scarecrows save a crow yoot, after which peace is achieved.

















Comments: There was a 13 day gap between the last released cartoon and this one. The 9th was a Saturday, the 22nd a Friday. I don't know if that previous week was some kind of box office poison week that everyone wanted to avoid being anywhere near or if it was just a coincidence; the month is slightly heavier in releases than an average month. Establishing pan of a field. Screwy Squirrel (less nasal) voice on a crow? Mel Blanc seems to be the farmer, so it may be him doing that style of voice. With a pool room tough hat like in Small Fry. Not the first "crows eat a garden" cartoon of the year. Unlike Betty Boop's the Scared Crows, this one has a creepy living species of natural (in that they don't seem to just be wearing a suit) scarecrows. They also seem to be hobos, which is maybe some sort of anti-hoboism... pro-hoboism... ah, I dunno. Perhaps Columbia had put this into production to skate on the expected popularity of MGM's Wizard of Oz. If so they should have gotten Eshbaugh to do it, as he'd done his own Wizard of Oz. The scarecrows are bad at their job; they save a crow, tho I suppose you don't want the haunted meat of a crow fouling the well it fell into. Columbia saved a bunch of animation in this by reversing the food taking animation. And having characters speak off screen. And reusing the crows raiding animation. The scarecroows are rewarded with smoking, which is not how a reward would work for a scarecrow in Oz. This is one of those good natured conflict cartoons, where there are a couple of gags, but it's not really funny as such.

BoxOffice, September 16, 1939

Another extremely light on hits issue of BoxOffice. It does give additional evidence that the Mickey Mouse Nabisco short played at the SFWF.

(midway) "Metro's cartoon department, 48 strong, dropped pencils and brushes and took up golf clubs for their annual tournament at the Brentwood Heights country club. Winners were given merchandise orders on a local men's furnishings store "

p74B: "Golden Gate International Exposition for advertising purposes run the gauntlet from animated cartoons to highly technical and scientific productions. Walt Disney's speshort, in which Mickey Mouse gets top billing, serves to draw hundreds of fairers into National Biscuit Company's little theatre, and is helping to sell plenty of cookies. Over one hundred other exhibitors are showing films on the Island."

120 Sioux Me

Title: Sioux Me (in double quotes on Blue Ribbon title)
Studio: Warner Bros.
Date: 9/09/39
Credits: none listed on print
Series: Merrie Melodies (Blue Ribbon retitle)
Running time (of viewed version): 8:20

Synopsis: It's dry on the rez, the dance isn't working, so the shaman turns to pills, which solve all the problem of dryness but cause other problems. A keen indictment of pharmaceutical solutions.























Comments: I think Hollywood may have assumed all American Indians were the type Californians had access to (far west and national tourist sites like around Mt. Rushmore). Similar to how Hollywood assumed everything was California based. As I understand it, rain dances came up in the shows in Western reservations; there are other rain dance cartoons too. I wonder to what extent these touristy shows of traditional activities added to the depiction of Indians in archaic garb (similar to how pre-revolutionary colonial whites are generally all depicted as Pilgrims, but brought to the present day due to it being an ongoing public face; so more like showing Germans in lederhosen and their Robin Hood hats with feathers in them during their festival; I wonder why I never thought of that before; animal skin leg coverings and hats with feathers in both those group depictions...). I think Thurl Ravenscroft may be singing. It sounds good, as most anything Thurl voices is. The pills seems familiar to me; I wonder if they were still showing this when I was a kid. The kid says "I beeeeeeetcha", which shows up in other things too, so I think it's a lift (but I may be underestimating the vocal writing for the WB cartoons based on the many many (many) things they took wholesale from others. (later than the original writing note: Michael J. Hayde mentioned in Porky's Hotel that this is from Fibber McGee and Molly.) This cartoon differs from many others, as it features threatening death with a knife instead of with a gun. The cartoon opens on a lush shot of green fruited vegetation, which fades in an effects shot to dryness, then pans across the desolation the narrator is talking about. (Note the typical establishing background pan, but gilded with effects.) Totem pole, which I believe is inappropriate for Indians in Oklahoma. But it makes for a more face based joke. The kid pulls a Tarzan and swings to the water sledge. Mel voices the turtle in this in a similar fashion to the turtle he voices in Life Begins for Andy Panda.

The non Blue Ribbon title comes from http://www.cartoonresearch.com/warner.html