The Big Flame-Up (film #7 on Cartoon Sing-Along DVD (PC Treasures, 2006)).

A fire department made up of various cartoon animals fights a fire in a fireproof warehouse made up of anthropomorphic cartoon flames. The flames generally prevail, getting strong enough to lead the audience in a rousing chorus of “There’ll Be a Hot Time in the Old Town Tonight.” I like singing and dancing inanimate objects a lot, and these flames are particularly anarchic. The song is a lot of fun, of course, and the animal firefighters are appealingly goofy. This is not a great cartoon on say, the Warner Bros. level, but there’s lots to enjoy here.

Ratings: Camp/Humor Value: ****. Weirdness: ****. Historical Interest: ****. Overall Rating: ****.

Jack and the Beanstalk (film #24 on The Cartoons That Time Forgot: The Ub Iwerks Collection, Vol. 1 DVD (Image Entertainment, 1999)).

This cartoon retelling of the traditional fairy tale has lots of wonderful cartoony touches, such as anthropomorphic magic beans and a doorbell on the giant's castle that plays the upper towers like a calliope. Cute and lots of fun.

Ratings: Camp/Humor Value: ***. Weirdness: ***. Historical Interest: ***. Overall Rating: ****.

Alka-Seltzer (available for viewing in the Buster Keaton on TV section of TVParty).

Buster Keaton plays a mountie in trouble who is helped by Speedy Alka-Seltzer to relieve his headache and indigestion and, oh yeah, get his man as well. This is a fun commercial with Keaton providing a not-embarrassing celebrity appearance and Speedy providing a cute Mr. Product character.

Ratings: Camp/Humor Value: ***. Weirdness: ***. Historical Interest: ****. Overall Rating: ****.

Country Goes to the Big City and Learns About Alcohol (downloaded from Google Video). [Category: Educational]

Bill is a country boy, but in case that isn’t obvious, he’s dressed in overalls and a straw hat, and the first time you see him, he’s fishing with a homemade pole, just like in countless sentimental illustrations from the 19th century. But Bill lives in the 20th century, so he decides that since he’s 14 already (though from the looks of things, puberty is still a ways down the road for him) he ought to go find out for himself what the gol darned fuss is about the Big City. Along the way, he meets a wino who introduces himself as Mr. Whiskey, complete with whiskey label on his shirt. That’s right, a supernatural visitor, as well as a Mr. Product, that’s a wino––I guess somebody had to do it. Together, they take a bizarre trip on foot to the city, with Bill pointing out various stock footage clips that represent careers he might like to pursue, while Mr. Whiskey puts the kibosh on all of them. Finally, they end up at Mr. Whiskey’s home in the city: an alley replete with other winos. Bill tries to get away, but Mr. Whiskey holds him back. Fortunately, it turns out to be just a dream, and Bill, like Dorothy, vows never to leave home again. If it’s not obvious from the description, this is one hokey and strange film, with laughable moments aplenty and strange implications, such as that city life equals alcoholism, or that alcohol is not allowed on trains, planes, or ships. And it opens up new horizons in the supernatural visitor genre. What’s next, Mr. Crack?

Ratings: Camp/Humor Value: ****. Weirdness: *****. Historical Interest: ****. Overall Rating: ****.

Humpty Dumpty (film #8 on The Cartoons That Time Forgot: The Ub Iwerks Collection, Vol. 1 DVD (Image Entertainment, 1999)). [Category: Hollywood]

Humpty Dumpty, Jr. has an adventure of his own as he must defeat the villainous Bad Egg, who has designs on his girlfriend Easter. This eggy melodrama is very cute and funny––I particularly like the concept that when both Humpty and Easter are rescued from boiling water, they end up "hard-boiled". And the egg chorus line is a memorable cartoon image. A good one.

Ratings: Camp/Humor Value: ****. Weirdness: ****. Historical Interest: ****. Overall Rating: ****.

A Coy Decoy (film #2 on Cartoon Explosion, Vol. 1: The Henpecked Duck/Popeye & Olive Oyl DVD (Front Row Entertainment, 2000)). [Category: Hollywood]

This is one of those Warner’s toons that takes place in a bookstore after hours, only instead of featuring random characters from the books, it features a plot that involves Daffy battling a wolf that tricks him with a wind-up female duck decoy (who, of course, Daffy immediately falls in love with and courts using his best Charles Boyer impersonation). This is not quite as weird as some of the other of the Warner’s bookstore toons, but it’s funny all the same. The politically sensitive will want to watch for an outrageous racist caricature gag near the beginning of the cartoon that was, no doubt, cut for all the prints licensed to TV. The ending charts new horizons in genetic engineering.

Ratings: Camp/Humor Value: ****. Weirdness: ****. Historical Interest: ****. Overall Rating: ****.

Easy Does It! (film #14 on Cultoons, Vol. 1: Ads and Oddities DVD (Thunderbeam Animation, 2004)). [Category: Industrial]

Joe loves Ann. Ann loves Joe. Joe and Ann want to get married. Problem: Ann’s father’s grocery store is failing, and the mortgage holder, evil Mr. Squeeze, is threatening to foreclose on it unless Ann agrees to marry him. Joe, who works as a stockboy in the store, believes that all is lost until Easy, the Stokely-Van Camp sprite, visits him and shows him how he can increase the store’s profits by stocking Stokely-Van Camp products instead of the UK (Unknown) Brand of canned goods the store had been trying to sell. This animated film for grocery store owners is a true delight. It has just about everything I like to see in an ephemeral film: a supernatural sprite character who comes to help out the main character, singing and dancing food items, housewifey footage, and lots of scenes of 40s grocery stores and grocery products in glorious, garish color. Highlights include the UK canned goods coming to life to try to lure a customer into buying them (they are unsuccessful), Easy taking Joe to visit the gods of rain and sun, the Stokely Man showing Joe a non-animated ephemeral-film-within-an-ephemeral-film, and a delightful scene of singing and dancing tomatoes being canned on a production line. The film has been beautifully restored so that you can enjoy its garish colors in all their glory––the scene of a huge bin of redder-than-red ketchup bottles will practically blow the color rods in your eyes. A classic of ephemera that gets an easy 5 stars.

Ratings: Camp/Humor Value: *****. Weirdness: *****. Historical Interest: *****. Overall Rating: *****.

Finding His Voice (film #514 on Prelinger Archive). [Category: Industrial]

OK, folks, I knew this would be a favorite the moment it started. It features not one, but two incredibly cute Mr. Product characters: Talkie, a cheery piece of sound film; and Mutie, a cranky piece of silent film. Mutie rudely breaks up Talkie’s act (a cute rendition of the “Anvil Chorus” on a xylophone) and demands to know where Talkie got his voice. So Talkie takes him to Dr. Western, who explains the sound-on-film process to him, and to us, in detail. This delightful animated film was made in the early days of sound, to explain the process to theater owners, which gives it lots of historical value. But historical value is not what appeals to me here––it’s the delightful characters of Talkie and Mutie, as well as Dr. Western, who veers dangerously close to being a mad scientist. The ending is a real hoot, but I won’t give it away. Suffice to say that I enjoyed this film from beginning to end. You can’t go wrong with Mr. Product characters as far as I’m concerned.

Ratings: Camp/Humor Value: *****. Weirdness: *****. Historical Interest: *****. Overall Rating: *****.

A Bout with a Trout (film #7 on Disc #3 of TV Cartoon Classics DVD Boxed Set (Platinum Disc, 2005)). [Category: Hollywood]

Little Lulu plays hooky from school to go fishing. When a big catch causes her to knock her head against a tree and pass out, she has a really weird dream to the tune of “Swinging on a Star.” Cartoon dreams are usually pretty surreal, and this doesn’t disappoint. Somehow, this weird dream gets her to go back to school, but she’s still up to her old tricks at the cartoon’s end. I love cartoon dream sequences, so this gets high marks from me.

Ratings: Camp/Humor Value: ****. Weirdness: *****. Historical Interest: ****. Overall Rating: ****.

The Goal Rush (track #26 on The Cartoons That Time Forgot: The Ub Iwerks Collection, Vol. 2 DVD (Image Entertainment, 1999)). [Category: Hollywood]

Apparently, Flip the Frog played football during his college days (what, you mean you didn't know he went to college?). This leads to some standard football gags, but about halfway through they run out of those and then the real fun begins. The weirdest moment happens when Flip and the ball somehow end up on a nearby farm and the ball strikes up a relationship with a mama sow and starts nursing her like all the other little piglets! This one is unexpectedly inspired.

Ratings: Camp/Humor Value: ****. Weirdness: ****. Historical Interest: ****. Overall Rating: ****.

Funny Face (film #9 on The Cartoons That Time Forgot: The Ub Iwerks Collection, Vol. 2 DVD (Image Entertainment, 1999)). [Category: Hollywood]

Oh no! Flip the Frog's girlfriend has found another beau! Flip the Frog decides this happened because his face is, like most cartoon characters', pretty silly-looking. His solution is to go to a plastic surgeon and get another face. Is it just me, or is there something perverse about a cartoon character getting plastic surgery? Especially when the sample faces in the doctor's office start singing. Anyway, the girlfriend's pretty-faced beau turns out to be a total wimp in the confronting bullies department, running home to Mama and leaving her in the lurch with a local ruffian. Meanwhile, Flip discovers that his new face makes him irresistable to every girl in town, and they all start chasing him, like That Cute Guy in Levi's Slacks. He eventually hides in an old house that just happens to be the same place where the bully is tormenting his girl, giving him the opportunity to show how much more gumption he has than the girl's pretty-faced ex-beau. Has the story gotten weird enough for you yet? Of course, for that reason alone, I love this cartoon.

Ratings: Camp/Humor Value: ****. Weirdness: *****. Historical Interest: ****. Overall Rating: *****.

Barnyard Bunk (film #22 on 50 Cartoon Classics DVD. Also, film #5 on Disc #3 of 100 Cartoon Classics DVD Magapack (Treeline Films, 2004). Also, film #5 on Disc #1 of 150 Cartoon Classics DVD Megapack (Mill Creek Entertainment, 2005)). [Category: Hollywood]

Dick and Larry, who are indistinguishable from Tom and Jerry (the other Tom and Jerry), show a broken-down farmer how to increase agricultural production with jazz music. This involves lots of weird incongruities, cartoon mince, and, yes, singing and dancing inanimate objects. This is a very tooney 30s cartoon, which, though not great, is thoroughly likable.

Ratings: Camp/Humor Value: ***. Weirdness: ****. Historical Interest: ****. Overall Rating: ****.

The Barber Shop (film #1 on Six Short Films: W.C. Fields DVD (The Criterion Collection, 2000)). [Category: Hollywood]

W. C. Fields plays a small town barber in this short, and all I can say is don’t allow him near your face, or any other part of your body, for that matter. The short has the usual cranky wife, bizarre plot, and witty Fields asides you expect from one of his films. There’s also a perfunctory chase scene with a bank robber and an ending where you find out where tiny violins come from. As usual with Fields, this is inspired strangeness, with a creakiness that makes you feel like you’re in the 19th century instead of the 20th.

Ratings: Camp/Humor Value: ****. Weirdness: *****. Historical Interest: *****. Overall Rating: ****.

Drawing Account (in the Ephemeral section of Open Video Project. Also, film #458 on Prelinger Archive). [Category: Industrial]

This goofy Jam Handy film features a cartoon animator who meets a Chevrolet mechanical engineer on an airplane that totally lacks seatbelts. The animator manages to talk the engineer into helping make a cartoon in which a bunch of gremlins run a car engine. The engineer helpfully provides a cutaway engine model for the guys in the animation studio to look at. This results in a baffling scene in which the kooky animators brainstorm about the gremlins while the engineer gives boring lectures about how the car engine works, sneaking in sales messages about how great Chevrolet engines are while he’s at it. One animator, who looks like a Radford Baines wanna-be gets way too excited about making one of the imps into a Roman chariot driver: “We’ll make him a big, muscular guy with a whip!” he crows. Then we get to see a really interesting sequence on how cartoons are made, including how sound synchronization is done, something that was new to me. Then, of course, we get to see the finished cartoon, which is pretty silly. This is one of the goofiest industrial films I’ve ever seen, which makes it a great piece of ephemra. Termite Terrace these guys definitely ain’t!

Ratings: Camp/Humor Value: *****. Weirdness: *****. Historical Interest: *****. Overall Rating: *****.

Down the Gasoline Trail (in the Ephemeral section of Open Video Project. Also, film #457 on Prelinger Archive). [Category: Industrial]

This cute animated Jam Handy film for GM shows the journey of a gasoline drop down the fuel line to the engine, where it is vaporized, turning it into an angel which flies out of the exhaust pipe. I won’t touch with a ten-foot pole the theological issues involved here. I’ll just say that this is a fun film with a great “Mr. Product” character. Remember, folks, every time you drive, angels are flying out of your exhaust pipe. Or at least they did in the days before catalytic converters.

Ratings: Camp/Humor Value: ****. Weirdness: ****. Historical Interest: ****. Overall Rating: ****.

Fiddlesticks (film #1 on The Cartoons That Time Forgot: The Ub Iwerks Collection, Vol. 1 DVD (Image Entertainment, 1999)). [Category: Hollywood]

Flip the Frog sings and dances his way into our hearts in this, his first cartoon. That's all, really, but he does it in such a cute and engaging way, surrounded by other cute characters such as an insect band and a piano that plays itself with its front legs. Engaging and cartoony.

Ratings: Camp/Humor Value: ****. Weirdness: ****. Historical Interest: ****. Overall Rating: ****.

Felix Finds Out (film #4 on Felix the Cat DVD (Delta Entertainment, 2004). [Category: Hollywood]

Felix finds a nickel and gives it to his friend Willie, who buys a hot dog with it. Unfortunately, the hot dog turns out to be one of those singing and dancing ones from the snack bar promo and promptly runs away. Fortunately, Felix is able to use his feline wiles to trick the hot dog, as well as all his buddies at the stand. Unfortunately, this makes Willie late for school, and as a result he is saddled with the homework question, “What makes the moon shine?” Felix resolves to find the answer for him, but after the Man in the Moon proves unhelpful, he discovers a moonshine stand, gets drunk, and starts hallucinating. Hey, I just review ‘em, I don’t promise they make sense.

Ratings: Camp/Humor Value: ****. Weirdness: *****. Historical Interest: ****. Overall Rating: *****.

Don Quixote (film #22 on The Cartoons That Time Forgot: The Ub Iwerks Collection, Vol. 1 DVD (Image Entertainment, 1999)). [Category: Hollywood]

The more you think about this one the weirder it gets, despite the fact that it's based on a well-known literary work. Don Quixote, a certifiable looney, gets a lot of crazy ideas in his head from books about knights and stuff, and he manages to break out of Ye Olde Bugge House, with his guard hot on his trail. Now he's off to do crazy stuff, but the problem is the whole idea of craziness is questionable when you live in a cartoon universe, where absolutely anything can happen. What is "reality" then? This is never more evident than in the tilting-at-windmills scene. Don Quixote is supposed to be "crazy" because he mistakes a windmill for a giant and begins battling with it. But the actual windmill turns anthropomorphic and begins battling Quixote in a way that's about as realistic as most anthropomorphic inanimate objects in cartoons are wont to be. So what's really "crazy" here––Quixote or his crazy cartoon "reality"? The ending is particularly bizarre––Quixote mistakes a woman's bad singing for cries of distress, but when he comes to rescue her, she turns out to be ugly and man-hungry. At this point, the guard from the Bugge House catches up with Quixote and she begins chasing them both. They both run back to the Bugge House, put about a million locks on the door of Quixote's cell and start burning Quixote's books and the guard's keys, respectively. I don't think the original novel ended that way. This is a great obscure piece of cartoon weirdness that raises a lot of interesting philosophical questions.

Ratings: Camp/Humor Value: ***. Weirdness: *****. Historical Interest: ***. Overall Rating: ****.

The Devil's Ball (track #5 on Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1913) (Sinister Cinema). Also, film #1 on Early Sci-Fi Fantasy Films (The Buyer's Gallery Home Video)). [Category: Hollywood]

This fragment of an early stop-motion cartoon is real nightmare stuff. Even the talking vegetables are evil, and that's saying a lot, coming from me. Like most dreams, it has lots of weird stuff in it and it doesn't make much sense. But you won't easily forget such images as dancing wineglasses that break themselves, an inflatable saxophone player, or a love triangle involving a shady character, a ballerina, and an ape. I wonder where they dug this one up.

Ratings: Camp/Humor Value: ***. Weirdness: *****. Historical Interest: ****. Overall Rating: ****.

Chevrolet Advertising Rings the Bell (film #294 on Prelinger Archive). [Category: Industrial]

No, really, it does! Disembodied hands spring out of Chevrolet print ads and ring doorbells! It’s true, I swear! This film with a missing soundtrack blows the lid off of this whole conspiracy! And who’s responsible, you may wonder? Why it’s Chevrolet Man, a robot-like apparition built of wire and bits of advertising ephemera! He places an evil curse upon all ads for the 1951 Chevrolet, and suddenly billboards start walking around! Print ads show up on people’s doorsteps and demand to be taken in and made members of the family! People become mesmerized by their tv sets! And here’s the really scary part of it: the 1951 Chevrolet was not actually released until December of 2000! Take heed everyone! Lock up your children!! They’re here already!! YOU’RE NEXT!!! [Ed. Note: Sorry about that outburst. The author has been taken away for reeducation and treatment. You may now return to your regularly-scheduled Chevrolet advertising.]

Ratings: Camp/Humor Value: *****. Weirdness: *****. Historical Interest: *****. Overall Rating: *****.