The Return of the Tuba Tooter

The Tuba Tooter (1932)
Starring: Uncredited Voice Actors and Singers
Directors: John Foster and George Stallings
Rating: Eight of Ten Stars

The whole city celebrates, with Tom and Jerry leading the festivities, when famous tuba player Schultz returns to his hometown in Germany.

"The Tuba Tooter" is one of the best "Tom and Jerry" cartoons. It's got the catchy music that most of them have (I find myself humming the main song, "Schultz is Back Again", as I type these words), it's got some cute bits... but, more importantly than almost anything, the animators seem to have actually put in the time and effort to move this from merely good to excellent. All the characters in any given scene are moving, very few are in obvious loops, and the backgrounds are detailed and also animated in some cases. If this much care had gone into all the installments in this series, maybe it wouldn't be a mostly forgotten relic and commercial failure.

(The rest of my review swerves into "spoiler territory" as I comment on the ending. As is my habit with these "Tom and Jerry" posts, I invite you to watch the subject I am commenting on. In case you want to enjoy the wacky cuteness without me ruining the fun by overthinking it, I am embedding the cartoon right here. My comments continue afterwards.)



As good a job as the Van Beuren crew did on this outing, it wouldn't be "Tom and Jerry" if they didn't drop the ball in some kind of major way. In this case, following five minutes viewers watching cheerful and/or surreal scenes of an community setting aside differences and coming together in celebration of music and the musician who creates it, the police show up, break up the celebration, and arrest Schultz. There's no logical reason for this that I can see--even if authorities were upset with the noise, I would think they'd appreciate that everyone in the city--including those who should be fighting or preying upon each other like dogs and cats and mice--are united in harmony and love of Schultz's music. Perhaps I'm naïve, or perhaps I don't understand the totalitarian mindset that is probably being mocked with this film's ending, but I just can't wrap my mind around how it fits in with what has gone before. The police officers even appear to be sad that they are arresting Schultz, based on the look on their faces as they drive away with him. (And yet, Tom and Jerry are as cheerful with Schultz being hauled off as they were with him coming back...).

Perhaps I'm just looking for meaning where there is not--this IS a "Tom and Jerry" cartoon after all. Maybe I would have been better off just enjoying the spectacle of a singing dog and his tuba-tooting owner who can bring everyone together in harmony. (Well, until a bunch of sad-faced cops break it all up...)