'The Gay Goucho' is one of Van Beuren's best

The Gay Goucho (1933)
Starring: Gus Wicke
Director: Hugh Harman
Rating: Six of Ten Stars

Cubby Bear descends from the Argentinian highlands to spend the night with his dancer girlfriend... but when banditos intrude upon their fun, Cubby's defense of her honor places them in deadly danger.

 

Animation-wise, "The Gay Goucho" is one of the best efforts I've seen from the Van Beuren Studios; the character designs are decent, varied, and they remain stable throughout the entire run-time of the cartoon. Further there are honest-to-god detailed backgrounds and other elaborate scenery, something that's a rariety in a Van Beuren production. There is also a minimal amount of obvious looping and none of the visual gags and other sequences are stretched to the point where they stop being funny and become dull. In fact, one can even describe moments of this cartoon as thrilling. 

So why am I only giving it a rating of Six Stars? Because as funny and cute and energetic as this cartoon is, it falls completely apart and the end. The final gag is amusing, but the wrap-up is such a lazy cop-out that I knocked a full star off.

But I've embedded "The Gay Goucho" below for your viewing convenience and--hopefully--pleasure. Let me and everyone else know what YOUR thoughts are about it!

Cubby vs. Pirates (and Bubbles)

Bubbles and Troubles (1933)
Starring: Anonymous Voice Actors (mostly speaking nonsense)
Director: Mannie Davis
Rating: Five of Ten Stars

When his girlfriend is abducted by pirates, only Cubby can save her!

This Cubby adventure came together better than I had anticipated when it opened. What initially feels like it's going to be a boring mess of unconnected, nonsensical gags--in short order, Cubby goes from doing stunts on his bicycle, to performing magic tricks with soap bubbles to being inflated by one of the bubbles and floating away into the sky--ends up coming together in an amusing and creative fashion when the bubbles of the title end up being central to story as it unfolds.

Almost every moment involving the pirates and their ship from the point the captain decides he wants to add Cubby's girlfriend to his treasure hoard is also a lot of fun. The launching of the longboat was especially amusing. I liked these pirates so much that it's a little hard for me judge whether they're defeated a little too easily, or whether I just feel that way because I wanted to see more of them.

As with the majority of Van Beuren's animated shorts, the use of music is the greatest aspect of "Bubbles and Troubles". The music adds tremendously to this film, and I don't know if I've ever quite experienced "The Sailor's Hornpipe" used so perfectly anywhere before.

But don't just take my word for it. Click below, sit back, and enjoy!

It's Opening Night for Cubby the Bear!

Opening Night (1933)
Starring: Anonymous Singers and Voice Actors
Director: Mannie Davis
Rating: Six of Ten Stars

Cubby the Bear tries to sneak into the hottest new show in town and ends up conducting the orchestra.

The title of this 1933 entry into Van Beuren's anthology series Aesop's Fables, "Opening Night", can be taken in at least two different ways. The first, and most obvious, the setting is the opening of a new show at the Roxy theatre. Secondly, this cartoon was the first appearance of Cubby the Bear, an attempt on the part of the Van Beuren Corporation to come up with a recurring character for Aesop's Fables. (They were possibly taking this step because the unofficial recurring characters--Milton Mouse and Rita Mouse--were coming increasingly under threat from the Walt Disney Corporation which was annoyed by the way the pair had increasingly come to be off-color copies of their successful Mickey Mouse and Minnie Mouse characters.)

This first outing for Cubby is a little uneven quality-wise. After a mystifying opening scene involving Santa Claus (probably an artifact of the film's original release date), viewers are treated to a series of repetitive and barely amusing gags as Cubby tries to sneak into the theatre. Once our pint-sized hero gets inside and ends up in front of the orchestra, things start getting better and a lot funnier. 

As is almost always the case with a Van Beuren cartoon, the best part is the music. the cartoon opera (which I think is a hybrid of "Carmen" and "Faust") is hilarious and the action is perfectly matched with the music and the singing. They didn't quite go as far as I think they could have gone with the diminutive romantic lead and the big-breasted diva during the operas climax; if they had gone even more risqué, I think the bit would have been even funnier.

In fact, this might be problem with "Opening Night" in general. The best Van Beuren cartoons are usually so wild that they enter the realm of the surreal. Here, although there are several impossibly bizarre moments, none rise to the level of crazy that one can find in the best "Tom & Jerry" entries. As a result, we've got something here that's a bit slow at the start and eventually gets into the silly and cute territory, and which ultimately feels like it never reaches its full potential.

"Opening Night" was the first of somewhere between 17 and 20 short features starring Cubby. I'll eventually get around to watching and reviewing all of them in this space. In the process, I will also discover which source is correct on the number of Cubby cartoons that were produced. 

For now, I invite you to check out the subject of this post by clicking below. I hope you enjoy it. If you do (or if you don't!), feel free to leave a comment.

'Sinister Stuff' doesn't deliver enough

Sinister Stuff (1934)
Starring: Anonymous Voice Actors
Director: Steve Muffati
Rating: Four of Ten Stars

Cubby the Bear must save his lady love from the villainous wolf who holds the mortgage to the home she shares with her aged mother.

"Sinister Stuff" is one of at least 18 cartoons featuring Cubby the Bear that appeared during the run of the the Aesop's Fables cartoon anthology series. Like pretty much everything from the Van Beuren animation shop, the episodes vary greatly in quality. This one is at the lower end of the scale; there are worse ones out there, but there are also far better ones.

The strong points of "Sinister Stuff" include the music. As is often the case with Van Beuren efforts, the music is excellent and it's very important in this film where the characters don't sing, but they do all speak in verse and rhymes. The end result is the sense that we're watching a weird operetta, and it feels very appropriate since it's a spoof of old-time melodramas. 

The animation here is also superior to what is present in many Van Beuren efforts, with details both in the backgrounds and foregrounds as characters go through their antics. This better-than-average animation also augments and elevates the hilarity and oddness of the several bicycle gags featured (even if one is dragged down slightly by some looping).

The supporting characters are also a lot of fun, from the villain's three sidekicks (who must be related to the weirdos that stiffed Tom & Jerry for cab fare back in 1931) to the fretting mother about to be homeless. In fact, the three sidekicks are the center of the film's funniest moments.

Unfortunately, the bad in this film outweighs all those good parts... and the bad all revolves around story. It starts off well enough as a straight-forward spoof of the stereotypical melodramas with a mustache-twirling villain kidnapping the hero's lady love and putting her in an extreme danger than only he can rescue her from. As it builds toward the climax, however, it begins to fall apart: Jokes are set up that don't pay off, the cartoon-comedy battle between the villain and the hero ranks among the lamest I've ever seen, and the ending just sort of falls flat (although it does reflect the late Pre-Code period in which this film was produced.

Perhaps the most damning thing about "Sinister Stuff" is that as I was watching it, I found myself thinking that Van Beuren's team had done a similar thing much better back in 1929 (and even that effort wasn't all that good).

But don't just take my word for it. If you have a few moments, click below and watch "Sinister Stuff"... if nothing else, I think you'll enjoy the bits with the three sidekicks.