Thursday 5 May 2016

What Is That Thing, Anyway?

The opening of Be Kind to Aminals features Popeye and Olive Oyl feeding little birdies in a city park. A Fleischer cartoon never seemed to go too far without a gag and, in the case, the gag seems to be the odd statue in the fountain courtesy of the anonymous background department.



Someone familiar with the cartoon can leave a comment about the neat little song Sammy Timberg uses in the opening. Jack Benny’s theme, “Love in Bloom,” is heard later in the cartoon, with animation by Willard Bowsky and Tex Hastings.

8 comments:

  1. Apparently, it's a statue of a sprinting nude holding a fish (presumably for modesty's sake).

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  2. Looks to be kind of based on the statues of Hermes/Mercury that some of the buildings in New York were sporting in the 1930s (and which still do today, if they've survived the wrecking ball).

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  3. omg...have seen that films hundreds of times. Never even NOTICED it!!! Hysterical!!!

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  4. Looks kind of like something Boris Artzybasheff dreamed up.

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  5. the opening song is "Take a Lesson From the Lark", a Robin-Rainger tune introduced the 1934 Paramount film, "Shoot the Works", which was a starring vehicle for the Ben Bernie Orch, Jack Oakie, Dorothy Dell and Allison Skipworth.. Bernie never recorded it, but there are several versions on 78

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