Thursday 10 August 2017

How Fast is That?

There aren’t too many gags in I’ll Be Glad When You’re Dead, You Rascal You, a 1932 cartoon by the Willard Bowsky unit of the Fleischer studio. A lot of the time is taken up by Koko and Bimbo running away from the disembodied head of Louis Armstrong (which turns into an animated caricature a couple of times).



One gag that Dave Fleischer throws in is a speedometer that sprouts on Koko’s butt. Koko keeps picking up speed. He’s running so fast that, well, I’m not up on my Hebrew.



It’s neat to see a young Armstrong and his band (three saxes, three horns, two strings, one percussion and a piano) percolating away on the title song.

The rotating animation credit went to Ralph Somerville.

2 comments:

  1. It's reads "Kosher." Anytime you see Hebrew in an old cartoon that's almost always what it says. See also "Now that Summer is Gone" (Merrie Melodies, 1938), "Shuffle off to Buffalo" (Merrie Melodies, 1933), and "Jolly Little Elves" (Walter Lantz, 1934).

    ReplyDelete
  2. I think כּשר was used to denote kosher food before that circled K symbol was put into use. But I don't get how kosher = really fast.
    There was a gag in "Daffy Doc" where Daffy held up a sign asking for silence, and it changes to Hebrew or Yiddish at one point.

    ReplyDelete