Friday, 24 August 2018

Something In The Drink

Celebrity caricatures abound in Flip’s Soda Squirt (1933). One is a queenie stereotype modelled on character actor Tyrell Davis who drinks a chocolate soda made from tacks, ink, insecticide, hair tonic and castor oil. He turns into a monster (as per the 1931 feature Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde) that walks toward the audience.



But don’t worry. He’s changed back when, in a thrilling fight scene with Flip, he sprays himself with “Eau de Pansy.”

This was the last Flip cartoon released. One theatre manager told the Motion Picture Herald: “Another good cartoon comedy of Flip as the soda jerker. The grand opening of a drug store in Hollywood and some very good caricatures of the film actors and actresses. Very good and full of good clean entertainment—J.J. Medford, Orpheum Theatre, Oxford, N.C.”
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8 comments:

  1. Anonymous24 August 2018 at 08:22

    Flip resembles the Joker in at least some scenes.

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  2. top_cat_james24 August 2018 at 15:21

    Looks like a precursor to Skip Williamson's Snappy Sammy Smoot character.

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  3. C.L. Young24 August 2018 at 20:21

    Oh, man. I've seen this cartoon several times on YouTube. Like a lot of cartoons of its day, it starts out fairly normal before it gets weird and it breaks a lot of Hays Code rules (or at least the ones that would balk at Mae West's sex appeal, find something dirty in Groucho Marx's "...and nuts to you" line, think Rasputin belching into a microphone is gross, and be more more than a little skeeved out at Tyrell Davis and his transformations).

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  4. Ricardo Cantoral24 August 2018 at 20:47

    1933 was the perfect year to end the Flip cartoons. This series would have tanked under the weight of the production code.

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    Replies
    1. C.L. Young26 August 2018 at 09:16

      Like the Betty Boop cartoons?

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    2. Ricardo Cantoral28 August 2018 at 15:50

      Exactly.

      Delete
    3. Nick30 August 2018 at 18:45

      I enjoy the later Betty Boops in their own way, but yeah they're certainly not the original classics. The you-can't-depict-gay-people-positively-cuz-that's-immoral Hays Code which is a classic example of American censorship and moral panic that's ironically immoral really was a pain for cartoon creators, huh? It certainly caused us to lose Fleischer surreal masterworks, and that's a serious crime. Shame on the people who came up with and forced implementation of that monstrous Hays Code. Shame on their grave.

      Delete
  5. Guy Callaway29 August 2018 at 22:43

    Flip is my spirit animal.

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