How To Imitate Tex Avery Poorly

There are three imitations in Krazy’s Bear Tale (released January 1939). First, Krazy Kat is doing one of the world’s worst Fred Allen impressions as the cartoon narrator. Mama Bear does one line like Tizzy Lish. And the whole thing is one big impression of a Tex Avery cartoon, where the narrator and the characters interact. Tex was funny. This is laboured.

“When the three bears found their porridge was too hot, they decided to take a walk ‘til it cooled off,” says the narrator. But no, the bears keep eating. The narrator becomes emphatic: “I said...” then repeats the line. The bears stop eating. “Come on,” says the papa bear confidentially to the mama bear, “we’ve got to take a walk.” The bears walk out of the frame. “Thank you,” says the narrator. Papa Bear pokes his head back in the scene. “Thank you!” he says.



“A little girl by the name of Goldilocks came along.” Into the scene enters a Hollywood glamour puss. It’s not Garbo, Dietrich or Davis. If it were ten years earlier it might be Gloria Swanson. I haven’t a clue who it is. “Pardon me, Miss,” says the narrator as the starlet swirls around dramatically. “Aren’t you on the wrong set?” She faces the camera, looks at the bear home, then high-stomps out of the cartoon. “I thought so,” says the narrator, and goes back to his script.



Theatre manager reviews in the Motion Picture Herald:
“Very good cartoon. A story of Goldilocks and the three bears, so do not run it too close to Metro’s same cartoon.”
“Can O.K. this one. A few complained that the story varied which was what it obviously intended to do.”
“Not a rib-tickling side-splitter but plenty amusing. Good enough.”

Billy Bletcher is the Papa Bear and my guess is Danny Webb is Krazy Kat.

Allen Rose is the writer and Harry Love and Lou Lilly the animators on this. Joe De Nat has a music credit but there are whole chunks of this cartoon where is no music.