Part of the short is set under the ocean, so the writers decided to drag out some pretty obvious puns.
Here we see a dogfish.
If there’s going to be a dogfish, there has to be a catfish. And if there’s going to be a catfish, there has to be a, um, birdfish?
These fish don’t actually do anything funny. Apparently the visual element alone is enough to evoke laughter in the theatre.
Then there’s a fish shaped like a key. A keyfish? Yeah, I’m laughing some more.
As it is only a plot device, the un-punny fish quickly swims out of the cartoon.
The writers find use for an octopus or squid. The old “turns it into bagpipes” routine is hauled out.
Willie Whopper also turns it into a piano stool.
I guess MGM had high hopes for this short. Not only is it in colour, but the intro and extro feature an animated version of Leo, the studio’s mascot. He was drawn in all kinds of trade ads, but I believe this was the first and only time he was animated.
What....no mousefish?
ReplyDeleteAt least one of the Captain and the Kids cartoons opens with an animated Leo.
ReplyDeleteThe Iwerks shorts have to be the most consistently unfunny cartoons ever made.
Even the Flip shorts?
DeleteAn animated Leo is the star of Leo Masters Spanish.
ReplyDeleteI can't explain the birdfish in the gilded cage, or the weird grinning fish in the hat who keeps swimming by. However, the pirate Davy Jones has a parrotfish on his shoulder, and there really is a family of parrotfish, with a characteristic beak for gnawing the algae off coral reefs. The cartoon also features a rather devilish-looking devilfish, or manta ray.
ReplyDeleteThere's no such thing as a mousefish, but there is such a thing as a Sea mouse, actually a polychaete worm of the genus Aphrodita -- so named because its underside resembles part of the human female anatomy, or so I've read. But the cartoon does have a trio of topless mermaids who sing "Fifteen men on a dead man's chest" with nothing at all on their own chests.
I guess I like the Iwerks cartoons more than most people do. For the most part I find them quite enjoyable. Good for a chuckle, anyway.
I think it might be a "flying fish".
ReplyDelete-Clara