Today, we have, with mouth wide open in astonishment over how bad it is, sat through yet another six-minute waste of time from Columbia/Screen Gems, a black-and-white “Phantasy” from 1944 called As the Fly Flies.
Narrator John McLeish needed someone like Chuck Jones to keep him under control (as in The Dover Boys (1942). At Columbia, he must have thought the more over-the-top you are, the funnier it is. His wild overacting is unnecessary and irritating.
Ed Seward’s story is a zero. The main character, Professor Puzzlewitz, for no discernable reason, hides, rides a unicycle, wears a Napoleon hat, and looks through a pipe like a periscope because, well, I guess Ed Seward thought it was funny.
The professor shows off his invention. It’s a house that kills houseflies. He explains a Rube Goldberg contraption, where a phoney female fly lures its victim through a door. That results in a match lighting a wheel of fireworks, which sets off an ancient gun, where its bullet (more like a ball) is shot around inside a French horn and lands on a button, which activates a conveyer belt that moves the house and smashes it.
The cartoon is half over. Having spent all this time setting up this machine, it doesn’t figure into the story. Instead, Puzzlewitz spends the rest of the cartoon shooting at a fly with his blunderbuss (because they look funny!). He aims at machinery. Could the end result be telegraphed more? We all know what’s going to happen.
His “palatial estate” (which looks like an observatory) destroyed, Puzzlewitz crazily yells he’s killed the fly. Cut to the fly, very much alive. Why did he think it was dead? Wait. I’m expecting a Columbia cartoon to make sense?
Howard Swift directed this mess. Grant Simmons is the credited animator, who went on to work on to work with Tex Avery (talk about outhouse-to-penthouse). Puzzlewitz sounds like a Harry Lang voice but this cartoon has left me so unmotivated, I won’t go through Keith Scott’s book to check.
Eventually, Columbia put some good cartoons on the big screen. They were made elsewhere and starred Mr. Magoo.
Actually the Screen Gems cartoons did have a curse! The foundation of this studio was from Charles Mintz taking over everything: his wife's business, the Krazy Kat cartoons from Bill Nolan and of course, Oswald from Disney. As soon as he was out in '39, it's no surprise that the Columbia cartoons had a hard time standing their own ground.
ReplyDeleteI liked McLeish's performance as Professor Small.
ReplyDeleteThe problem is, humor is subjective. What might seem funny to the people making the cartoon is an abysmal mess to the viewers. Famous Studios often had the same problem, but perhaps not to the same degree. You just don’t know what’s going to land and what won’t.
ReplyDeleteThe Napoleon hat is cartoon shorthand for insanity, so I think the hat, unicycle and furtive behaviour are simply meant to establish the professor as a lunatic. Say what you will about this cartoon, but it's far from the worst of the Phantasies, as well as a cut above any of the Fleischer Animated Antics.
ReplyDeleteThere are some arguably worse Phantasy Cartoons, such as Alec Geiss' Mass Mouse Meeting, a cartoon that goes nowhere with its direction despite having an established idea (I feel like Geiss was the biggest offender in terms of bad cartoons now that I think about it).
DeleteThe curse of the Columbia cartoons was a revolving door. Producers came and went, and the artists floundered with no creative force to guide them. The same would have happened (some would say it did) to Famous Studios if they hadn't had a team assembled and nurtured by the Fleischers, and even Bill Tytla for a few years. It certainly didn't help that Columbia itself was considered at the time a minor studio ("Poverty Row") with less money and prestige than the biggies (MGM, Warners, Paramount).
ReplyDeleteSo many Columbia cartoons at this time felt so half-baked, and this cartoon was a great example of that. If you're gonna review more of these Screen Gems cartoons, you got to look into 1944's The Herring Murder Mystery.
ReplyDeleteAndrew Dickman and Michael Ruocco tore that cartoon a new one in their podcast because of how bad it was.
Also it features Puzzlewitz there too, so yea.
DeleteNot everyone making these thought they were funny. Howard Swift cited this particular cartoon in his interview with Michael Barrier as having a terrible unfunny story he was stuck with. Rejecting a story meant a director would be behind schedule, and they were always over budget.
ReplyDeleteYou're right that John McLeish's voice acting for Columbia (of which he did quite a lot) really demonstrates how a stronger director can improve a cartoon's soundtrack. There's a stark difference between how he's used here compared to his work for Chuck Jones, Jack Kinney and even Norm McCabe.
where was this interview at, can't find it myself
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