Van Beuren Farm Fun

Unexpected, funny things used to happen in early 1930s Fleischer cartoon, like a plant being watered, coming to life and waving “Thanks!” In a way, what happened seemed logical.

At Van Beuren, unexpected things happened and you were left wondering “What was that?”

I swear John Foster and whoever helped him got drunk on bootleg booze during story sessions and decided to go with any weird idea they could think of.

In The Farmerette (1932), two cows are grazing on pasture. One google-eyed cow stands up and pulls her tail and the one next to her. Their skirts go up. Why? Who knows. It’s a Van Beuren cartoon. (Note in the third frame, the horns are inked in. The animation is in a cycle so the horns kind of flash).



Then the horns turn into horns that honk.



The two cows dance and collapse. One gets up to sing “Hey, hey!” to end the scene.



First, an inking error, then a camera error. In some cartoons, you’ll see a blip on the screen when a character loses a body part on a separate cel for maybe a frame. In The Farmerette, one poor “dog in the kennel” loses his entire body for 12 frames.



Foster and Harry Bailey get screen credit for this short.