The Head's Coming at Us Again

Debate, if you want, that A Toytown Tale (1931) is a Christmas cartoon. Yes, it has “Silent Night” (and “Jingle Bells”), and snow and toys, but there’s no Santa or Christmas tree or presents.

What there is, is a truly disjointed story, the kind only the Van Beuren studio could conjure up. The moon comes out of the sky and hides behind some trees. A toy soldier flirts with a girl (they sing) but are threatened by a toy elephant. Suddenly, the elephant disappears from the plot and a monkey shows up. The soldier gets frightened. A new toy character comes out of nowhere to sock the monkey. Now the girl goes for him.

Meanwhile, a crazy jack-in-the-box shows up off-and-on throughout the cartoon to screech and clap and laugh. He’s clobbered by a toy policeman. Here comes the Van Beuren Head Zoom!



But the jack-in-the-box awakens, smiles, gives us a silly "Yankee Doodle" laugh and then sticks out his tongue to end the cartoon.



Then it’s another round of bootleg hootch for the writers.

John Foster and Mannie Davis get the “by” credit, and the music is supplied by Gene Rodemich.