Turn, Turn, Turn

Odd things happen in Van Beuren cartoons that happen in no other cartoons.

There’s a roll-around take they seem to have loved at Van Beuren. It’s when a character is lying flat and swirls around.

Here’s an example from Rabid Hunters (released in 1932). Tom and Jerry are hunters. Tom has to awaken Jerry by blowing his fox hunter’s horn.



Jerry leaps into mid-air and twirls around in a cycle of 12 drawings, one per frame.



No one’s going to mistake this animation for Disney, are they? Or even Fleischer.

This version of the cartoon is from Ira Gallen’s collection. It’s clearer than that non-watermarked, beat-up version I have from the Tom and Jerry DVD put out by Thunderbean a number of years ago. Fortunately for you Van Beuren fans, Thunderbean has gone back and taken great care in restoring every Tom and Jerry cartoon for a Blu-Ray version. I can’t order from Thunderbean for several reasons, but perhaps you can. Go to the company site to see more.

John Foster and George Stallings get the “by” credit on this short, with Gene Rodemich supplying the score.

Hey! I'm Headless!

Tom yells into a mountain range to hear his echo in the wonderfully warped Van Beuren cartoon A Swiss Trick (1932).

The word “HEY” flies in between the peaks, then makes holes in each mountain as it sails along.



The word bashes Tom on the back of the head. But the gag doesn’t end there. It decapitates Tom. Jerry grabs the head as it goes past him, reattaches it to Tom’s body, then Tom rubs his chin as he wonders what to make of what happened.



This short has all kinds of weird ideas, ending with Tom and Jerry developing holes like Swiss cheese and being chased by mice.

John Foster and George Stallings get the “by” credit.

Want Some Candy, Little Fish?

A worm (or “woim” as the tin can it came from says) tries to entice a little fish with a stick of peppermint in Jolly Fish (1932).



The kid's father swims into the scene, turns his fins into hands with fingers, and grabs the worm. The fish-ling can now swim away with the candy.



Despite the subject, this is not a social guidance film from Sid Davis Productions. It’s a lesser effort in the Van Beuren studio’s Tom and Jerry series. There are some likeable bits but the gags aren’t all that strong.

The vocal over the opening titles is “By the Beautiful Sea,” a 1914 tune by Harry Carroll and Harold R. Atteridge. Musical director Gene Rodemich employs only two songs as mood music in the short: Bernice Petkere’s “By a Rippling Stream (Waiting For You)” and “There’s Oceans of Love By the Beautiful Sea” by Little Jack Little and J. Fred “Santa Claus is Coming to Town” Coots, both released the same year as this cartoon.

Puzzled Pals

One has to wonder whether the family life wasn’t the life for Van Beuren animators, judging by Puzzled Pals (1933).

Over at Warner Bros., happy babies, music and celebrities hooked up in Shuffle Off to Buffalo. In this cartoon, a stork tries to make a delivery in a small community and the gag is he’s clearly unwanted.

One little house looks ripe to be a home to a new infant. The gag is even the kids living there don’t want another child as everyone pours outside to chase the stork away.

Finally, the baby is delivered to the home of Tom and Jerry, where he punches them out and uses a super vacuum to wreck the place. The stork returns, uses his birdie fists and flies on our heroes and flies away with the youngin’.

George Stallings and Frank Sherman are the directors. Sherman worked for Bill Nolan and Walter Lantz at Universal before returning to New York and a job at Van Beuren. One report said he slipped on the ice and developed a blood clot in his brain. Another said he had a heart attack at his home in East Orange. Nonetheless, he died March 20, 1934 at the age of 34. He had no children.

Accidents Don't Happen

Ambulance chasers Tom and Jerry think they have an accident victim they can sell insurance to in Trouble, but when he floats harmlessly to the ground from the top of a skyscraper, it turns out he was never in any danger. He’s a stunt guy.

When Tom and Jerry read his business card, they faint. Their eyes turn to crosses like in those newspaper cartoons of 100 years ago.



In a nicely timed bit, the ambulance rolls them up to take them to hospital but when it drives away, Tom and Jerry are left on the ground. They sit up dizzily as the cartoon irises out.



John Foster and George Stallings get the “by” credit. Tom and Jerry sing an accident song about “broken legs, broken ribs.” Whether it’s a Gene Rodemich original, I don’t know, but I hope whenever this gets a good restoration we can hear the lyrics a little better.

This cartoon was released October 10, 1931.

Do They Love the Cop on the Beat?

I’m still not quite sure what to make of the opening of Magic Mummy, a 1933 Van Beuren short.

It opens with officers Tom and Jerry listening to a duet on the police radio, little hearts of love floating up from them.



Cut to a pair of policemen singing “The Cop on the Beat, The Man in the Moon and Me” and, um, well...



Cut to policemen dancing with inmates as music is bashed out on the piano.



There’s absolutely no attempt at realism. Look at how the cop’s fingers are bent back. He rolls around while playing; his eyes look something out of a 1915 comic strip. It’s third-rate animation for 1933 but it’s pretty fun. Give me this over the phoney Disney that the studio was putting out a couple of years later.



The song is there to pad for time. It’s not an essential part of the story, which involves a skeleton grave-robber. But disjointed stories are nothing new at Van Beuren.

The cop singers are played by Reis and Dunn, vaudevillians and radio artists, who appeared onscreen in a couple of Fleischer Screen Songs. Artie Dunn later played organ with The Three Suns group.

Margie Hines is the girl singer in this, the Van Beuren raspy voice guy is the Svengali character, and Gene Rodemich supplies another fine score. Here is a medium-up tempo version of the song.

Wot a Bat

Put Van Beuren cartoon characters in surreal situations and you generally get a weird cartoon. Weird enough to be likeable.

Tom and Jerry star in Wot a Night (1931). It has crazy and impossible skeleton gags. It also does something Disney cartoons liked doing.

Tom is paranoid as Jerry tries to open a window blind.



Here are two really ugly in-betweens.



Tom is balancing his hat on his nose.



Lifting the shade reveals nothing, so Tom and Jerry look around the corner.



Something oozes through the bricks on the floor.



It’s a bat! See the quiggly lines around Tom to show he’s shuddering (the drawing alternates with another with smooth lines).



The bat flies off in perspective near the camera so the theatre audience can get a close-up. Jerry, for some reason, is rubbing his finger against a pointed claw on the bat.



John Foster and George Stalling receive a “by” credit on the cartoon. Gene Rodemich supplies the score.

Danger Mice

Mice are destroying the home belonging to the most casual farmer in the world in Van Beuren’s Barnyard Bunk (1932). The mice are kind enough to post “Danger” sings before they knock down things. And the farmer doesn’t care. He barely moves pulling off a boot and letting a mouse fall out, then pulling off his hat to let a duck fall out.



This has the usual odd Van Beuren nonsense, such as a skeleton in an outhouse and a dancing wheelbarrow. John Foster and George Rufle get the “by” credit. Gene Rodemich opens the score with “I Want To Go Back To Michigan,” an Irving Berlin composition. Billy Murray sang it on the Edison label. Hear Judy Garland’s version below, verse included. (“Wabash Blues” is heard for several minutes after Tom and Jerry enter with their saxophones).