120. The Phantom Ship (1936)

Release date: February 1st, 1936

Series: Looney Tunes

Director: Jack King

Starring: Berneice Hansell, Shirley Reed (Ham and Ex)

The first cartoon to include the trademark zooming WB shield! Ham and Ex make their first appearance since I Haven’t Got a Hat. They’d accompany Beans in a few cartoons, usually as trouble making nuisances to the chagrin of Beans. Beans travels to Iceland to investigate a haunted ship, but stowaways Ham and Ex cause trouble for all.

Open to Ham and Ex, crouched over a newspaper that’s sprawled out on the floor. They exchange awed looks, the headline reading “BEANS TO HUNT FOR HAUNTED TREASURE SHIP IN NORTH”, complete with a photo of a smiling Beans in pilot’s garb. Ham and Ex leap to their feet, giggling excitedly and dashing out the door.

They stumble across Beans, who’s oiling up his anthropomorphic plane (a scene parallel to Bosko lubing up HIS plane in Dumb Patrol (1931)). Beans runs into the shed to fetch something, leaving the perfect opportunity for ham and ex to jump into the smiling plane as stowaways. The Disneyesque plane lets them in, lowering itself and opening the hatch. Beans returns just in time, unaware that he has two guests going along in his journey. He squirts more oil into the plane’s mouth, gives the propeller a good spin, and hops right in to take off.

On the plane’s dashboard is a ticker that marks Beans’ various destinations. Amusingly out of place animation was beans does the Hopak while flying over Russia, icicles forming on his nose and thermometer bursting after flying over Iceland… he whips out a pair of binoculars and spots a broken, worn down ship in the frosty climate. Beans gives an excited “Hooray!” and spirals safety into a landing, icicles substituting the role of smoke. 

He skids to a stop right in front of the ship. A bat is perched on the wall of the ship, its wings labelled “THE PHANTOM”. Beans observes in excitement as the bat flies away. Suddenly, Ham and Ex burst out of the hatch, exclaiming “Surprise! Surprise!” surely enough, Beans is startled after his wits, the famous Jack King “hat take” as his hat flies up in shock. He scratches his head and merely shrugs it off.

Ham and Ex eagerly take Beans by the hands, pulling him along. Conveniently, a staircase plops down right where the trio was standing. Beans cautiously approaches the staircase and motions for the eager pups to follow. Just as they begin to ascend, the stairs slide down beneath them, like going up the down escalator. A spare board attached to the ship takes a life of its own as a giant hand and smacks them all to the top of the ship.

The sails on the ship are worn and ragged. One of the torn sails morphs into (another) giant hand, this time tugging at Beans’ tail and attempting to snatch him up. It succeeds, and it carelessly tosses beans to another anthropomorphic sail, who then slams him to the ground. The world’s cruelest game of monkey in the middle. Beans bounces off a pile of rope, prompting an anthropomorphic anchor to deck him good. Beans flies into the belly of the ship, landing on the ground and shadow boxing in self defense, muttering “I’ll get that so and so, he can’t do that to me!” In the midst of his groveling, a lantern swings and knocks beans over once more.

Elsewhere, Ham and Ex are calling “Uncle Beans! Uncle Beans!” at the top of the ship with no luck. A pirate skeleton pops out of a hanging safety boat and grunts “Pipe down!” Ham and Ex, terrified, take cover under a tarp, trembling (complete with an out of place, frankly annoying ringing bell sound effect). A life preserver falls on top of them. Lovely, stretchy animation as Ham and Ex attempt to run away from each other, yet inevitably bouncing back and collapsing.

Instead, they opt to commute by one carrying the other on his shoulders. Predictably, they form the appearance of a ghost. They bump into an open door occupied by a skeleton. The skeleton freaks out, clinging to a flagpole for safety. The flagpole breaks, and, with no other option for escape, the skeleton jumps overboard. More animation strikingly parallel to a gruesome twosome as ham and ex topple off each other, running into a pole. Both “sides” of their tarp covered lump stretch out on opposite ends, and they’re propelled backwards, conveniently tying around the pirate skeleton from before and unwinding. They’re tossed against the door of the anthropomorphic ship (King’s Disney influence strong as ever), the door used as a tongue as the ship swallows the pup into its cavernous belly.

Like an out of control snowball, the twins barrel down the stairs… and right into Beans. The tarp unfolds with Ham and Ex on the outside and beans beneath the tarp. Unaware that their precious uncle beans is smothered beneath the tarp, Ham and Ex grab two pieces of wood and bash the moving lump’s head in. Finally Beans yells “OUCH!” and Ham and Ex spot an injured Beans beneath the tarp.

They both scoop him up, holding him by the hands. Beans registers the pain (figurative and literal) and weasels his way out of their grip, exclaiming “Bah!” in frustration. He opens a door, hoping for an exit, and finds something much more desirable: a treasure chest overflowing with gold. He creeps over cautiously, then rifling through the goods like he can’t believe it. Ham and Ex also imitate his cautious saunter, playing with their own coins. A nice little segment of brief personality as they bet each other on flipping coins. 

Suddenly, Beans spots two people sitting in front of a woodstove, frozen. Not creepy at all. Beans pulls out a chair beneath one of the frozen victims, and then the other, and feeds both into the stove. He strikes a match to get a roaring fire going, and returns to his treasure while they thaw. Beans loads sacks of gold into his plane, tossing them right out the window. 

Finally, both of the frozen wonders thaw out and regain consciousness. A particularly burly pirate (that you know is voiced by Billy Bletcher, even without hearing him) discovers Beans tossing heaps of gold into his plane and threatens him. Beans, Ham, and Ex are all terrified, Ham and Ex seeking refuge in a barrel while Beans  runs away from the pissed off pirate.

Eventually, the pirate’s peg leg gets caught in an exposed hole in the board. Ham and Ex observe the stuck pirate, but quickly duck as the pirate’s assistant spots the curious pups. Jack King uses a lot of closeups in his work, and they’re particularly rife in this cartoon. I applaud him for doing something different and slightly ambitious, but they break up the flow of the cartoon rather than enhance it. Now, the assistant chases after Ham and Ex, running straight into a pole and becoming disoriented.

Back to the pirate, who’s exerting all of his effort to loosen his peg from the board. He tears the board out from the floor, still stuck. He pulls so hard that he’s propelled into the air, thrown to the deck of the ship where Beans is pacing around. Bans hides in a cannon, but the pirate pulls him out regardless. He punches Beans  into a tube… and Beans pops out from a parallel tube, ramming right into the pirate. 

Ham and Ex are shimmying along on a rope close to the crow’s nest, the pirate’s assistant preparing cutting the rope. Ham and Ex swing right into the parked plane below, starting the engine. Meanwhile, Beans  is still engaged in his own fight, narrowly dodging an exploding barrel of TNT. He’s rocketed into the air, and Ham and Ex swoop into the rescue, catching Beans in the back seat. Beans snaps out of his fugue, coming to terms with Ham and Ex’s bravery. He gives them kisses of gratitude before saluting the ground before him, and iris out as the plane flies away into the horizon.

Not my favorite Jack King entry, but not the worst. It was relatively gagless and didn’t feel as exhilarating as it should have with all the action unfolding. It WAS nice to see Ham and Ex make their first (of a handful) appearance since I Haven’t Got a Hat, though. It just came off as relatively incoherent. It’s basically what you’d imagine it to be as. Anthropomorphic objects everywhere. Hijinks ensue. It just didn’t have anything to write home about, beans felt drier than usual and ham and ex, a slight improvement, still felt pretty bare, too. I’d say skip it, nothing great but nothing terrible either. But, of course, link!