57. I Like Mountain Music (1933)

Release date: June 10th, 1933

Series: Merrie Melodies

Director: Rudolf Ising

Starring: The King's Men (Quartet), Rudy Ising ("Whoopee!")

Though the cartoon titles share the name of the songs they showcase, they can make for some pretty intriguing titles, like here. This is another installment of the books come to life series, pertaining to magazines instead.

Open to a drugstore after closing. There are some wonderfully beautiful backgrounds as we view the interior, settling onto a magazine rack. All is quiet and peaceful... Until a cowboy from a magazine titled “WESTERN THRILLER” tears a hole in the cover page with a spray of bullets.

He hops out of the book and motions for his dozing cowboy buddies to wake up, yelling “C’mon, fellers!” No further cue is necessary as they grab some instruments and launch into an instrumental solo of the titular song “I Like Mountain Music”. An interesting array of gags: the double fisting gun slinging cowboy leaps onto a counter top and dances to the music, spinning around. His spurs cut a hole in the counter top and he plummets into the glass display case below, spraying himself with perfume. Elsewhere, one of the cowboy musicians rides his accordion like a horse, making for some intriguing visuals. Standard as these gags may be, the animation has come quite a ways since the beginning of our journey, and are thusly more enjoyable.

After receiving warm applause, the lead cowboy and some backup singers sing the vocals to the song. Catchy and beautiful as always! A variety of spot gags accompany the song, such as polish pianist and prime minister Ignacy Paderewski playing the piano and singing along.

A caricature of Eddie Cantor pops out of a magazine and pulls a violinists beard, shouting “Look, Jimmy! It’s Rubinoff!” Dave Rubinoff was Cantor’s violinist for one of his radio shows.

Out saunters Will Rogers, actor slash vaudeville performer slash cowboy slash comedian. He makes his way towards a magazine covered in cobwebs dated October 1929, detailing the catastrophic stock market crash. He gingerly places a “NO SALE” sign by the magazine and says “Well folks, all I know is what I read in the paper!” A group of babies from a baby magazine cheer him on and applaud.

Some lovely animation as a figure skater from “Dance Magazine” leaps onto a mirror, tilting it horizontally beneath her weight and skating on it.

To top the gag off, a steady snowfall enhances her elegant routine... and it’s revealed to be a cowboy pouring talcum powder on her! Highly predictable, but it got a good smile out of me regardless.

There are some babies waving jingle bells to the beat of the music... and members of an African tribe making clicking sounds to the music. Not too fond of that one. Otherwise a beautiful and amusing scene, but yeesh. As you can imagine, their depictions aren’t very savory.

The skater finishes her beautiful routine with a split, a group of toys applauding her (frequently reused from Red-headed Baby. I’ve noticed the amount of recycled animation has certainly dwindled within the past handful of shorts, which is always a refreshing sight to see!) 

Freshly picked from Pagan Moon, a hula girl dances to “It’s Time to Sing ‘Sweet Adeline’ Again”, a chorus of steel guitar players backing her up in vocals. My affinity for steel guitars prevails, recycled as this scene may be.

A yodeler from Travel Magazine yodels as he hops from cliff to cliff, mountain to mountain, ashes to ashes, dust to dust.

The yodeling yokel sings “I Like Mountain Music” from a woman sourced from the “College Rumor” magazine. Look at the difference in designs here! I know it falls under the category of “Look at the sexy woman... and this man is ‘normal’ (not in this case but)”, but I can’t help but love the contrast in design anyways. Very funny and intriguing. A caricature of Ed Wynn also lends his out of tune voice to the song as magazine creatures applaud the spectacle.

What’s a cartoon without a little nefarious doings, huh? A mobster ushers his cronies to follow him as he sneaks along the countertop. The screenshot doesn’t do it justice, but his toadies are actually walking at different intervals, but still synchronized! Great animation as always. The musical synchronization is on par as always. Sherlock and Watson make an appearance, sherlock bending low and sniffing the ground like a dog for clues. Words fail me in describing how much that amuses me.

The gangster’s plan becomes evident once he and his cronies make their way towards a cash register. The mobster pours some lighter fluid in a spray bottle, lighting it and using the makeshift blowtorch to weld a hole in the cashier and steal the contents inside.

Edward Robinson makes a cameo, grunting “They can dish it out, but they can’t take it” while the mobsters use a spoon to pour coins in a dish. Good use of sound effects! Robinson takes out a pair of guns and begins to shoot at the gangsters. One of the gangsters fires in retaliation, missing.

A phonograph from “RADIO Magazine” calls out all the cop cars to stop the theft. Even Mussolini sends his Italian policemen after the gangsters.

A barrage of artillery is used against the thieves, such as gumball bullets and pins shot through a pencil sharpener (I love those pencil sharpener machine gun gags so much).

One of the gangsters (whose butt serves as a nice pin cushion) seeks refuge in a magazine with Jean Harlow on the front. Quickly he learns to regret his decision, running from the pages as we get a ferocious shot of Ping Pong. Not King Kong, no! Ping Pong! 

Ping Pong barrels towards the camera and chases down the mobster. Desperate for any source of shelter, the mobster dives into a glass. Ping pong approaches a syrup tap and presses down on “razzberry”, the tap blowing an actual raspberry instead of any syrup. The gag is topped off as the mobster winced with each raspberry blown. The crowd celebrates his loss, and we get a rather interesting iris out—I’m not sure how to describe it. It’s like a double iris out. Regardless, it’s pretty cool! 

One of the more interesting Merrie Melodies for sure! This was a really entertaining cartoon! With the books come to life cartoons, you have a certain standard of what to expect, so I was pleasantly surprised to see that this was about magazines instead. Especially in a drugstore, there’s a lot more room to work with the setting. The animation was beautiful and the gags were on point, and the celebrity caricatures were drawn great. Even if you don’t know who they are, you still get a good laugh. The only downfall would be the racist gag with the stereotypical African tribe members making clicking sounds... that speaks for itself. Needs to be addressed (as all the blackface and stereotypical gags do), but doesn’t necessarily drain the short too much of its charm. Overall, definitely worth a watch. Paced nicely and very high energy and silly! Just express caution at the clicking gag with the ice skating scene.

Link!