Release date: June 23rd, 1934
Series: Looney Tunes
Director: Jack King
Starring: Bernard Brown (Buddy), Billy Bletcher (Hotdog Vendor, Customer, Mustachioed Player)
Jack King’s first directorial credit! A former animator at Disney, he was placed as a priority by Leon Schlesinger, who wanted Disney animators to take charge in hopes that Looney Tunes could be proper competition with Disney. King would direct a number of Buddy cartoons and later Beans cartoons, as well as delving into a handful of Porky cartoons in 1936. King returned to Disney in April 1936, hoping to direct cartoons in color. For much of the '30s, only Friz Freleng and Tex Avery would have the privilege of directing the Merrie Melodies, later expanding to Frank Tashlin. Here, Buddy’s baseball team, the Bearcats, take on the dastardly Battling Bruisers.
It seems King was the Frank Tashlin of the mid 30s, experimenting with new camera angles. A sign advertises BASEBALL TODAY — BUDDY’S BEARCATS vs BATTLING BRUISERS, a pan out revealing it’s a flag rustling in the breeze above a bustling stadium.
A chipper line of people wait at the ticket-booth, eagerly awaiting their access to the game. A rather rotund man purchases his ticket and goes about his business—until the clerk yells at him to come back and yanks him back. The camera angle is great: the animation is weirdly smooth and feels unnatural, and fits with the extreme close up of the man yelling and dragging the poor patron back. Weight gags galore as the clerk charges the man again after measuring his girth. We’ll be seeing a lot of those, a LOT.
Meanwhile, two tall men compress themselves enough to sneak under the ticket booth without rising suspicion, reverting back to their lanky selves as they enter the game.
A man peeping through the fence announces “It’s Buddy!”, and sure enough our pint sized pitcher is happily playing with a baseball, limbering up before the big game. We cut back to the man peeping in, shaking his lower body in a jaunty rhythm. I like the jaunty idle stance! Many of the characters have that throughout the film. It adds some fun and flavor and musicality to it. A wiener dog agrees, sticking his torso under the man’s butt and receiving a good back rub.
Many sneaking-into-the-stadium gags! Two men argue over peepholes, switching the heights: one drags a high peephole down, making the other guy’s low peephole high, the fight going back and forth. A man uses a wiener dog’s tail to crank him up and get another guy inside, and two men combine bagpipes and a drum to fashion the world’s most obnoxious hot air balloon: love it! The gags run a little long, but they’re enjoyable. The music is a plus to convey a happy atmosphere.
This is Cookie. What a major redesign! I miss her Betty Boop-esque design. This is very cute, too, and probably the best way to go so she matches Buddy. There’s something very comical about the contrast in design between Cookie and Buddy, though! Like Jessica Rabbit and Roger Rabbit. Their dynamic isn’t as amusing that way, and they hardly have a dynamic in the first place. Maybe this change in design will change THAT, too. Buddy flirts with her and bounces a baseball off an array of bats on the ground like an xylophone. Ladies, if your significant other does this, they’re a keeper!
I enjoy that this cartoon is particularly more musical than the other Looney Tunes (not Merrie Melodies). We have a hotdog vendor selling hotdogs and singing about his process. Fun fact! The sign on his setup reads “WILLIE KING HOT DOGS”—Willie King was the guy who sold concessions around the Warner Bros. lot. Here he’s voiced by Billy Bletcher. There’s also a man selling sodas, attaching a propeller to the bottle and throwing it to a man. Certainly different!
A singing announcer introduces the teams: the menacing Battling Bruisers, who do a tap dance routine, and Buddy’s Bearcats, also doing a routine. The dance is very amusing to watch: again, I love the jaunty feel to this entire cartoon.
Everyone assumes their positions, and we meet our announcer in the press box, a highly amusing caricature of baseball commentator Joe E. Brown. He’s got charisma! Buddy pitches a curveball, which lands directly into brown’s mouth. Horrifying yet funny!
Buddy’s up to bat as a nefarious, mustachioed pitcher squirts oil into his armpits instead of the ball as he swings a doozy of a pitch. Buddy, however, hits it with ease, making a slide with the aid of wheels attached to his back. Wow, what a little cheater! No wonder he’s “our hero” and so good at everything, he’s a little sneak! I knew he couldn’t be trusted. A man cheers Buddy on, pushing the bench down as another man’s toupee flies into the air.
Our mustachioed menace is next to bat, giving an evil laugh that’s undoubtedly Billy Bletcher. Buddy tosses him a screwball this time, putting a literal screw in the baseball and giving it a few turns. The ball flits around like an angry bee, the menace pumping pesticides to “kill” it—a standard gag but highly amusing. Nevertheless, one of the Bearcats catches the ball with an extendable mitt, and we get this absolutely horrifying shot of the commentator’s mouth closing right in on the camera as he yells “He’s OOOOOOOOUT!!!!”
Bad news for Buddy, who’s stressed about the game. Game’s tied 47 to 47, Bearcats up. Buddy paces around near the dugout as an insatiable crowd chants “we want Buddy! We want buddy!” Buddy exclaims that he can’t do it (even though he was batting just fine earlier!), but a squeaky “Buddy!” interrupts his doubt. Cookie comes to cheer him on, saying “Hurry, Buddy! They’re calling for you!” Buddy laughs nervously and stammers “Alright, cookie, I’ll go.” Buddy doesn’t normally have much personality, but here he seems to have a shred of some! Not just winning all the time, even happy go lucky rubber hose mascots have their doubts. A cute little scene, although Cookie herself falls rather flat in terms of personality.
Buddy shyly approaches to bat, the mustachioed menace (he doesn’t have a name, I just gave him that because it’s funny) laughing with evil glee as he pitches. Buddy smacks the curveball, and it’s a home run! Nice shot of buddy running to the bases as the baseball flies towards the audience.
Victorious, Buddy slides to home plate, urged on by cookie and the commentator. Cheers are earsplitting and uproarious as spectators toss their hats in celebration. A giant pile of hats rests on home plate, disturbed only by Cookie and Buddy who embrace as more hats pile on top of them. Iris out!
I’m pleasantly surprised at this cartoon! Granted, it still fell under the decent/average category. I feel the spectators had more screen time than Buddy did, and some of the gags wore on, but the atmosphere was upbeat and happy, music especially entertaining and jaunty. Buddy and Cookie were endearing, as barren in dynamic and personality as they are. You could go either way with this cartoon, watch it or skip it, but I lean mores o on the watch it side than I do the skip it side.
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