Disclaimer: The following review contains racist stereotypes, content, and imagery presented purely for historical and informational purposes. I in no way endorse them, yet encourage you to speak up if something is said that is harmful or offensive. It is never my intention to do so, and I always want to take accountability should that occur. Thank you.
Release Date: August 13th, 1938
Series: Merrie Melodies
Director: Frank Tashlin
Story: Rich Hogan
Animation: Phil Monroe
Musical Direction: Carl Stalling
Starring: Tedd Pierce (Major Twombly), Tommy Bond (Boy), Mel Blanc (Elephant), Danny Webb (Lone Ranger Announcer), The Sportsmen Quartet (Chorus)
The Major Lied 'til Dawn marks the grand debut of storyman Rich Hogan. Hogan was most often affiliated with Tex Avery, even following him off to M-G-M in 1941 when Tex departed WB. Perhaps even more notable is that Hogan boasts the writing credit on A Wild Hare, the first short that officially christened the birth of Bugs Bunny. According to an article from the Buffalo Courier-Express dated April 17th, 1940, he had been a part of the studio since 1936.
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| Rich Hogan at M-G-M. |
Regarding the cartoon at hand, Tashlin's newspaper comic sensibilities are incredibly rife in the design of Major Twombly, a rotund expeditionist who recalls his adventures in Africa to a curious (in the literal and metaphorical sense) caricature of child star Freddie Bartholomew.
Iris in on the eponymous Major and his pint-sized companion Freddie, both posing stoically in front of the fireplace. Already, Tashlin sets the scene with a warm, inviting, and rather pompous ambience.
Freddie and Major Twombly’s exchange of dialogue is rife with thought-provoking insight: "I say, Major Twombly." Twombly, voiced by storyman Tedd Pierce, clears his throat. "Yes, Freddie?" "I say."
After a shaky, unconfident camera truck-out, we reveal the inside of Twombly’s den, adorned with mounted animals as far as the eye can see. Freddie remarks on Twombly’s "awfully fine collection", to which Twombly replies "Quite so, definitely so to speak, you know what I mean." The casual nature in which the two exchange their odd and humorous dialogue quirks is to be commended—the ridiculous exchange is quick, rolls off the tongue, and never given a second thought. Its delivery is practically more crucial than the gag itself.
Now, Freddie turns his attention to the "ferocious looking fellow" mounted above the fireplace, the camera trucking in on the snarling lion. "Was he stuffed when you got him?"
Twombly regards Freddie's naiveté with a boisterous fit of laughter, keeling over as he grunts "No, no, I say! How jolly!" And then,
"I don't get it." A handful of Warner Bros. cartoons would get a lot of mileage out of the same gag, and for good reason. Tashlin's dry sense of humor and timing carries what would be an otherwise saccharine and dull exposition had it been handled by someone else or created a few years prior.
Pan and close in on a nearby globe as Twombly recounts his third expedition to Africa. In a very Tashlin maneuver, a meticulously and well crafted animated hand slides into frame, gesturing to the map and reflecting Twombly’s narration. When Twombly forgets where they first set off, his hand and fingers recoil. When he gestures and points, a very real sense of motion is present.
Though they are two different cartoons with two different scenarios, made by two different directors in two different years, it does merit comparison to similar set-ups. In this case, a synonymous shot from Clean Pastures, directed by Friz Freleng in 1937. The Clean Pastures shot is much shorter and doesn't prioritize hand gestures as does the shot for Major does, but even then, the difference in hand styles is worth mentioning. The hand in Pastures is much more streamlined and caricatured than the one in Major, which carries a very real sense of movement and life behind it. Apples and oranges, yet interesting nonetheless to compare various approaches to similar scenes. Tashlin's eye for detail and cinematography is increasingly evident.
"We had just left Vieni Vieni Tusei Bella Bella," Twombly narrates, which is not a destination but rather the song lyrics to Rudy Vallee's hit Vieni, Vieni. Carl Stalling accentuates the joke by playing a subtle, warm chorus of the same song in the background as Twombly talks, a wonderful little nod to another incredibly casual and amusing joke.
While the globe crossfades into a temperate jungle scene, the typography of "AFRICA" remains in place over the screen, a rather whimsical graphic touch. Interesting to note, the animation of the birds swooping and diving all around the scene is directly re-used from Tex Avery's The Isle of Pingo Pongo.
Through a scenic pan right, various animals lounge in their natural habitats. A crane lounges in some water, some deer and a hippo graze on some grass, all accented by the birds and foliage in the foreground. Despite the animation of the animals themselves feeling a bit crude, round, and rubbery (as would be the case--upon closer inspection, they're lifted from The Lyin' Mouse, directed by Friz Freleng in 1937), the ambience is very much there and the scenery is nice, especially Tashlin's techniques with the foreground.
"Naturally, I was leading the safari." Twombly’s pompous narration takes the stage, overlapping the action as past-Twombly bobs about on top of his elephant. A wonderful sense of motion, weight, and arcs present in a simple cycle of him swaying to and fro, the liquid in his glass perched on the ridiculously modern umbrella tabletop sloshing to and fro.
This cartoon follows the very Tex Avery-ian theme of "antiquated meets modern", where modern appliances and household conveniences are integrated into seemingly "antiquated" or in this case, for better or worse, "uncivilized" scenarios. The Major has an entire piece of patio furniture inside his mount, and the elephant's trunk is adorned with bumper stickers from all around the world. "Traveled quite extensively, don't you know."
More modern conveniences are displayed through Twombly’s butler, who has also joined the expedition. Hooked to the elephant's tail is a trailer. Of course, to go the extra mile, the butler still rides on top of the trailer in his own mount rather than inside the trailer, selling the absurdity of the commodity.
Enter the problematic aspects of the cartoon--the caricatures. Twombly introduces his "baggage boys", a line of African natives crudely caricatured and stereotyped all following in line. At the end of the line is a lone straggler with a plunger on his head, advertising that he has space to rent and carry the items. Egregious and nasty as the caricatures are, the motion and animation in which they move is effectively snappy and in-tune with the music. If there is any praise to be given, it is that the technique is well done. What the technique is being put to use to, however, is another story.
Regardless, the natives are the highlight of the next handful of gags. One of the natives spots a banana bunch and snaps one free. With surprisingly solid and fluid animation, head tilts and movements well constructed, he peels his snack...
...and discards the goods, gulping down a rather floatily animated and evenly spaced banana peel. Once more, the technique in the animation is to be commended in its solidity and weight. The animation of the native consuming the banana peel suffers from a case of floatiness, animated mostly on ones to accompany the flow of the walk cycle.
Elsewhere, another native with grotesquely caricatured lips happily struts along to a very merry and flighty cue of "Bei Mir Bist du Schoen". Suddenly, the last 3 notes of the chorus repeat over and over, skipping with a snap each time.
Enter a gag re-used from Buddy's Circus, both jokes equally dehumanizing as the native opens his lips to reveal a record spinning inside his mouth. He adjusts his needlepoint tongue, closing his lips and pausing to listen as the record readjusts itself.
After a pause and a handful of thoughtful head tilts, the music resumes. Offensive and harmful as the gag is, the animation is solid and the timing of both the music and the acting is thoroughly thought out. A shame it must be used on such egregious imagery.
Moving on, the background score of "Congo" segues into a brief chorus number. Twombly’s elephant spies the line of natives carrying the "baggage" on their heads and decides to imitate them, moving Twombly up on top of her head. Judging by the graphic lines of excitement, as well as the meticulously well-crafted motion, Ken Harris may be responsible for such animation, though that is purely educated guessing rather than true fact.
The next gag is a classic '30s Warner gag: one of the natives walks straight into a lake. All we see is the baggage floating on top of the water as he carries on his submerged trek...
...and reveals the classic bait and switch, a rather full and contented alligator licking his lips as he marches forward. Despite everything, the weight and solidity in the animation has been a rather consistent and strong factor to the short thus far.
Honing in on the “modern vs antiquated” aspect, Twombly stumbles upon a six-way intersection in the middle of the jungle, complete with sign markers and all. The close-up of Twombly with his dot eye and rotund, spherical, graphic design evokes incredibly strong comparisons to Tashlin’s drawing style,
particularly that found in his newspaper comics.
A thoroughly puzzled Major therefore consults a road map (hitchhiker’s edition). Cutting back to the wide-shot, the animation style of Twombly changes, his eye now a standard eye with scleras.
Twombly unfurls the map to reveal directions to Van Buren, Arkansas, with Uncle Fud’s house marked right in the middle. Despite Tashlin’s ties to the Van Beuren animation studio and Elmer Fudd’s own affiliation with the studio, the gag is instead a reference to Bob Burns, known as the “Arkansas Traveler”. A Burns caricature referenced the same Uncle Fud and Van Beuren in Tashlin’s Speaking of the Weather only a year prior. To drive the gag home, Stalling plays a cornpone music cue of “The Arkansas Traveler” while Twombly studies the map. Certainly a gag lost to the sands of time, but interesting history rests behind it nonetheless.
With some more appealing but jarringly floaty animation on ones, a determined Twombly turns his faithful elephant into an elevator, pulling a lever and descending the levels, the polka dots on the elephant’s side lighting up like elevator windows. Many of the gags feel Avery-esque wrapped in Tashlin’s sensibilities, which isn’t a bad combination.
To decide on his destination, Twombly marches towards the intersection and gives the signs a hearty spin. As they whirl around in a circle, constantly exchanging directions, Twombly uses his wooden plank/elevator lever and uses it to slow the signs to a halt. Allowing the signs to slow and continue to spin past rather than stopping as soon as the plank made contact paces the gag nicely and grants it to sink in and hit harder, all while remaining quick, spirited, and to the point.
Route 50 seems to be our winner.
As Twombly and his jolly elephant lumber to and fro, they find themselves at the hands of another obstacle. Truck out to reveal a startlingly steep incline, the size disparity exaggerated by Twombly and his elephant's comparatively diminutive size.
No matter. Modern thinking saves the day once again. In a gag cribbed from previous shorts such as Milk and Money, Twombly consults the aid of a gear shift in his mount. With the engine revving, the determined elephant ascends the incline, slow at first, but gradually gaining speed as the engines rev up. Curiously, the wide shot of Twombly and the elephant don't show the butler and the trailer from behind, yet the close-up does indicate the elephant's tail attached to the mechanism.
While the drawings are solid and rife with appeal, the motion leaves a bit to be desired. In Milk and Money, the flow and weight of the speeding motion is much more exaggerated, aided with the camera pan accommodating the speed of the motion. However, that was staged horizontally. Here, the diagonal framing of the scene would prove more difficult for the camera to follow and maintain that same speed. It's an incredibly minor nitpick, as the gag reads very easily and the drawings are solid and incredibly appealing.
Fade out and iris in on the next scene. It seemed Tashlin was rather fond of the horizontal, "concealed" staging; two gazelles prance around the jungle, concealed by an overlay of shrubbery. Tashlin performed the same trick in Porky's Spring Planting, where Streamline and a chicken engage in a fight behind a conveniently placed shrub. Wholly Smoke, Tashlin's next cartoon, also has a piece of staging where an overlaid line of shrubbery runs straight across the horizon line, making for a rather graphically conscious set of staging as opposed to an organic one.
Back to the gazelles, Twombly recounts in the narration how he stumbled upon many "interesting denizens of the jungle". In a gag that feels more akin to an Avery-esque travelogue rather than a Tashlin short, it's revealed that the gazelles are bounding along on pogo sticks rather than hopping about the natural way. A rather mild and politely amusing gag, though the bounding, lumbering music score does elevate it.
We then wipe to the secondary star of a short. An anthropomorphic elephant, much more stylized and caricatured than Twombly's own elephant companion, paces listlessly in the jungle. "An elephant never forgets, but on the first day out we came upon a curious chap--this beggar was trying to remember something!"
Indeed, the elephant parks himself on a rock, thinking hard in accordance to Tedd Pierce's spirited narration. Mel Blanc voices the elephant in a rather neutral yet incredibly charming voice as he mumbles to himself. The scene is short and to the point, though it does beg interest the inconsistency of the proportions. When he sits down on the rock, the elephant is much cuter and (for lack of a much better term) cartoony, his eyes much wider and appealing.
Bob McKimson appears to handle the animation of the elephant all throughout the short--my personal theory is that the small eyes on the elephant before he talks is to sell the illusion of his animal nature. That is, the wider eyes make him look much more anthropomorphic and fit for a cartoon. Perhaps the small eyes are a cover to sell the surprise of the elephant speaking, or perhaps it is simply artistic error and reading too far into things.
Fade and iris to the next scene, which is pointed out by Twombly's narration as "lion country". Once more, another bit of wordplay as the said lion country is adorned with Lion's Club and Rotary Club signs.
The African natives are on the hunt for a lion, as is Twombly. Not even counting the morality of the designs, the animation of the natives coming over the hill is incredibly crude, choppy, and hastily drawn.
Even during the close-up of the natives scouting the area for lions, their designs look as though they were pulled from shorts such as Buddy in Africa rather than a '38 Tashlin cartoon, all very synonymous and lacking exaggeration (or as much exaggeration that can be lacked). Comparing them to the designs earlier is a night and day difference.
Nevertheless, one of the natives brings a literal meaning to the term "beating the bush": he whacks a bush with a club, which prompts a rather cowardly (and similarly bland in design, at least for the scene) lion to emerge from the tiny bush and run for the hills.
Catching wind of the lion, Twombly aims his rifle from the sanctity of his elephant and fires.
A miss, though cartoon physics prevail as he spins around a very befuddled and rather concerned elephant. The drawings of the elephants face are incredibly appealing and rather cute.
"Failing to shoot him, I decided to track him down." Twombly lumbers along, his giant chest swaying to and fro as he guides a dog on a leash.
Truck out to reveal not a dog, but Twombly's loyal butler sniffing at the ground instead, a gag Tashlin had repurposed from Speaking of the Weather. The animation could admittedly use some more exaggeration or snappiness, but is nevertheless amusing and sold by Stalling's lumbering score of "Where, Oh Where Has My Little Dog Gone?"
Suddenly, the butler halts, pointing at something off-screen like a pointer. While not nearly as exaggerated as future "animals turned pointer" gags Tashlin would present (like the examples above), the drawing is modest yet funny. The coattails sticking out like a tail is a wonderfully creative touch.
With a piano flourish, the camera pans left to reveal the object of the butler's directions. A hilariously smug lion lures Twombly to a good ol' fashioned boxing match, gesturing coyly with his index finger. The whistle and string sound effects harken comparisons to Scott Bradley's situational music scores over M-G-M.
A brazen, angry yet triumphant trumpet fanfare indicates that Twombly is ready to fight.
As the two fighters prepare for battle, the scene is incongruously quiet and dainty, a jovial flute score of "Sissy" setting the scene. Compare the demure, stagnant and amiable scene of these two fighters putting their gloves on and getting ready to the off-the-walls, hysterical, breathless energy of the boxing fight in Porky & Daffy, where the fight starts with everybody flying. Such a deceitfully calm nature absolutely works to Tashlin's favor, as it lulls the audience in to expect that more is to come and the playful nature of the lion is too good to be true.
Indeed, closing in on the lion as he stretches to the rather gorgeous and peppy music score, it's revealed he has sinister motives. A gag that Tashlin would repurpose in his tour de force cartoon Porky Pig's Feat, the lion indiscriminately stuffs horseshoes into his boxing glove to get a secret advantage. While the animation of the boxing glove filling up is rather crude, the joke hits hard with the innocent expression on the lion, which is also mirrored in the music score.
And, in a moment of signature Tashlin timing and brilliance, the bell rings and the demure scene is dropped all at once as punches fly and a tornado of violence whirls around the ring, the music score sharp and bold. Not only is the timing and whiplash between two scenes exceptional, the ball of violence makes for plenty of amusing screengrabs.
The fight ends just as quickly as it started. After a cloud of dust settles, a triumphant Major is revealed posing proudly over top his catch, pinned down by his own methods of cheating. A relaxed and content mood resumes.
Of course, the cartoon couldn't end there. A caricature of Tarzan actor Johnny Weissmuller, animation reused from The CooCoo Nut Grove, spots the troubled animal companion and gets to work. Instead of screeching the grating and obnoxious Tarzan yell used since Buddy of the Apes, Tashlin switches things up in favor for a more modern pop-culture reference: Tarzan channels his inner Lone Ranger as he bellows "HI-YOOOOOOOOOOOOOO SIIIIIIIIILLLLLLVEEEEEEEEEEEER!"
Thus, in a similar manner to the animal brigade summoned in Tashlin's own Porky in the North Woods, a stampede of jungle animals dart to the rescue.
Poor timing and spacing in the animation (as well as a general lack of clarity) muddle the gag and its success, but right before Twombly gets a pounding, there is a very subtle and mechanical take of his monocle flying off his face in surprise.
He has no time to tend to such perilous matters, as the entire jungle showers him in punches and blows. Once more, the brawl is worthy of many a freeze frame.
Seeing as the audience is entangled in the enthralling brawl, it's only logical to disrupt the flow by cutting to the memory-insufficient elephant, still straining his memory. Both the calm, sweet (and painfully appropriate) music score of "Remember Me?" and lack of any transitions to the scene make for a great juxtaposition to the hurried, frenzy fight happening elsewhere. A short and simple cutaway gag elevated by tonal shifts and carried by expert Bob McKimson animation and charming vocals from Mel Blanc. Cutaway gags can work wonderfully if done right or fall hard when failed, and there is a fine line to be straddled. Tashlin straddles it with dignity and grace.
Back to the whirlwind of violence with no further fanfare. The Major is getting absolutely pummeled, and being thrown out of the ring is almost seen more as a feat of freedom rather than defeat.
The animation of the Major landing on the ground is incredibly whimsical and full of fun cartoon principals, even if it does admittedly read best in still pictures rather than motion. A precursor to the extreme squash and stretch found in the later Bob Clampett cartoons, Twombly momentarily turns into a pile of tan sludge as he squashes onto the ground in defeat. The movement itself lacks any strong, solid sense of weight and the spacing is mechanical and even, but the drawings themselves are great to look at.
"By Jove," Twombly expounds to the audience, "if it's good enough for that sailor man, it's good enough for me!" A signature can of spinach is unearthed from the depths of Twombly's jacket. 1938 was a great year for Popeye cartoons, and audiences would instantly get a laugh out of the joke. Not only that, but Tashlin reused a similar joke in Scrap Happy Daffy in 1943. After being beaten to a pulp by a Nazi goat, a down-and-out Daffy moans to the audience "What I'd give for a can a' spinach now...!"
With a generic orchestral fanfare safe from the vices of copyright, Twombly downs the leafy concoction and rises to his feet in bursts, kicking his feet and sticking his chest out. Sure enough, his chest balloons and his biceps begin to bulge, the stagger animation accented by Treg Brown's wonderful creaking sound effects.
Tashlin slips two pop culture references in one as the screen boasts "WITH MEN WHO NEED MUSCLES IT'S SPINACH 2 TO 1!", a reference to the Lucky Strike cigarette slogan "With men who know tobacco best, it’s Luckies two to one!"
In another bit of curious trivia, Lucky Strike was an ardent sponsor of the Jack Benny show. The sound effects man on the radio show was named Gene Twombly. Not only that, Gene Twombly was married to Bea Benaderet, who would later provide countless voices for the Warner Bros. cartoons of the '40s and '50s.
Pertaining to the animated, fictional Twombly, Ken Harris animates his comeuppance, which is undoubtedly one of the biggest highlights of the entire cartoon. Animated on ones, Twombly gears himself up in a ridiculously over-the-top and funny piece of animation as he stomps his tiny feet on the ground, rearing his fist up as the camera pans in practically a blur. To accent the staggering sense of weight and motion conveyed in the scene, the pitter patter of Twombly's little black shoes is timed to the orchestral build of "Poet and Peasant Overture".
When Twombly socks his first haymaker into an alligator, Stalling allows the chorus to erupt and break free in bursts, the chorus advancing every time the Major punches. The musical timing is sharp, strong, and Freleng-esque. Landing on the ground at every music beat, the crocodile is reduced into a literal crocodile skin suitcase.
Next is a rather large and threatening hippo, who flashes Twombly the stink eye and puffs out his chest.
He, too, is submitted to the same poached fate, flopping on the ground into a ridiculous hippo-shaped piano thanks to his ivory.
Next, a bear, still timed succinctly to an uproarious music score of "Poet and Peasant Overture". His fate, a fur coat, hanger and all.
It's worth mentioning that Tashlin executed a very similar climax in Porky in the North Woods, also dealing with various animals (in this case causing the violence) musically timed to "Poet and Peasant Overture". Tashlin's musical timing, as well as fast cutting and sense of speed, have improved dramatically in less than 2 years, which is quite a feat in itself considering the scene in North Woods still holds up very well, and continues to be one of my personal favorite cartoons from that era. I've compiled both fights together in the above video to compare and contrast. Both are great fights and very well done, but the fight in Major is much more exhilarating and visceral.
In the midst of all the excitement, our elephant friend still struggles to remember what he needs. Bob McKimson's animation is a delight as the pachyderm laments "If I could only remember what it was..."
We may never know, as we cut back to Twombly throwing a flurry of punches at a lion. In fact, the punches are so potent that the lion momentarily pops out of his mane. In a flurry, he's sent rocketing into a tree.
No time is wasted, no momentum is broken as the lion springs back onto his feet in a daze, his disjointed mane now serving as a hula skirt as he performs a disoriented hula to "Aloha Oe", steel guitar and all. Bob McKimson would execute a very similar gag 8 years later with his Acrobatty Bunny, where Bugs only enables the suffering of his own dazed lion.
Every loyal, the faithful butler now has Twombly perched onto a tree as he bends the bark back with a rope. When he releases, the tree is transformed into a slingshot, sending a flying Twombly straight into the line of fire. With his fist straight out, Twombly collides with the denizens of the jungle at ease, the synchronization between animation, sound, and music all harmonious.
All too soon, the whimsical fight comes to an end as we fade to the present, Twombly shadowboxing in front of a rather unimpressed looking Freddie Bartholomew.
"Yes, yes, Major. Most interesting. But what about the elephant?" Freddie asks what the audience is thinking, clearly more enthralled with the amnesia-riddled elephant rather than Twombly's brush with death. "Tell me, what about the elephant, sir?
Twombly engages in more if his incoherent throat clearing "yes yes, quite so"-ing as we crossfade back to the elephant, still pondering, still animated by Bob McKimson, still grounded to an infectious and almost mockingly appropriate score of "Remember Me?"
"What was I supposed to say?" The elephant tilts his head, the animation solid and expertly crafted, as expected from McKimson. "If I could only remember that..."
Bob McKimson's style transcends time in many ways. Earmarks of his style from the shorts he himself directed are especially evident in the animation of the elephant widening his eyes and sticking out his hands. Realization has struck at last.
"Hey..." Blanc's delivery is genuine and full of natural charm. "Wait a minute!"
His tone grows louder and more optimistic, his movements broader as he points and swings his arm. "Yeah! That's it!"
"I got it! I got it! I got it!" The elephant rises to his feet, his voice growing higher and more exuberant as sweet, sweet remembrance washes over him.
A pause filled by a triumphant, expectant fanfare as the camera (slightly hastily) trucks into the elephant, now posing proudly with his chest out and arms on his hips. A confident look at the camera, and then...
"That's all, folks!"
A brassy fanfare of "Merrily We Roll Along" concludes the show as the elephant proudly reunites with his typography. One wonders how a certain porcine felt about the plagiarism.
Like so many of these shorts, this was one I eventually warmed up to the deeper I dove into it. The racist caricatures are by far the biggest detriment, but aren’t nearly as prominent all throughout the short as I had previously assumed.
Speed is an incredible factor and success of the short. While many of the gags felt Avery-esque in their delivery and conception, the timing and the speed is what elevated them. The speed reaches its zenith during the climax at the end, with brilliant animation carried by Ken Harris. Comparing the fight to the one in Porky in the North Woods stresses how far Tashlin’s filmmaking and technique has improved in such a short period—the two cartoons aren’t even a two full years apart.
Both Tedd Pierce and Mel Blanc do wonderful jobs as voice actors. While Mel’s role is limited, it’s full of genuine charisma, and Pierce’s vocals are jovial and spirited. As unfathomably talented as Mel Blanc is, I doubt the effect would have been the same had Blanc voiced Twombly over Pierce. Pierce’s gruff vocals are charming and individualistic in their own rite, and the quirks such as the incessant throat clearing and occasional gibberish are genuinely funny. Carl Stalling's music score is in great shape as it always is--his scores of "Remember Me?", "Sissy" and "Aloha Oe" are all some of my favorites, and I welcome any and all inclusion of "Poet and Peasant Overture" with open arms.
The short does feel more like a spot gag travelogue short than usual for a Tashlin effort, but still remains whimsical. Overall, the racist stereotypes are the biggest detriment, and even then they lack less blatant and purposeful vitriol than some other cartoons. They seem to age terribly more than actively beat down and make fun and tear apart. Even then, dehumanizing caricatures are still dehumanizing, and they are indeed still very harmful and repugnant.
In all, I’d hazard a watch for the climax and the ending with the elephant alone. While not a Tashlin effort I’m particularly passionate about, it still bears plenty of merit in spots where it’s warranted. When the animation is solid, it is incredibly solid. When the gags are funny, they hit extra hard. The ending climax and end scene warrant a watch, if nothing else.
As always, proceed with caution on account of the stereotypes.
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