THERE'S A RIOT GOIN' ON... #2

Most of the past week on my other blog, the Cinema 4: Cel Bloc, was spent going over another section on the first disc of the Max Fleischer Color Classics collection, Somewhere In Dreamland. Frankly, the cartoons are starting to get cuter and cuter, and I'm becoming a little disconnected from the series. I'm hoping for a couple of good wolf attacks in the near future on upcoming shorts; just a little bit of antagonism can do wonders for a cartoon, and this week there were two Fleischers', The Cobweb Hotel and Greedy Humpty Dumpty, that had some nice dark edges to them. Of course, there was also that avian suicide attempt (I kid you not) in Hawaiian Birds, but outside of that, the film is basically forgettable.

Because of the gradually increasing cuteness, and the fact that I have been reviewing a lot of Fleischer cartoons over the last month (including some Superman episodes), by Saturday, I took a jump over into another studio at large in the 1930's: Terrytoons, with the Farmer Al Falfa biblical flood tale, Noah's Outing. Weird, disjointed, not-quite-the-gospel, but entertaining in its rough fashion: you'll come for the flood, but you'll stay for the giraffe elevator.

Coming up this week are some reviews of Tom and Jerry, and by that, I don't mean the cat and mouse team. The Van Beuren Studios had their own Tom and Jerry on the loose in the early '30's, and for the most part, the films are simple but a good deal of fun, and sometimes, naughtily so.

The past week on Cinema 4: Cel Bloc:
Sunday, 4/23/06: The Cobweb Hotel (1936) Cel Bloc Rating: 7
Monday, 4/24/06: Humpty Dumpty (1935) Cel Bloc Rating: 6
Tuesday, 4/25/06: Greedy Humpty Dumpty (1936) Cel Bloc Rating: 6
Wednesday, 4/26/06: Hawaiian Birds (1936) Cel Bloc Rating: 5
Thursday, 4/27/06: Play Safe (1936) Cel Bloc Rating: 5
Friday, 4/28/06: Bunny Mooning (1937) Cel Bloc Rating: 5
Saturday, 4/29/06: Noah's Outing (1932) Cel Bloc Rating: 6