I am a huge fan of Hollywood films from the 1930s. I simply adore the movies and shorts and can't get enough of them. There is, however, an exception--most cartoons of the 30s were pretty insipid. Sure, there are some notable exceptions (such as SNOW WHITE), but Disney, Warner Brothers and MGM (among others) insisted on cranking out a huge number of terrible musical films that were just awful. Please understand I am NOT knocking Mickey Mouse or Donald--but the musicals referred to as "Silly Symphonies" (Disney), "Merry Melodies" (Warner) or "Happy Harmonies" (MGM). These cutesy films were often pure drivel (except for some of the "Silly Symphoneis") with practically no humor and no edge--just lots of awful singing and characters so treacly sweet that they are just about unwatchable. The edgy Bugs Bunny or Tex Avery cartoons we know and love today were produced in the following decades. You know it was a bad decade for toons when Popeye and Betty Boop were among the BETTER toons of the age!!! Despite these films being so bad, I recently forced myself to watch a trio of Happy Harmonies shorts. Part of this must be because I am a masochist, but part of it is because I love reviewing the more obscure films--as there is a real scarcity of reviews for older and seldom-seen movies and shorts.
The first of the films shown on TCM was WHEN THE CAT'S AWAY. It featured a female house cat leaving home to run around with a cute male cat. And so, when this cat was away, the mice ran amok in the home--eating everything in sight. Oddly, the lead mouse was kind of cute and wore clothes, but the rest of them really looked and acted like vermin. Instead of the usual cute mice, these looked almost like a cartoon version of WILLARD and they were far from endearing or cute. But, despite them being unlikable, they sang and danced and had a great time. However, I am left wondering how those watching the film could have been anything other than bored or horrified by the mice. And then there was the god-awful music...YECCH!! Watch at your own risk--don't say I didn't warn you!