Generally am not a fan of the character of Baby Huey, a rather one-joke character and especially in his later Famous Studios cartoons annoying. When it comes to Famous Studios' cartoons, there is a general preference for the Popeye, Casper and even Herman and Katnip cartoons. Although they all in all fairness had not so great cartoons in their later years, which was due to an overall decline in quality for Famous Studios due to what seemed like tighter deadlines and lower budgets.
Certainly, a few of his cartoons are watchable to decent, 'Quack a Doodle Do', 'Pest Pupil' and 'Swab the Duck' being his best, with 'One Quack Mind' and 'Clown on the Farm' being watchable. The rest have the same strengths but also suffer from exactly the same faults. 'Huey's Father's Day' is the final theatrical Baby Huey cartoon, as of now it also to me is his worst. A sure sign of a one-joke character who has long outstayed his welcome, as well as an old concept worn well thin.
There are virtues, but only a few. There are a few lovely vibrant colours. The voice acting is reliably good. The best thing about 'Huey's Father's Day' is the music, Winston Sharples provides yet another outstanding music score, even in mediocre or worse cartoons Sharples' music was never among the flaws (if anything always one of the strengths or the best asset). Also love the lusciousness of the orchestration here and how characterful, haunting and whimsical the music was without going overboard in either, even better was how well it fitted in the cartoon and how it merged with the action.
Baby Huey however is neither cute or funny and is instead very annoying, and his father is too underwritten to make any impression so being amused by him or rooting for him was hard. Most of the animation is not good, apart from some nice colours most are flat, the backgrounds are sparse and unfinished looking and the characters look scrappy and inconsistent.
Dialogue is simplistic and forgettable at best, and the story is very predictable, repetitive and never really comes to life. The gags are very tired and pedestrian in timing, and the violence is mean-spirited and over-engineered.
In conclusion, poor cartoon. 3/10 Bethany Cox
Certainly, a few of his cartoons are watchable to decent, 'Quack a Doodle Do', 'Pest Pupil' and 'Swab the Duck' being his best, with 'One Quack Mind' and 'Clown on the Farm' being watchable. The rest have the same strengths but also suffer from exactly the same faults. 'Huey's Father's Day' is the final theatrical Baby Huey cartoon, as of now it also to me is his worst. A sure sign of a one-joke character who has long outstayed his welcome, as well as an old concept worn well thin.
There are virtues, but only a few. There are a few lovely vibrant colours. The voice acting is reliably good. The best thing about 'Huey's Father's Day' is the music, Winston Sharples provides yet another outstanding music score, even in mediocre or worse cartoons Sharples' music was never among the flaws (if anything always one of the strengths or the best asset). Also love the lusciousness of the orchestration here and how characterful, haunting and whimsical the music was without going overboard in either, even better was how well it fitted in the cartoon and how it merged with the action.
Baby Huey however is neither cute or funny and is instead very annoying, and his father is too underwritten to make any impression so being amused by him or rooting for him was hard. Most of the animation is not good, apart from some nice colours most are flat, the backgrounds are sparse and unfinished looking and the characters look scrappy and inconsistent.
Dialogue is simplistic and forgettable at best, and the story is very predictable, repetitive and never really comes to life. The gags are very tired and pedestrian in timing, and the violence is mean-spirited and over-engineered.
In conclusion, poor cartoon. 3/10 Bethany Cox
