A Haunting We Will Go (1939) User Reviews

'A Haunting We Will Go' was a highly amusing Walter Lantz "cartune" that featured the not-so-offensive-stereotyped character Lil' Eightball

[tavm · 6/10 · 30 October 2008]

Directed by former Disney animator Burt Gillett (he helmed The Three Little Pigs), 'A Haunting We Will Go' was a Walter Lantz Cartune that featured Lil' Eightball, a young caricatured black boy (with the standard white lips). As voiced by Mel Blanc, this character doesn't seem so stereotyped-at least not in the offensive way-as he talks with big words like "phantasmagoria" and initially isn't scared of a boy ghost who tries to haunt him while in bed. So this child apparition takes Eightball to a haunted house where his father and his friends try to REALLY give him "the works". They do and while the little imp keeps putting up a brave front, it's obvious how frightened he really is. Still, except for a brief craps sequence, there's hardly anything remotely offensive here and this cartoon has some very amusing gags like having a scared owl appear naked outside of his fur or having the father ghost dry clean a fellow worker! On that note, I do recommend for the Halloween holiday 'A Haunting We Will Go'.

Though some haphazard, lackadaisical lazy sites . . .

[pixrox1 · 5/10 · 19 June 2023]

. . . state that A HAUNTING WE WILL GO (1939) lasts 10 minutes, every version on the world wide web is listed as being about 7 minutes, 22 seconds long. I just timed it on Disc One of the Woody Woodpecker & Friends Cartoon Collection Volume 2, and it clocks in at exactly 7:22.50. Unfortunately, this is not the only fly in this picture's ointment. From Quasimodo ringing the big bell to scare the minority population of Paris to Dracula siphoning only the darkest berries, Universal's House of Horror is infamous for its racial insensitivity. As late as the 1950's, Universal churned out a series of flicks about THE CREATURE FROM THE BLACK LAGOON! How's that for rocking America's many-hued boat?

An almost forgotten nugget from Hollywood animation's golden age

[jefflewis77 · 9/10 · 18 April 2008]

Lil' Eightball, a darker-skinned version of Scrappy and Buddy of '30s cartoondom, is unafraid of "ectoplasmic figments of the imagination",but a bunch of silly spirits in a haunted house try to prove the opposite. Some of the cast appear "borrowed" from Disney's "Lonesome Ghosts", a film the ex-Disney director had previously worked on.

Although, some pre-World War II live-action "spook" comedies took on racial overtones, it is difficult to criticize animated shorts like this and "Jasper And The Haunted House", since they closely resemble "Lonesome Ghosts", "Shiver Me Timbers", "Scrappy's Ghost Story" and many other 'toons featuring a variety of human races and animal species. The minor discretion here may be Eightball's big lips and "hee-hee" jive-talk (provided by the great Mel Blanc). Universal bravely included this excellent cartoon, along with the naughtier "100 Pygmies And Andy Panda", on the recent DVD "Woody Woodpecker And Friends Vol. 2".