Fresh Fish

Love animation, it was a big part of my life as a child, particularly Disney, Looney Tunes and Tom and Jerry, and still love it whether it's film, television or cartoons.

Also have much admiration for Tex Avery, an animation genius whose best cartoons are animated masterpieces and some of the best ever made by anybody. 'Fresh Fish' is decent, it's amusing and well-made, but Avery has definitely done far better. It is always interesting to see an Avery cartoon before his prime period (all the cartoons he made before his 1942-1950s period at MGM are worth watching though few masterpieces), if more primarily for interest to see how Avery fared early on when he was still evolving and his distinctive style was not as strong or yet to be found.

This cartoon, as said, is a decent interesting watch, but Avery has done far better than decent interesting cartoons. He has done funnier and more imaginative cartoons, and 'Fresh Fish' was also made during a time where his cartoons by Avery standards were pretty tame. Oh and the story is best forgotten.

Not much risk-taking or boundary-breaking here, let alone his typical wacky wildness, and for me that was a huge part of his appeal as well as his visual and humour uniqueness.

However, it is no surprise that, as with a vast majority of Avery's cartoons regardless of the period, the animation is excellent. Beautifully drawn, very detailed and the colours are vibrant.

Carl Stalling's music score is typically lushly and cleverly orchestrated, with lively and energetic rhythms, it's also beautifully synchronised with the action and gestures/expressions and even enhances the impact.

While not hilarious, 'Fresh Fish' is still very amusing and well-timed. It also benefits from cute and lively underwater characters and the voice acting from the ever versatile Mel Blanc, Avery himself and Robert C. Bruce, who does entertaining and educational narrations better than anyone, is reliably great.

In short, decent but not great. 7/10 Bethany Cox

In the late 1930s and into the early 40s, Tex Avery directed a lot of cartoon shorts from Looney Tunes which followed the same general style. In this pseudo-documentary style cartoon, a narrator explores a subject and you then see tons of jokes that make you groan. While they are not terrible, they are extremely poor compared the masterpieces Avery later made when he moved to MGM.

In "Fresh Fish", a professor is going to explore the sea bottom and the narrator shows many different fish which are supposed to be corny jokes...such as the sardines all swimming in a bunch as if they are in a tin and the like. For me, most of these gags fell very flat and it's a cartoon that certainly isn't for all tastes.

I admit I'm biased in Tex Avery's favor and never saw an Avery cartoon I didn't like. In this one, Avery was still finding his style. There are a few more coughs and sputters here than is typical of Avery, but even with that said, his average work is as good as or better than some directors' best work. Even Rembrandt had his off days. So did Shakespeare, I like this cartoon myself, but others may not. Worth watching. Recommended for Avery fans, certainly.