Officer Pooch

Officer Pooch is busy with his ice cream cone when a call comes in. There is a fight between a dog and a cat. He chases away the little dog but the kitten is still up a telephone pole.

This MGM cartoon is "Supervised by William Hanna and Joseph Barbera". I don't think these are long term characters. They are generic animal characters. This does show the guys' skills and humor. It's a pretty simple and effective story. The animation looks good and sweet. It's solid early work from the boys.

This 1941 cartoon from Hanna-Barbera shows what passed for entertainment animation in an era that produced great movies like Rebecca, Gone With The Wind, A Love Affair and other classics. The quality of the animation is good but it catered to audiences that were more impressed with cartoons than storylines. In fact, there is little to it other than a dog playing a police officer who is foiled by cats, little kittens and a woodpecker who pecks his baton into little pieces. It was a mindless way to pass time while waiting for the main attraction or giving the customer time to grab a coke or popcorn. Hanna-Barbera did go on to make the long running Flintstones, a great success in the history of television animation so we can look back and see its roots in cartoons like Officer Pooch.

Unable to finish enjoying his delicious ice cream cone, Officer Pooch gets called to break up a cat-and-dog fight at the corner of Third and Main. The poor guy, responding to one of those old-fashioned phone that were attached to telephone poles, in a moment of confusion holds the ice cream cone to his ear and licks the receiver.

Anyway, he discovers this little had a little kitten cornered on top of the telephone pole. The rest of the cartoon - which is the bulk of it - is the officer's attempts at getting that small cat down.

He doesn't get much cooperation from the stupid cat, or the dog, or a woodpecker. They are all thwarting his efforts to be a good guy.

This cartoon obviously was for the little kids in the audience. There isn't much for an adult to laugh at in here. It was part of the Marx Brothers double-bill DVD of "Go West" and "The Big Store."

The 1940s was a great decade for MGM's animation department. They introduced Tom & Jerry and Tex Avery went to work for them as well. Surprisingly, some of the best non-Avery directed cartoons from the studio were made by Hanna-Barbera. I say 'surprisingly' because these early cartoons were nothing like the later cartoons that made them a household name. In the later cartoons, cell counts were very low....meaning the characters did not move smoothly at all...all in the name of saving money. But in their 1940s work, the quality of the cartoons they directed are among the best you can find....and quality was top-notch all the way during this era.

While I really like the Hanna-Barbera cartoons with MGM, I must admit that "Officer Pooch" is a bit of a disappointment. Now the quality of the artwork is not a problem...it's more the subject matter of the cartoon isn't all that interesting compared to films they'd be making only a year or two later.

In "Officer Pooch", a dog police officer inexplicably was sent to break up a fight between a cat and dog. You'd think he'd be sent to help the dog...but no matter. After driving the dog away, Officer Pooch then has to deal with the little kitten...a kitten that can be a pain for the Officer!

Apart from dogs helping cats (who thought of this??), the cartoon is only mildly interesting....and while it's watchable it's far from memorable due to the writing.

I just watched this M-G-M cartoon on the Go West/The Big Store DVD. Directed by William Hanna & Joseph Barbera, the title character is a cop who is ordered to get a cat down from a tree chased up there by a dog (Yeah, it's a little confusing when one dog is a cop who acts human while an actual size small dog is the one who chases the cat). A woodpecker is also in on the fun. I read this was the last non-Tom & Jerry short made by the team usually associated with them during the '40s. This was quite funny in a pantomimic way with the gags evenly paced throughout. I really liked the way the action is timed to the music by Scott Bradley. So on that note, I recommend Officer Pooch.