The Magic Fluke

"Lips", the fox, conducts a successful jazz band until he gets an offer of $50,000 to go and conduct the symphony orchestra. Like the proverbial bat out of hell, he has gone - abandoning his friend the crow whilst he - now called "Foxini" - reaps the rewards of his new-found celebrity. It turns out that the crow is a rather loyal friend to his former bandmate, but that isn't reciprocated as stardom has clearly gone to his head! Things is, though, thanks to the well-intentioned crow, his baton has been swapped for a magician's wand so the performance, well it doesn't quite go to plan, and as we all know - fame is a fickle friend. The mixture of theatrical magic, music and a lively score make this quite a fun and quickly paced enterprise that doesn't labour it's clear message of reaping what you sow.

In the late 1940s, Columbia decided to farm out the production of their animated shorts and UPA offered to do them. Columbia had visions of just continuing along the same lines as before and do cartoons heavily weighted towards the standard talking anthropomorphic animals and made it clear they wanted the Fox and Crow characters to continue. UPA really didn't want to just do the same old thing, but needed the contract, so the first two shorts they made were Fox and Crow, but both were atypical of the series Columbia had done previously. This is the second (and last) Fox and Crow UPA made and both are very good. The third short UPA made proved so popular (and more lucrative for Columbia) that they saw the light and gave UPA their head and let them do pretty much what they wanted, as long as it made a profit. The third cartoon? Ragtime Bear, which featured the first appearance of one Quincy Magoo and the rest,as they say, is history. Magic Fluke is a funny, well animated marvel and worth watching. Recommended.