The Hollywood Matador

Hollywood Matador, The (1942)

** (out of 4)

Woody Woodpecker plays the matador who must battle a 1100-pound bull and teach him who the boss is. I must admit that I've never been a big fan of any type of bullfighting cartoon. It's not that I'm against the sport but often times I find the comedy to be very limited and more often than not the jokes are just repeated from film to film. That trend continues with this entry as we get all the typical jokes including Woody constantly picking at the bull as well as turning him into hamburgers at the end. The one joke that I thought worked well is when the bull goes speeding past Woody who takes out a pen and marks out various parts of the book from the hamburger to the t-bone. This certainly isn't a bad film but it's not one of the better entries in the series.

Was very fond of Woody Woodpecker and his cartoons as a child. Still get much enjoyment out of them now as a young adult, even if there are more interesting in personality cartoon characters and better overall cartoons.

That is in no way knocking Woody, because many of his cartoons are a lot of fun to watch and more and also still like him a lot as a character. 'The Hollywood Matador' is certainly not one of Woody's best, but it's well made and entertaining, and of the numerous cartoons centred around bull-fighting 'The Hollywood Matador' fares better than most.Can definitely see why anybody would find it repetitive with too many typical jokes.

'The Hollywood Matador' doesn't exactly do much new with a premise done a lot in cartoons that was either done ingeniously or felt very repetitive. A few moments, due to their typicality, were a little too on the predictable side.

However, while there may be cartoon characters with slightly more interesting personalities, Woody is still at his best incredibly funny, never obnoxious and very lovable self, summing him up in one word it would be wonderfully nuts. His personality traits are still evolving and while a few are different others are unmistakably recognisable. Oxnor is a suitably intimidating antagonist.

As ever, the animation is great. Woody is much more appealingly designed even though still evolving, while the colours are rich and vibrant and the backgrounds meticulous in their detail.

Another standout quality is the music. It's characterful, lushly orchestrated and is not only dynamic with the action it even enhances it. The writing is suitably witty and raises a number of chuckles (even the very corny puns), while there are some amusing gags and an atmosphere to the cartoon that captures the fun and danger of the sport of bull-fighting. Would never do personally by the way and not my thing, this is going by its portrayal in film and cartoons which succeed in giving the necessary fun and tension.

Voice acting is good.

Overall, not one of Woody's best, still entertaining. 8/10 Bethany Cox

Love those puns! Right off the bat, we are at a crowded stadium for the bullfights and the two posters/billboards outside read: "Today In Person: Woody The Terribull!" and "Woody Woodpecker For Whom The Bulls Toil."

The announcer starts off like he's doing a boxing match, introducing Woody at five pounds and the bull at 1,100.

The jokes aren't bad in here, better than some of the other WW cartoons I've seen. There is some original stuff which isn't easy since there were a number of cartoons which featured bullfighting.

Ben Hardaway takes over as the voice of Woody as Mel Blanc had just signed an "exclusive" contract over at Warner Brothers and couldn't be doing these anymore. Hardaway had been one of the writers of the WW cartoons, so now he had double duty. He handled it well and is the voice now that most folks remember when they think of this famous woodpecker.