Ants in the Plants

Welcome to the cartoon ant world where you can go to the restaurANT, traffic signals are fireflies with green and red lights, pancake flour is by "ANT Jermimah;" and kids are taught about "our vicious enemy: the anteater."

This Technicolor cartoon also is a musical in a few sections.

Except for his ugly snout, the anteater is actually "cute," if you could say that, with his blue jeans and vest and smile. H is definitely the coolest-looking creature in the film. As the story unfolds, however, he looks more and more menacing.

Anyway, we get an appropriate share of sight gags, all connected the ant world, some of them quite clever. The story is basically the war between the ants and their giant (to them) predator.

It's decent, and definitely worth a look if you like cartoons.

Was really not expecting much from 'Ants in the Plants'. It is one of the cartoons in the "Color Classics" series and while the earlier cartoons in the series are some of my favourites from their work that isn't the best of Popeye, pre-code Betty Boop and Koko their later output when Fleischer Studios declined quite drastically left much to be desired. A big part of the low expectations was that, having been made in 1940, it was one of the series' later cartoons.

To my very pleasant surprise, 'Ants in the Plants' was surprisingly well done. Low expectations were exceeded and it was not the mediocre at best effort that was expected and dreaded. It is not a classic and not one of the best that Fleischer Studios ever did, but it is by far one of the best later cartoons in the "Color Classics" series when the studio was in decline. Its not so good things were done so much worse in the series and in this period for Fleischer, and the best of its outweighing positives were outstanding.

Lets get the not so good things out of the way. Would have liked a little more personality for the soldiers and ones that made them distinct from one another, a bit too samey for my tastes.

'Ants in the Plants' is somewhat unexceptional in the story, very unoriginal with an ending that is never really in doubt from early on, which did give it a blandness at times, and not much different from all the hero vs villain melodramas that one gets in cartoons, especially as far as recent animation viewings go in later Fleischer and early Terrytoons.

On the other hand, a lot works in 'Ants in the Plants' favour. The animation is great, very sumptuously coloured and rich in detail. The music is similarly outstanding, along with the animation that is the component that is executed the most consistently even in lesser output. Really liked the depiction of the ant world and the lesson is not heavy-handedly handled. The queen ant is a compelling character but the best one is easily the villain, who is genuinely formidable as an adversary.

It also avoids being cloying, unlike other later "Color Classics" cartoons, and has more gags than most of them too. There are actually quite a lot and they are actually amusing. Despite the unoriginality the energy is there. Before one forgets, the beginning is spectacular with it being one of the cartoon's best looking scenes.

Summing up, surprisingly well done. 7/10

Except for the dramatic improvements in cartooning, this is kind of old hat. The ants have flourishing culture. They have restaurants and stores. They work hard to prepare. The difficulty is that a gigantic anteater is constantly after them. As is usually the case in these films, the big guy is confronted with a military salvo with tanks, troops, and other weapons. There is nothing really new here.