La Zapatería Encantada

One cold winter's night long long ago, there lived a poor old shoemaker and his wife. The cobbler is overwhelmed with work and became sick. He is about to eat his last bit of bread. Instead he gives it to the freezing birds outside. It turns out that the birds are actually elves and they help him finish all his work.

This is a cartoon adaptation of a Brothers Grimm tale from Tex Avery. I am not sure that I like the realistic paintings of the shoes. They feel a little too real. I'm not completely against the idea either. Ultimately, this has no familiar characters and that holds back somewhat.

The basic themes and elements are nothing new-it's basically The Shoemaker and the Elves revisited. But Tex Avery had a tendancy to take the conventional and stretch and twist it into something quite odd indeed! This is not your grandfather's fairy tale! Chuck Jones once quoted Rafael Sabbatini to describe Tex Avery and I'll close with that here: He was born with the gift of laughter and a belief that the world was mad. That, my friends, I submit, is a description of genius and fits Tex Avery quite well. Well worth watching. Most recommended.

Tex Avery uses the old fairy tale of the poor cobbler and the brownies as a hook to hang an assort of gags on in this standard-for-him cartoon.

his being a Tex Avery movie, it's all about cramming as many gags into the space as six minutes will permit, which he proceeds to do. There are some interesting sequences showing footwear dancing that looks like it was rotoscoped. Otherwise it's all standard Avery hilarity.

A remake of Friz Freleng's 1946 "Holiday for Shoestrings." As much as I like Tex's works, it's kind of sad that he lifted the whole cartoon, tightening up the gags a little too much. Poor second to "Holiday..."

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 he ever did. Avery did do better than 'The Peachy Cobbler', cartoons that are more original and more inventive visually and in narrative but it's still very well made and entertaining. Even when Avery was not quite at the top of his game he put many other animation directors to shame and the cartoons in general much better than many at their worst. Hope that doesn't sound too hyperbolic, unfair or ignorant.

The story is a fairly conventional one, basically 'The Elves and the Shoemaker' story with an Avery twist that is well done but done more imaginatively and cleverly in other cartoons of his based on famous stories. Occasional limitations show in the background art.

However, much of the animation is very good. Very rich in colour, the backgrounds have mostly good detail and the character designs are distinctively Avery in style and are fluid in movement. The music, courtesy of Scott Bradley, is lushly and cleverly orchestrated, with lively and energetic rhythms and fits very well indeed, even enhancing the action.

Can't fault Avery, whose style is all over, nor the dynamic voice acting from Daws Butler and the very engaging characters. The pacing is very lively and like one would expect from Avery 'The Peachy Cobbler' is very funny and well timed.

Overall, well made and entertaining. 8/10 Bethany Cox