Ballyhooey

Alex Lovy is a difficult director to grasp. In my opinion, moat of his work lacks humor of any kind, and is mostly just character interactions. Despite this, during the waning of the golden age of animation in the late 50's-early 60's, his works were always watchable and interesting at least. "BallyHooey" is a relatively boring, but decent short. First off, the colors and animation, for the time, are perfectly fine. Colors are nice, and characters are drawn well. Not much detail, but as long as the animation itself moves smoothly, it's a win in my books. Concept itself is also refreshing, reminds a bit of "Little Televillian", which Lovy also directed. The overall pace and flow of the short in the second half is consistent and timed fine too. Unfortunately, the positives end there for me. The tv gags in the beginning half are really unfunny , only really fine for what they are. Also, the first half of the short is dedicated to these tv gags, which is honestly pretty a let down. Also, the chase between Woody and the guard doesn't have a proper resolution, and the ending is also unfunny and pretty unsatisfactory. It is still watchable, with nothing making the viewing experience absolutely torturous or anything like that, but honestly, even somebody like Paul J. Smith could've done more with the plot here. A real pity...

. . . BALLY-HOOEY argues. Unfortunately, only Woody Woodpecker seems able to permanently silence annoying television pitch people by shooting them through a cube tube screen. Celebrities would have to think twice when promoting a product whose sole purpose is to rip off the Public--think digital "currency"--if there were a real likelihood that swindled marksmen could blast away their million dollar facial features any time their ill-considered spiel ran, day or night. Since many TV influence sirs are too fragile to wear tactical gear, a bamboozled advertisement viewer would not have to be Buffalo Bill to instantly freeze any and all irons they may have in the fire.

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. While not quite the original manic Woody Woodpecker, he is far less toned down or subdued than he tended to be from mid-50s onwards, is always fun and never obnoxious, one roots for him too. The characters forming the quiz and commercials are fun to watch and fuel Woody's frustration and temper really well.

'Ballyhooey's' story is pretty slight at best and basically an excuse to string along the gags.

It is the animation that is the weak point. Time and budget constraints shows in some of the animation, which is a little rushed looking in the drawing and detail wise it's on the simplistic and careless side like many of Woody's cartoons from this period continuing through to the 60s.

On the other hand, the music however is bouncy, energetic and very lushly orchestrated, not only synchronising and fitting with the action very well but enhancing it. The whole cartoon goes at a lively pace, especially in the second half.

The gags are very funny and different to what was seen before with Woody Woodpecker, some of the better-timed ones in a while too and perfect for showing off Woody's temperament. The commercials with all the silly remedies and what they did were good fun, but it was the finding out that Woody's answer was the wrong one that amused me most in some way. The ending was surprising.

The voice work is solid, with Grace Stafford continuing to prove why she was the best voice actor for the character and the one that understood him the most.

Summing up, a lot of fun and one of the better late-50s Woody Woodpecker cartoons to me. 8/10 Bethany Cox