She Was an Acrobat's Daughter

The title, "She Was an Acrobat's Daughter", is an odd one as there's nothing in this Looney Tunes cartoon about acrobats. I think the song you hear during the short is of this same name...but no acrobats were harmed during the making of this film.

There really isn't much plot to this cartoon. Instead, it's set in a movie theater of the day and it pokes fun of the various short subjects patron saw during the day. You see a Lowell Thomas newsreel, a sing-a-long, a clip of the hit Warner Brothers film "The Petrified Forest" and more. And, you see a bratty duck and other funny patrons.

Since this cartoon is so unique, in vivid color and is pretty clever, I score this one a 7.

This cartoon will provide a real nostalgia trip for middle-aged Baby Boomers. Back when old Looney Tunes were routinely shown on daytime television, this one was in heavy rotation. I must have seen it a dozen times as a kid and found the gags funny every time, but then it seemed to vanish into one of those mysterious cartoon vaults someplace for decades until just recently, when it re-emerged on DVD in the third volume of Warner Bros.' superb Looney Tunes Golden Collection. Seeing 'She Was an Acrobat's Daughter' again after all this time is kind of like having a happy reunion with an old friend from grade school who, oddly enough, looks exactly the same and can still make you laugh.

This cartoon doesn't feature a familiar star such as Porky Pig or Daffy Duck, but instead offers a mixed group of animal characters as they attend a matinée at the local movie theater. The humans seen on screen are all caricatures of then-famous personalities such as Lowell Thomas, Leopold Stokowski, and comic Lew Lehr. (As a kid I recognized Lowell Thomas from current news programs and Stokowski from Disney's Fantasia, but Lehr's fame didn't last long after his death in 1950. His caricature pops up in several vintage cartoons but I think he just bewilders most people now.) There are puns galore, and the gags fly thick and fast: theater patrons scramble to change seats to get a better view; a hippo annoys everyone around him by repeatedly getting up and moving back and forth down the aisle; and everyone joins in the singalong and dutifully follows the lyrics that flash on the screen, even when the operator accidentally inserts a slide instructing patrons not to spit on the floor. The highlight is a brief but devastating parody of the Warner Studio's recent hit release The Petrified Forest, featuring cartoon versions of stars Leslie Howard and Bette Davis which, I'll wager, did not amuse the subjects if they saw this short. (Humphrey Bogart was in the original too, but wasn't yet considered a big enough star to be spoofed.) In the end a young duck invades the projection booth, commandeers the projector and turns the cinematic experience into chaos.

The DVD includes a commentary track by animation historian Greg Ford who makes the case that this cartoon marked a turning point for the Termite Terrace guys, the first genuinely loony "Looney Tune" to break the mold of the staid mini-musicals they'd been compelled to produce up to this time. And it's true, this one feels like a full-fledged Warner Bros. cartoon classic, wild and anarchic, fast-paced and full of great gags. I'm glad this little gem finally busted out of the vault and is on the loose again!

It's a night at the movies and the first thing we see is a game of "musical chairs" in the packed movie theater. (Did people move seats a lot back in the '30s?)

Then, the "Warmer Brothers Presents Goofy-Tune News" begins the evening's entertainment on screen. It starts with a takeoff on Lowell Thomas with "Dole Promise" giving the latest news of the day. Eddie Cantor is then parodied. Also, the filmmakers make light of the problem of sitting in the front row, of heavy people getting out of their seats and squeezing in front of people as they head to the aisle.

Returning to the news, the feature story is about a town (Boondoggle) that is literally going to the dogs. Mostly we hears puns regarding the word "dogs" and expressions of the day that used the word "dog." By now, 70 years later, they aren't funny, just very corny.

The second half of this 8.4-minute cartoon is pre-feature movie provided by "Stickoutski At The Fertilizer" another cornball play-on-words for a famous conductor at the Wurlizter organ. Finally, the film begins: "The Petrified Florist," another takeoff, of course, but we only see a little bit of that because a little duck goes up in the projection room (there is no projectionist?) and ruins things.

Almost all this cartoon is lame, sad to say. There is nothing funny in here. The only positive thing about it is the tremendous restoration job done on it. The colors and sharpness are amazing, as are most of the 'toons on these Golden Collection DVDs.

Even though not all of the humour worked, 'She Was an Acrobat's Daughter' was still mostly very entertaining. A relatively early Looney Tunes/ Merrie Melodies effort for Fritz Freleng, this is not him at his best with his masterpieces coming much better, but there is no mistaking his style and it's hard not to like.

What made some of the humour not come off as well as they should is that any caricatures, puns or gags unfamiliar to anybody will no doubt go over their heads. This is particularly true of the Lew Lehr (quite amusingly re-named as Who Dehr) caricature, prior knowledge for me was next to zero so the caricature, on top of being quite stereotypical and not particularly funny, was lost on me. Some of the puns are a bit corny and because they are so of the time they don't hold up as well as they should.

In terms of animation quality, the cartoon is quite beautifully done, with lovingly detailed backgrounds and vibrant colours. The music brims with lively energy and luscious orchestration, not only being dynamic to the action and adding to it but enhancing it as well.

Other parts of 'She Was an Acrobat's Daughter' are very funny indeed, especially the musical number, which was hilariously inspired, and the baby duckling interjections, that could have easily been annoying but was a lot of fun. The Leopold Stokowski caricature is very much recognisable and funny, mainly for being known as one of the greatest conducting figures of the 20th century and ever but also because he has been caricatured in animation so often.

'She Was an Acrobat's Daughter' is light on plot, to the point of being described as virtually plot less, but this is compensated by (apart from the odd laboured bit where the humour doesn't quite work) very energetic, sometimes wild, pacing. The characters are mostly good fun, and the voice work is terrific, especially Mel Blanc.

Summing up, an interesting and fun cartoon if variable in the execution of the humour (thankfully hitting more than it misses). 8/10 Bethany Cox

Watching "She Was an Acrobat's Daughter", I quickly figured out that it was going to spoof a famous movie of its era (in this case, "The Petrified Forest", which I've never seen). In a movie theater, the audience plays an over-the-top version of musical chairs, a fat hippo irks some people by getting out of and into his seat, and some other silly things abound before the newsreel replete with puns tells of events in the world. Maestro Stickoutski (they loved playing with people's names, didn't they?) has the audience sing the title song along with some slides, even when the wrong slide gets entered. But when a baby duck starts pissing some people off, that's when the action really gets going! True, we in the 21st century will probably have few if any clues what they're talking about. But if we can imagine ourselves watching the cartoon when it first debuted in 1937, getting every one of the jokes, it's very easy to enjoy the cartoon. Of course, it's a hoot even if you don't know what it spoofs. One can see how the guys behind these cartoons liked to come up with the most twisted things possible. Worth seeing.

"Bacall to Arms" portrayed a similar series of events.