The Novelty Shop

An obscure mid 1930's technicolor cartoon that is loaded with classic comedians. The Marx Brothers, Laurel & Hardy The Three Stooges and Eddie Cantor can be seen as cartoon characters. The story is about an old toymaker who closes shop for the night. As he departs the Toy Store his inventory all come to life. Laurel and Hardy have several scenes. There are three necklaces that turn into The Three Stooges. Later there are three buxom ladies dancing only to turn around and reveal The Marx Brothers. When the toy maker returns to work all of the toys scramble to be back in place just as he left them. There were several cartoons that had a similar theme such as The Brave Tin Soldier, Mother Goose Goes Hollywood and The Soda Squirt.

When the elderly proprietor of a novelty shop closes up, all the knick-knacks for sale come alive and party in this Columbia cartoon directed by Arthur Davis.

It's an early example of the genre, in which, typically, brand names or characters from currently popular books would be animated. Because the style had not been fully set at the time, there are a few examples of celebrity caricatures, with Laurel & Hardy, the Three Stooges and the Marx Brothers making appearances, but mostly it's random examples of cheap gimcracks, like Mexican jumping beans and pipe-cleaner dogs and cactus plants. It's done in the rapidly-disappearing "synchronized" style of animation, in which the motion is matched to the music, rather than the sound style that began with the ability to match talking to mouth movements.

For the young public, it reminds The Night at museum. For the older, it is nice meet with Marx Brothers, Laurel and Hardy or Eddie Cantor. For many, the memories about old shops is the basic virtue of this not great but nice short animation. The flavors of childhood, that is the lead virtue, for me, of this lovely short film.

Finally! Been waiting for a cartoon like this since the last time I watch a similar-themed one. Where are these cartoons? They are the very best. One character used once, in a cartoon never to return, sadly. These are the best. There is so much to see in every cell that it needs multiple re-watches.

For those who aren't familiar with the era, you'll notice 3 Kewpie dolls, at the end returning to their cards, in a play on (silent) words, posing as Cupids. Very charming, extremely well done. I'm sadly removing 1 star for those creepy dolls with the black hair and black eyes and screechy singing. UGH! Had no place here.

As for Martin Hafer, I think your wife does LSD when you're not around the house, wink! And as for the other that said "lacked in laughs"... who watches cartoons to laugh?! Do you laugh at the recurring stupidity of Jerry hitting Tom repeatedly? Does seeing the same idiotic Beep-Beep bird hurting coyote leave you in stitches?? Cos it sure doesn't me! Perhaps you think Bugs is hilarious, huh? Well, I don't. Those are lame cartoons.

This one goes on my to-buy-DVD list. Coulda been a 10/10 but a 9/10 is much closer to what it deserves, what those clueless dummies can't appreciate and they need to stay away from classy cartoons and watch their moronic aforementioned cookie-cutter cartoon crap instead!

"The Novelty Shop" is a cartoon from Columbia Pictures and it reminds me of many other cartoons by studios like Disney and Warner Brothers. In all of them, once the humans have left, the characters in a shop all come to life and dance about until the shop owner returns. The only major differences were that there was (thank goodness) no singing and the characters included the likes of The Three Stooges, The Marx Brothers, and Laurel & Hardy.

Overall, there isn't a lot of story in this one. My wife thought it was all pretty weird and thought the animators were 'on LSD'! I thought it was a bit sappy and lacked laughs...but the animation quality was decent.