Sleepy Time Possum

Robert McKimson's 'Sleepy Time Possum' is yet further proof that McKimson is an underrated director. A very, very funny cartoon, 'Sleepy Time Possum' pit's a chronically lazy possum against his wily father, who disguises himself as a hunting dog in order to scare his son into doing his chores. The ensuing battle is full of hilarious gags executed with a deft timing McKimson is rarely given credit for. For a cartoon based around the concept of laziness, 'Sleepy Time Possum' is full of energetic set pieces and frantic chases. The ending is unexpected and entirely satisfying. For those who write McKimson off as an inferior director, 'Sleepy Time Possum' should be part of the required viewing.

This Looney Tunes short is a big departure from the norm, as none of the characters are familiar. Instead, it's about a cute family of opossums and their problem child. It seems that Junior is very lazy and all he wants to do is sleep. So, Dad comes up with a strange plan--to dress up like a dog and scare the boy into waking up. Still, however, despite the costume, the boy is seriously intent on sleeping and scheme after scheme to rouse the boy seem to be fruitless. In many ways, it plays a lot like a Wiley Coyote and Roadrunner cartoon--with weird plans, gadgets and the like. But, being an early 50s short, the animation is higher quality (in the mid-late 50s, the cartoons and especially backgrounds were MUCH simpler). So is it worth seeing? Yes. It's cute and original. Not brilliant but quite nice.

Oh, and by the way, despite what you see in this cartoon, possums cannot hang by their tails--this is a myth.

One of Robert McKimson's miscellaneous cartoons features a pair of hick possums trying to get their lazy son to do chores, to the point where the father dresses as a dog to scare the tyke...but the little guy turns out to be the Road Runner of possums! Two of McKimson's one-shot cartoons that come to my mind feature animals not usually seen in Warner Bros. cartoons. Aside from "Sleepy Time Possum" there was "Swallow the Leader" (starring swallows). I wonder what was up with that. Whatever it was, this is still worth seeing. Watching McKimson's cartoons, I notice that his characters have really prominent mouths, as opposed to the prominent eyes in cartoons by other directors (compare the Bugs Bunny in Chuck Jones's and Friz Freleng's cartoons with that in McKimson's cartoons).

All in all, the possum-bilities are limitless.

Robert McKimson may not be among my favourite animation directors but I do like him and his cartoons a fair bit. And Sleepy Time Possum is one of his best. It is very nicely animated, apart from the first scene between the mother and father possum which was a little scrappy, the colours are beautiful to look at and on the most part it is fluid. Carl Stalling's music is as lovely and energetic as ever, I have always admired how it's orchestrated and how it enhances the action and gags and Sleepy Time Possum is no exception. The dialogue is very funny and helped even more by Mel Blanc's bravura voice acting for all three characters. The pacing has energy, the chases are wonderfully frantic and orchestrated in a way that doesn't make them routine and the gags(most of the humour in Sleepy Time Possum in fact comes from the visual gags) all make their mark, there's plenty of them and they are memorable indeed. The characters are engaging too, the father possum being the funniest one. In conclusion, there is lots of fun to be had with Sleepy Time Possum, it is one of McKimson's best, not just of his miscellaneous stuff but overall(the rating might disagree but I put that down more to not many people having seen it). 10/10 Bethany Cox