Orange Blossoms for Violet

Mel Blanc voices this live action tale of monkeys dressed up like people. Two monkeys in particular, who both lust for a monkey girl. Back in it's day monkeys acting like people shorts were all the rage. The people of the era couldn't get enough of it.. Today it wouldn't fly for fear of all the animal rights groups. They're the REAL Looney Tunes, i tell ya. Anyways for what it is, the short isn't that bad. Not really all that funny though. This animated short can be seen as an extra in the "From the Vaults" section on Disc 4 of the Looney Tunes Golden Collection Volume 2.

My Grade: C+

Little monkeys are dressed up pretending to be people in this live-action short. That's the appeal here. I guess it's supposed to be "cute" and "funny" and sometimes it is. Seeing a little monkey with a policeman's uniform on and directing traffic, or "Violet" with her curls looking into a small mirror, is so strange I had to laugh. I would guess it has been a number of years since this short of thing was done in films. Most absurd animal humor today is computer- generated.

"Fred," the town's "most eligible bachelor" could fit in today with a two-day growth, a ponytail and baggy clothes.

This is embarrassingly racist with a shoeshine "boy" with black-face and painted lips saying "Yowser!" However, I enjoyed his "scat" talk, which was pretty hip.

It isn't all monkeys. There are geese and poodles and other small animals. This kind of thing - animals who speak English - is still popular today, just done a lot better ("Babe," "Charlotte's Web," etc.)

This short feature was part of the Looney Tunes Golden Collection Volume 2.

Paramount (with producer Jerry Fairbanks) scored a popular "Speaking Of Animals" series during the years 1941-49, so it is no surprise Warner Brothers would do a little dabbling in "talking" animal shorts. However, this was a "one-shot" novelty, because the bulk of the footage was lifted from a 1923(?) short acquired by the studio. The big rumor was that the yet-to-be-identified comedy was produced by Mack Sennett during his First National stint... lately, the evidence points to Hal Roach's "Dippy Dood-Dad" series for Pathe. The age of the material may also account for the "socially incorrect" shoe-shine monkey in black-face (more of a spoof on Al Jolson in the sound version), although the editors probably didn't think future viewers would question the "joke".

Animation directors Chuck Jones and Friz Freleng assembled the footage of capuchin monkeys and goat, along with familiar voice artists Robert C. Bruce, Mel Blanc and Bea Benaderat. Thanks to the Looney Tune connection, the film has enjoyed a second life on DVD. Otherwise, it is little different than other silent film "re-edits" that Warner Brothers/Vitaphone made from First National and Vitagraph footage found in its vaults. Another Sennett film, narrated by Art Gilmore, is "Animal Antics", produced in 1949, but released in 1951 (the year this was completed).