The Unbearable Salesman

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. He is a lot of fun here and is never obnoxious or a jerk. He is suitably manic and while a pest (as he originally conceived to be) he is an annoyance to his opponent but comic joy for the viewer. Knothead and Splinter are very cute without being cloying and Charlie the bear is a character who is the butt of the laughs and takes them amusingly but one feels sorry for him too.

As to be expected from a Woody Woodpecker cartoon from the late 50s onward, 'The Unbearable Salesman' does suffer from weak animation quality, time and budget constraints started to show around this period. The drawing lacks refinement, the detail is static and simplistic and the colours are sometimes vibrant but often flat.

Woody's antics are typical, not exactly original and at times could have had sharper timing. Despite the setting, while the premise is fun and well done it is formulaic and doesn't have the inventiveness that 'Arts and Flowers', Woody from Mars' and particularly 'Niagara Fools'.

However, the music 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 snappy pace, especially in the second half.

There are some inventive moments here and the humorous elements are timed beautifully mostly and never less than amusing. Woody's antics, while lacking originality, are still fun to watch and have enough variety to stop them from being repetitive. The ending was a surprise and ends on an unusually sweet and soft note.

Voice acting from Daws Butler, June Foray and Grace Stafford is very fine. Stafford understands Woody more than her predecessors (even Mel Blanc) and although there is good reason why she was the most used of the voice actors to play the character she deserved much more credit than she did. Butler's voice for the bear is very distinctive, and Foray sounds adorable.

In conclusion, fun stuff and far from unbearable. 7/10 Bethany Cox

. . . no one's home was their castle of peace and quiet, as pushy purveyors of encyclopedias, brushes and vacuum cleaners felt entitled to brazenly pound on your front, back and side doors at all hours of the day, hawking their wares secure in the belief that few citizens had a Peacemaker readily at hand to stand their ground. However, THE UNBEARABLE SALESMAN started the ultimately successful drive to transfer our Beloved Amendment from the musty bailiwick of local militias to the awareness that individual Americans had an inalienable right to pack heat, especially within the cozy confines of their own homes.

A woody short I didn't grow up on, I was interested to see what this one would be like in terms of quality. To be honest, I was not at all disappointed one bit. To begin with, animation, while not great, does have some great facial expressions and some very vibrant and beautiful colors. The pacing is really great In this short, with each gag knowing how long to take with the setup and the execution. This means that even if a gag doesn't work for you, its quick pace means it doesn't linger on too much. The chemistry between woody and the beat also works, with woody not being annoying or openly malicious, but rather simply arrogant in a funny way. The bears suffering isn't too over stated, so we don't feel so sympathetic for him, but enough to where we as the audience understand his frustrations. Several great moments here, my favorite having to be when woody first shows up as the salesman and pulls out some outlandish stuff, plus the cannon gag near the end of the short. That one was really "blink and you'll miss it", but it was so abrupt to the point where it's randomness just got in so well if the rest of the short. Definitely a hidden gem for woody from this era, and I can easily recommend it to any woody fans.