Toyland Casino

Toyland Casino (1938)

** (out of 4)

If you're looking for something cute then you really don't have to look any further than this Warner two-reeler. However, if you're looking for something good then you're not going to find it here. What we basically have here is a talent show with kids doing all of the performances. We get dance routines, singing, jump rope and several other "tricks" being done by kids who all appear to be under the age of 12. I'm not going to lie, around the eight minute mark of this thing I was already getting bored out of my mind and that wasn't good because there were still several other acts to follow. I'm not going to go all out and bash the kids because that just wouldn't be right. Yes, some of them have very bad singing voices and some of the acts really weren't all that impressive but they're kids. The acts were at least cute and I guess that's all we could really ask for. While watching this short it reminded me of the talent shows that I used to be a part of in elementary school and looking back on them, we were cute but there wasn't too many good acts. That's the same here, although I noticed a few of the cast members would go onto have careers including Abbe Lane and Bobby Hastings who had credits up to a couple years ago.

In the 1920s and 30s, various studios tried creating their own versions of the Our Gang comedies--and most of them were pretty bad. This 1938 film appears to be a knock-off of the later Our Gang comedies--the ones that weren't nearly as funny and relied too much on kid talent shows. In fact, with "Toyland Casino" they don't even have a plot--just act after act singing and dancing. While this sounds pretty bad because of the lack of plot, it's worse because the kids are all a bunch of no-talents. It's no surprise that none of these kids went on to have big careers in Hollywood, as their singing was generally painful to hear. In fact, that is THE problem--the film isn't entertaining and is just painful from start to finish--sort of like if you are forced to attend some elementary school pageant where your kids aren't even performing! Just awful.