The Goal Rush

Ub Iwerks's Flip the Frog series of cartoons was short lived, only lasting from 1930 to 1933. On the most part the Flip the Frog cartoons are not great or cartoon/animated masterpieces and it is sort of understandable as to why Flip didn't make it bigger. However they are far from terrible ones either and do hold some interest, enough of them even being good.

Despite not being historically significant like 'Fiddlesticks', which other than that was actually to me a lesser Flip the Frog cartoon, was, 'The Goal Rush' is still pretty good. Not one of the best of the series, but far from one of the worst. It is not perfect but there are things here that improve quite a bit and done much better than many other Flip the Frog cartoons.

A lot of good things in 'The Goal Rush'. The animation is very good good, with beautifully detailed backgrounds, nice shading and characters that aren't drawn too crudely. There is some nice character animation here. The music makes even more of an impact, it is lushly and cleverly orchestrated, full of lively energy and not only adds brilliantly to the action it enhances it.

There are plentiful sight gags, and they are beautifully timed and very amusing, even when unoriginal. Maybe not always hilarious but they hardly fall flat. There is a nice natural charm and a good deal of zest.

Characters are lively. There is a lot of excitement and fun as well as a sense of danger. The pacing is generally secure and the sentimentality is thankfully kept at bay.

Flip is a bit bland still though, he never was one of animation's most compelling, most interesting or personality-filled lead characters.

A lack of originality and moving forward too, there is some gag borrowing and reuse here and with not enough freshness. Some sloppy timing on occasions too.

Overall, pretty good. 7/10 Bethany Cox

The Goal Rush (1932)

*** (out of 4)

The title of this Flip the Frog short is an obvious take-off on Chaplin's THE GOLD RUSH but there are no similarities in the story. In this short, Flip is on a college football team where they're going up against a very large group of men who they must try and find a way to defeat.

THE GOAL RUSH isn't the best film from the Ub Iwerks' Flip series but once again there's enough creative stuff going on to make it worth watching. The animation is of a high level and there's no doubt that the Flip character is rather entertaining. This film contains some rather nice action including plenty of it on the football field where Flip spends most of the running time getting beat around.

The "goal" in the title may be a play-on-words for Charlie Chaplin's famous "The Gold Rush," but the "goal" here refers to the goal-line at a football game.

It's the big game between Nerts U. and Burp U. The good guys are "Nerts."

By the way, those of you have seen a number of early 1930s cartoons - and particularly these Flip The Frog ones - have you noticed how big the word "nerts" must have been back then? They use it a lot. I assume it's just another way of saying "aw, nuts."

As in almost every cartoon involving a sporting event, the action is fast and furious, and insane. This is no exception and was very good while the action was on the gridiron. When it switched near the end to a farm scene (don't ask how they got there) it got too silly but overall it was fun.

On the football field, I enjoyed the sight-gags involving the referee's whistle; the elastic goal posts; the crying scoreboard, Flip's knocking knees, the wing-sprouting football, and the pigskin actually meeting a real pig. Yes, this is nonstop lunacy.

Usually, the Flip cartoons have the aerodynamics of a rock-they don't fly well because Flip is a cipher. Here, it isn't necessary for our young stalwart to have much charm or personality, because he's a football player (American style football, that is) and the plot is basic-he's playing a football game. Technically exceptional, as the Iwerks shorts generally were, this one is actually entertaining. Sure, a lot of the gags are familiar. But this cartoon predates most of the other shorts with similar themes from other studios. Enjoyable, if not as good as Football Toucher Downer (Fleischer), How To Play Football (Disney) or the Warner Brothers entries. Good short nonetheless. Well worth watching and good to see in print on DVD. Recommended.