Who's Who in Animal Land

This rather informatively tells us that a fierce, heavily-maned, lion is afraid of his missus before confirming that a giraffe has no vocal chords - then one here does it's best Mae West impersonation! Thereafter, we see a selection of a dozen or so wild and domesticated beasties from great big alpacas and bisons to tiny (but valuable chinchillas) who each have a brief quip for the camera before we are serenaded by some cows delivering a cheery "ditty from the city". That tops off this simple but entertaining enough go at humanising a variety of residents of the animal kingdom that incorporates some basic visual effects nicely and effortlessly passes ten minutes.

Various Animals are shown and speak up for themselves in this episode of the long-running series of Paramount shorts.

Producer Jerry Fairbanks won an Oscar for best one-reel movie with this episode -- I guess the voting members of the Academy were getting a bit tired of the war-themed titles offered for their consideration. Little others in the series, you got narrator Ken Carpenter talking about them for a bit, and then the beasts' mouths were animated so they could utter a one-line response. I found their quips rather weak, even when uttered by Sara Berner, Pinto Colvig, and Sterling Holloway, but the last sequence, in which a herd of cows sing "Cow Cow Boogie" is quite funny.

I saw this many years ago on the TONIGHT SHOW with Johnny Carson. Someone had shown it at a party he had attended and he loved it so much he borrowed the film to show on TV. It was/is hilarious and it's easy to see how it won the Academy Award for Best One-Reel Short of 1944. I wish someone would make it available again on VHS, DVD or run it on TV like Turner Classic movies or AMC (formerly American Movie Classic, now closer to Allot More Commercials) This was one of the best attempts at putting words in the mouths of animals, it's no BABE but it's a nice B&W early version with swing music added for punch!

I rate this film at 10 because of the singing cows. The Paramount Shorts were released by U.M&M. and N.T.A. in the 1950's. In the 1960's they were licensed to Blackhawk Films which offered 16mm prints to the home market. This included all sorts of various series put out by the Short Subject Unit at Paramount. I don't remember if the Little Lulu, Popeye & Betty Boop cartoons were offered at that time or not. Paramount had several other lesser known series which, over the years, have become practically forgotten. These include Speaking of Animals, Popular Science and Unusual Occupations. The rights to these last three series were purchased by some outfit doing business as Shield's Pictures. They put out a DVD on the website several years ago, declaring that "only 1000 copies are available" and "already they are being sold on Amazon for over $100.00." I have never seen one available on Amazon at all and judging by the fact that Shields Pictures is still offering copies for $20.00 after 5 years, it would seem that there isn't much market for any of these shows... EXCEPT for the herd of cows singing Cow Cow Boogie. It has been put up on YouTube and various other places time and again by various people, but Shield's Pictures is always right there demanding that it come down. This particular sequence has a real cult following and there are many fans who would love to watch it, however there is little chance of doing so unless you can locate a copy of the actual 16mm film that was sold in the past. They are out there and although it took me 10 years of searching to lay my hands on it, I finally found one on E-Bay. This was the only one of this series that I found of interest...the talking animal routine may have been hilarious in the 1940's, but a little bit of it goes a long ways and too much tends to cloy. As a result, I venture to guess that Shield's Pictures will be spending much more time and effort making sure that no one sees the Cows singing Cow Cow Boogie than they will marketing it - which is sad. However, once it turns 70 years of age, around 2015, it will probably fall into the Public Domain and Shields will no longer be able to hush those cows up...that is, if anyone is still listening by then.