The Little Bantamweight

A rooster trains his flock of newly hatched chicks for the "Golden Spurs" boxing championship. One of them has no interest in any of this fighting stuff At the competition, with all the others knocked out, Poppa Rooster has to put the unfledged chick into the ring.

It's another of the Harman-Ising cartoons done for MG, and as usual, the money shows on the screen, if not in the script. Rudy Ising, who seems to have directed this one, tended to make cartoons that relied less on cuteness and more on gag sequences, and there are some decent ones here.

The roosters, hens and chicks have good faces. It's a dumb cartoon. Very violent, all about boxing. How much more dumb can you get? And again with the violence, already back in 1938. Were these animators all perverts already back then? Who in their right mind and with the moral code, Hays Code, would let this be shown to kids? Inane! 2 stars for the nice eyes of the animals but that's about it.

It's the Golden Spur Tournament for Junior Bantam Weights. When the eggs start hatching, the rooster sees a champ in one of his sons. Then there is the runt of the litter. It's the Happy Harmonies from MGM. This one is from Rudolf Ising. I would make the runt completely different. I'm not sure if he's compelling enough. He seems to be inspired by Popeye. It's not the most imaginative way to end this. This is fine but just fine.

Love animation, it was a big part of my life as a child, particularly Disney, Looney Tunes and Tom and Jerry, and still love it whether it's film, television or cartoons. Rudolf Ising's output is very hit and miss, and so is the Happy Harmonies series. Some cartoons were good (the best very good) and many were average or less. It did not sound great and the premise was not appetising, but 'The Little Bantamweight' was still seen anyway for lesser-known animation completest sake.

'The Little Bantamweight' does very little to make an unappealing idea more appealing, quite the opposite actually. Have seen a lot of things that did make something interesting and clever out of less than appealing ideas, but this is not one of those cases. It has a few good things that are done very well indeed, enough to raise it above mediocre level, but the too many flaws in the more crucial areas made it very difficult, nigh on impossible really, to rate it above average. Terrible it isn't, but it isn't particularly good either.

Beginning with the good things, the animation is vibrant and fluid with lovingly crafted and detail background art. Nothing looks rushed or static. Even better is the music, it is lushly orchestrated and very characterful in an energetic way that is not matched enough in the story and gags.

Did also think that some of the violence was clever and well-choreographed visually and there were a few mildly amusing but never hilarious moments.

On the other hand, a lot is wrong. It is just not very funny or even amusing, the gags are too few and what there is has a recycled, tired feel. That tiredness is obvious also in the story, which is slight to the point of non-existence and predictable when there is any. Pace wise, the cartoon is pretty dull due to some of the material being over-stretched to make up for the content being too little in quantity.

Personally found the lead character very unappealing and difficult to root for, not much personality and veering on annoying. The violence lacks subtlety and wit and the cleverness of some of the visuals is not consistent, too much is lazy and not always in good taste.

Very average and nothing special all in all. 5/10.