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.
Also have much admiration for Tex Avery, an animation genius whose best cartoons are animated masterpieces and some of the best cartoons ever made by anybody. Having said that, not everything he has done has turned immediately into gold but even his not-so-classic and lesser efforts are still worth seeing and better than most at their worst. This is the case with 'Hamateur Night'. Egghead is not a very compelling or particularly funny character here, not crazy about his design either and a better job could have been done with giving more variety to his role in the cartoon which was more repetitive one-joke than anything else.
Humour-wise, 'Hamateur Night' is amusing, with some entertainingly bad (in an intentional way) acts, and there aren't many misfires, excepting Egghead, but not much is hilarious either. Some parts are better than others, nothing wrong with the acts but it was the audience reaction (especially the hippo) that fares most delightfully.
Egghead's design aside, the animation is vibrant, rich in detail and mostly nicely drawn if lacking at times the fluidity and refinement of Avery's very finest (most of which are from his MGM period). A big star is Carl Stalling's music score and the clever insertions and arrangements of pre-existing music, a Stalling trademark and one of his biggest strengths as a composer. The music here is lush and characterful, with clever orchestration and a mastery of not just adding to the action but enhancing it as well (Stalling was a near-unequalled master at this, though Scott Bradley gave him a run for his money).
Voice acting is very good, if not a tour-De-force like these immensely talented voice actors frequently showed they were more than capable of.
In summary, pretty good but one can't help feeling disappointed. 7/10 Bethany Cox
