This Little Piggie Went to Market

Just watched this Max Fleischer Screen Song cartoon on YouTube. It depicts various customers entering a movie theatre as an usher commands many exiting patrons to get out. Inside, we see the beginning of a "Para-Uni-Metrix-Patho-Foxy News" reel with cartoon logos of the Lion, Rooster, a Globe with a plane going around it, and a Mountain making music like a musical steam ship. Various gag-filled "news" items abound in a highly amusing manner before a live-action show of a now-forgotten entertainer named Singin' Sam warbles an updated version of the title song. After that comes one more animated gag of a trailer for something called The Beginning. On that note, This Little Piggy Went to Market is worth a look for any Max Fleischer enthusiasts out there.

This Little Piggie Went to Market (1934)

*** (out of 4)

The Fleischer Studio produced a number of these animated short films where the "bouncing ball" would have audience members singing together. The animation portion of this short is a bit different than what we see in others in the series. Instead of one long animated story we instead get several little ones and there are some funny ones included. Singin' Sam then comes on and introduces himself and then we get to the title song and the bouncing ball. If you're a fan of the series then you'll enjoy this one as once again the animation is excellent and it certainly steals the picture. The song itself was also quite good and Singin' Sam delivered a nice version.