Alpine Antics

Alpine Antics (1936)

*** (out of 4)

There a skiing competition and Beans plans to enter so that he can win the grand prize. All is going well until a bully decides to try and cheat to get the victory.

ALPINE ANTICS is another charming film from the Leon Schlesinger Studios. While there really weren't any huge laughs here, the film itself was pleasant enough to make it worth watching for fans of animated pictures from this era. I thought the highlight of the picture was a scene early on when one of the characters decides to go swimming in the icy water. The majority of the film has plenty of nice action and there's a very good pace to it that keeps it moving quite well. There's certainly nothing ground-breaking here but it's a fun short.

"She was only an ice skater's daughter....." goes the song that accompanies the first minute of this old-fashioned cartoon centered around animals enjoying winter sports. After a bunch of silly but funny sights of different species skating and skiing, we come to the main characters.

A sign says, "Notice: Annual Ski-Race Today - $100,00,000 in prizes or a cool $2 in cash to the winner!"

Some little guy - the star of this cartoon - wants to win the race but a big bully comes by, demolishes his sled and walks away. The little man is undeterred. "I'll show that big stiff," he tells his girlfriend, "Kitty." and quickly makes a new pair of skis.

The rest of it - the bulk of the cartoon - is the big ski race. It reminded me of a Popeye cartoon with Bluto doing everything he can to sabotage the Sailor Man. Here, the big brute sabotages everyone in the race but you just know the little guy will find a way to beat him. Overall, it's pretty entertaining with some decent sight gags. It's not hilarious, but it will keep your interest as it maintains a high level of action.

"Alpine Antics" is a cartoon featuring a mostly forgotten character, Beans. Beans, I think is supposed to be a cat and here he and his nearly identical looking girlfriend are preparing for a ski race. All this occurs well into the film, as the first few minutes are a bunch of unrelated sight gags involving ice skating.

So much of this cartoon appears to be a knockoff of Disney. The character in the opening bit looks exactly like Disney's Clarabelle and the villain is very strongly inspired by Pete from "Steamboat Willie". But the big difference is that this cartoon, quality-wise, is far inferior to a Disney film of the day. Overall, inoffensive and easy to forget.

One of the early Looney Tunes cartoons - at this time, Porky Pig was their major star and Mel Blanc wasn't yet providing the voices - features a skiing race in which a bully does everything possible to sabotage everyone else's chances. But he didn't figure on Beans.

I noticed that the song played at the beginning ("She Was an Ice Skater's Daughter") had the same tune as the theme song in their later cartoon "She Was an Acrobat's Daughter". I wonder whether or not the tune influenced that song "Itsy Bitsy Teeny Weeny Yellow Polka Dot Bikini".

Oh well. Whatever the case, this is an OK cartoon. Warner Bros. cartoons hadn't yet taken the completely zany path that characterized them throughout the '40s and '50s (I think that they set about that path once the animators created Daffy Duck). Worth seeing, if only once.

Black & white Beans the Cat short featuring an early appearance from Porky Pig. Beans wants to join a skiing contest but a bully breaks his skis. So he fashions some more from the rails of his sled and joins the race, where he competes against the bully and several other animal characters, the only noteworthy one being Porky on a rocking horse (he doesn't speak). The animation is very nice, particularly the action. Good voice work and music. It's an enjoyable cartoon for what it is, made in the years when Warner Bros. was still sort of mimicking Disney. It's not that funny; more cute than anything else. It's worth a look if you're an animation buff and are a fan of the kinds of cartoons that were made in the 1930s.