The Bookworm Turns

It's a 9 min MGM cartoon. Poe's Raven is going out of his mind thinking that he's not feeling well. He seeks the help of Dr. Jekyll. The Bookworm wants more excitement. Jekyll works to exchange Raven and Bookworm's brains. The Bookworm should be the protagonist and should start the show. The story meanders a bit with a bit of action. It could be better. All in all, the premise has potential but the plot needs some rewriting.

I absolutely love this cartoon! I've only seen it two or three times, but I love 1) cartoons 2) Edgar Allen Poe's "The Raven" and 3) books. I keep hoping that they'll run it again on Cartoon Network. I couldn't remember the exact title. I knew it started with "The Bookworm..," and now I know. This really makes my day! This one is really worth seeing. Highly recommended!

Poe's Raven is feeling down, so he goes for medical help from Doctor Jekyll. Meanwhile, the bookworm is an interested observer as matters get out of hand.

Friz Freleng did uncredited work on this, and I'd wager that he supervised the character animation, leaving the effects of a Tesla Coil cutting loose to nominal director Hugh Harman. Freleng has jumped from Schlesinger's employ, hoping for more congenial and better paid work at MGM.... and was promptly assigned to the Captain and the Kids series. When the contract was up, it was back to Termite Terrace, where the boss didn't care what he did.

The Bookworm and the unnamed crow return for mote hijinks. This time Dr. Jekyll convinces the crow that he needs a brain. He performs an experiment that leaves the crow and the bookworm too big for their britches.

Hugh Harman continued to produce very lush cartoons once he returned to MGM. He never mastered story telling and as a result the continuity of his shorts tend to be very uneven. He also resisted comedy and some have criticized his attempts.

This short however manages to wow with impressive effects animation while containing some nuanced comedy. Mel Blanc's performance and dialogue with the crow, moreso after he gets a brain, is hilarious. And unlike many of Harman's other MGM shorts, this one is solid from start to finish; No uneven conclusions. The crows last line is especially funny how the viewer almost anticipates him swearing.

Some sources arrtibute authorship to Friz Freleng, but he was long gone by the time production started.

The sequence of the bookworm going through the glass tubes is reused from an earlier MGM short titled BOTTLES.

Unfortunately, this has never been released on any video format. We must lobby WB for a complete collection of the Harman-Ising cartoons.