The Homeless Flea

A wandering flea finds a dog and sets up a camp, much to the dog's discomfort, in this funny cartoon from Rudolf Ising.

Ising was one of Walt Disney's Kansas City animators, who came with him to Hollywood. They parted ways in 1929, when Harman, Ising and Friz Freleng trying to sell a new variety of talking cartoons; this eventually grew into Looney Tunes & Merrie Melodies. After Schlesinger got their staff from them, they began to release their cartoons through MGM. This is one of Ising's later ones; he did some war work, then went into advertising.

It's worth noting that, despite his position as a pioneer of sound cartoons, this one is basically a silent slapstick.

A flea hobo comes upon a gated property. He finds a home on a sleeping dog and builds a campfire. The dog is shocked by his burning fur. It becomes a battle between the dog and the flea.

This is a Rudolf Ising MGM cartoon. It's not terribly imaginative, but it does have plenty of physical fun. The campsite is all the imagination. I don't really like the ending. I'm not sure if I understand the final visual. It's the flea on a fire hydrant casting a shadow on the moon. I wonder if it's like the Amblin logo. If so, I don't know the reference. I would have preferred some compromise where the flea finds a home.

Hapless, helpless dog and a flea looking for a home.

This cartoon from MGM has lots of laughs (mainly at the dog's expense) and takes a wry and unusual look at the life of the flea - for example, he cuts trees down with an axe (actually the dog's hairs) and puts up a home sweet home sign.

A romp in usual slapstick style, like other contemporary cartoons such as Tom & Jerry, The Homeless Flea creates two likable characters and is genuinely funny. Nice Technicolor too, and some neat effects, especially when the flea hides behind eye-glasses and within a lamp, causing the dog to panic and think there are more than one of him.

Loved animation as a child, still do and have made that very clear numerous times to the point perhaps of sounding like a broken record. Apologies for that and will make every effort to continue to do it much less. Having been trying very hard to address any saminess (which has already decreased significantly), that seems to be why somebody has been causing me a lot of anxiety and increasing ill health excessively down-voting my reviews since November (most of them actually being for no reason), a ridiculously huge amount each time in a short period of time which is very immature and has been very upsetting and is to stop right now.

Anyway, back onto reviewing 'The Homeless Flea', it has to be admitted that this commentator is not as big a fan of Rudolf Ising. Do not hate him mind, far from it, enough of his cartoons have been more than watchable and are very well made and scored. Especially his contributions to the Tom and Jerry cartoons. Enough of them also tend to be on the saccharine and somewhat bland side, with variable humour and characters and practically non-existent storytelling. Despite the pretty low rating, actually consider 'The Homeless Flea' one of Ising's better cartoons, or at least of his solo efforts.

Expectedly, its weakest, or more like least well done, asset is the story. Namely though because so much effort has been put into everything else and meanwhile the story is slight at best.

On the other hand, when it comes to the numerous good, or more like great, things, the animation is especially brilliant, it is rich in detail for design and backgrounds, vibrant in colour and crisp. Also pretty imaginative. Just as good is the music score, again as to be expected it is very lushly orchestrated, energetic and atmospheric, perfectly synchronised with the action and actually enhancing it. What do you expect though from Tex Avery and 'Tom and Jerry' regular Scott Bradley, who never disappoints?

The characters are very engaging and have a lot of personality, a big improvement over a lot of Ising (and also Hugh Harman) cartoon characters. With an entertaining titular character. Who knew that the life of a flea could be as wry and surprisingly intriguing as here in 'The Homeless Flea'? There is a lot of charm and 'The Homeless Flea' has very funny gags which to be honest reading the premise was unexpected and pleasantly surprising. The dog is the funnier character and more interesting, rooted for him more actually, and the chemistry between the two is great.

Summarising, very well made and funnier than most Ising cartoons. 8/10