Dance of the Weed

This rarely-seen cartoon from Rudolph Ising shows that he was still watching what the competition was doing and trying to equal or better it -- Fantasia had come out the year before and this looks like his reply to it. But to my taste it doesn't work, marred by the excessive sentimentality and "it's for the kiddies" mentality that lingered at his and Hugh Harman's studio.

Hanna and Barbera had already moved across the hall to work for Fred Quimby directly at MGM, taking their vicious streaks with them, and while FANTASIA could do with one or two "for the kiddies" sequence among its variety of offerings, this solo short must be viewed on its own merits: beautifully backgrounded, lovely music conducted by the talented Scott Brady, but utterly banal. There's nothing wrong in doing something for the kiddies, but I could watch A CORNY CONCERTO, Termite Terrace's reply to FANTASIA, with pleasure when I was three and I can still watch it with pleasure half a century later. That's the difference between competence and greatness.

Ising learned and he did start to turn out cartoons fit for man as well as boy. But it was too little and too late.

The title character of the weed is a bumbling simple country boy. He struggles to find his way in the world until he meets a beautiful flower. I thought this was an anti-marijuana short until I saw the Rudolf Ising credit. I'm guessing that it's his riff on Fantasia which came out a year earlier. The colors aren't as sharp. The imagery is not as imaginative. It's a short.

After Disney did Fantasia it seems that a lot of the early work of it's rivals, Warner Bros. and MGM started having a lot of that film's feel blended into a number of their own works - the use of no dialog with just actions and music, "sound effects" done by musical instruments like flutes, cymbals, and xylophones (to name a few), and lovely animation. Dance of the Weed was one of the lot of those cartoons that MGM's Rudolf Ising cranked out with a Fantasia-like feel... and he did a beautiful job here.

The story concerns, well, a weed who wants acceptance by the other flowers and plants in the meadow where he lives. He is the laughingstock of the meadow and is picked on by all. Then he runs into a pretty little flower who likes to ballet dance along with her sister flowers and falls in love with her. The Weed tries to dance along with them, but in his lankiness trips all over the place and all of the flowers regard him as a complete oaf. He wins the girl flower's heart however, when he bravely saves her from some nasty snapdragons.

The ballet dance parts with the flowers is indeed very Fantasia-like, and it comes across as dazzling. The colors of the animation here are just the right shades to give one the misty feel of the meadow in the early morning hours, the lushness of the fields and forest where the flowers and Weed dance, and the darkness where the snapdragon lives. The one thing that also must be said is the character of the Weed. You get a genuine feel for him. He looks like a fool and acts like one, but damn it, you like him. Then we really like him when we find out that this clumsy fool has the heart of a warrior.

The one drawback to Dance of the Weed is it's rarity. I only saw it twice in the 80's and only just now have I been able to see it on Cartoon Network's sister channel Boomerang (a space of about 20 years between viewings!). My best advice is to keep your attention glued to Boomerang in case it is played more often. However, you can get a taste with a few clips of it on the first DVD volume of Tom And Jerry in the special features section entitled "The Music of MGM".

It's extreme rareness is irritating, but if you do happen to catch Dance of the Weed be prepared for one of the most beautiful works to come out of early MGM.

So apparently, MGM cartoon studio composer Scott Bradley composed and conducted this film's score before any animation was done. I think that detail alone makes this work well as a visual narrative executed through the art of sound and pictures working in tandem beautifully. It's definitely not hard to compare this to Fantasia (which came out the year before), especially given that director Rudolf Ising was one of Walt Disney's earliest colleagues. While nowhere near as groundbreaking as that ambitious feature, this short still shows how much genuine artistry and passion you can put into such a basic premise of a weed and flower courting each other through pantomime dance.

This is easily one of Ising's finest works he ever got to make, and one that I think is in need of at least some rediscovery.

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. Know Rudolf Ising for his cartoons that have a cute approach with a lot of sentiment. There have been times where this approach has been done sweetly and charmingly, there have also been other times where it can be too cutesy and cloying. Saw 'Dance of the Weed' quite late in the game, after seeing comparisons to one of my favourites 'Fantasia'.

'Dance of the Weed' really impressed me on the whole, and it didn't strike me as over cute or over sentimental. It's very charming and visually and musically absolutely gorgeous, to me it is one of Ising's better, best looking and most interesting cartoons regardless of the expected slightness (all of Ising's cartoons are slight narratively, some more so than others) of the plot. While it is not ground breaking or ahead of the time level as 'Fantasia', as others have said the influence is obvious.

The best aspect of 'Dance of the Weed' is the animation, which is just gorgeous. Especially in the dancing sequences, and it is rich in detail for design and backgrounds, vibrant in colour and crisp. The dance of the flowers definitely has a 'Fantasia' influence. Composer for the prime-era 'Tom and Jerry' cartoons and regular Tex Avery composer Scott Bradley provides a lush and atmospheric music score that enhances the action so beautifully and seamlessly.

Dancing just enchants in the animation and in the atmosphere, as someone who has adored ballet since six years old watching such beautifully animated and balletic dancing in animation really took me back. It is a very charming cartoon without ever being sickly sweet or sentimental and while the pace is not thick and fast it isn't dull either because the perfect marriage of visuals and music captivates so much. The characters engage, especially the weed, the very definition of a fool with a heart of gold.

For all those outstanding qualities they are not quite enough to disguise that the story is one that is immediately forgotten by the viewer quickly and it's best to keep it that way. There's nothing new about it, not much of one at all and it's not hard to tell where it's all going to go.

Overall though, really liked it. 8/10.