Dancing on the Moon

I saw this cartoon before work many years ago on a classic movie channel. The music and lyrics stayed in my head for years as I desperately searched for it. I didn't know what it was or who Max Fleischer was. I now own his whole collection. For early cartoon buffs, this is a delight! What an artist Fleischer was! I would recommend the entire collection to anyone who enjoys this cartoon. So much better than the technologically advanced but flat, boring cartoons of today! These do indeed take you to "Dreamland." On a warm night, when the moon is full, you can still see the little rocket taking off, for a night of fun and frolic way up there. Go ahead... buy your ticket.

Just watched this Max Fleischer Color Classics cartoon on the Classic Cartoons blog. Like many of Fleischer's Technicolor cartoons of this era, this one has backgrounds of models done on a tabletop that achieves that 3-D effect of an animated character appearing in live-action. Here, those backgrounds are of moon craters. Various newlywed animal couples are singing the title song as well as, well, dancing on the moon (obviously, this was way before the historic moon landing of 1969 since everyone here is breathing healthy in space). Actually, a feline groom is missing his bride since she narrowly missed her ride. That's all I'll say except that while the musical number is pretty entertaining and there are some amusing gags, the final punchline isn't funny and in fact may be a bit too cruel for the young 'uns. If you're a Fleischer completist, however, I do recommend Dancing on the Moon for one look.

This must have looked pretty spectacular to audiences at the theater in 1935. The color animation is pretty good and it just has a lavish appearance to it and, as far as I know, most material on screen was in black-and-white, including cartoons.

We begin by spotting a big heart-shaped sign which advertises "Honeymoon Express To The Moon." It is next to a big rocket ship, which looked, by the way, very cool. This was the era of Flash Gordon, wasn't it? It reminded me of his old ship.

Hey, you can't beat the price for the trip: $1 to go dancing on the moon. Such a deal!

Cows, elephants, insects, giraffes, etc., are all on the ship, ready for a night of dancing. They are still in the wedding gowns and tuxes. The male giraffe tells his bride that this is a good place for necking and then she, with her longer neck, gives her Mae West impression with "Come up and see me some time." Other than that, there wasn't a lot of humor in here. One of the brides - a cat - was left at the gate, so to speak, so the husband pines away on the moon.

The music, which plays a large part of this, is right out of the early '30s Busby Berkeley musicals, except we had about eight couples dancing instead of hundreds.

In all, a curiosity piece but not funny and only mildly entertaining. The ending was awful and unsatisfying.

It's the story of dancing and singing animals who are making their honeymoon... on the moon.

There's a problem. The cat's wife miss the ship, and stay alone on earth.

It's quite cute but a little bit cruel in the end.

I realize that my summary is VERY judgmental, but most of the cartoons of the 30s were, compared to those of the 40s and 50s, really crappy. Most tended to have lots of singing and dancing as well as cutesy characters. Edgy, they were not! "Dancing on the Moon" is just such a cartoon--full of cutesy characters and jam-packed with LOTS of singing from start to finish. Folks of the 30s might have enjoyed this, but you'd be hard-pressed today to find any kids who would sit still for this boring stuff! And, if you showed it to prisoners, Amnesty International would raise a fuss!

The cartoon begins with a god-awful song ("Dancing on the Moon") and it continues throughout the film. There isn't a lot of plot--just lots of animal couples taking a Buck Rogers-style ship to the moon where they cavort about and smooch. That is, all but a sad cat whose girlfriend is left behind. That's all there is to it--cutesy animals singing and singing and singing. Yuck. The only reason I even gave this one a 3 is because the Cinecolor (another form of Two-Color Technicolor) was innovative and interesting and, as usual, the Fleischer studio did nice quality animation--even if it did make most things look orangy and greenish and the plot was pure torture.