Chicken a la King

As I watched this cartoon short, it reminded me exactly why the Fleischer Brothers Studio failed when it tried to go head to head with Disney. Now during most of the 1930s, Disney and Fleischer Brothers both had niches--very different animated niches. Disney had, of course, the Mouse as well as their Silly Symphonies--which won several Oscars for their artistry. While Fleischer Brothers didn't have the glorious color Disney had nor the awards, their black & white cartoons were stunningly beautiful--and often with a nice 3-D effect. And, Betty Boop and Popeye were very popular in their own right. But the Fleischers wanted to go head to head with Disney--and their two animated features as well as their experiments with color shorts were pretty dismal by comparison. A great example of this is "Chicken a La King"--a thoroughly forgettable and slightly unsavory little short.

The film begins with a rooster in his harem of chickens. They treat him like a sultan--and he's bored! So, when a sexy(???) duck comes along, the rooster is instantly in love with Ducky Wucky. But, when Ducky's boyfriend finds out, he beats the rooster to a pulp--and demonstrating that folks should be happy with what they have and not want something they don't need.

The biggest problems with this cartoon are the animation and the writing--of course, what else is left?! The animation is splashy but lacks the wonderful backgrounds and high quality characters you'd expect from this studio. This, on the other hand, just looks cheap. And as for the story, yuck! A sexy duck?! Who thought this was a good idea? It just nauseated me a bit--like when I saw "Howard the Duck" and they showed naked ducks (you have to see it to understand what I mean). To make it worse, they obtained the world's worst impressionist to do a horrible Mae West. Since she also worked for Paramount, why didn't they just get the REAL voice of Miss West? Well, perhaps because even she had her standards. Overall, a terrible little picture that should have been much better.

'Chicken a La King' is not the easiest of cartoons to rate or review. It is not going to work for everyone either. It may amuse and charm some, but others are going to find it bizarre and not always tasteful. Am in the latter camp, when it comes to the "Color Classics" made from the mid-30s all the way through to the 40s it is a strong contender for the strangest and one of the lesser ones, as well as in the minority group of not-so-good Fleischer cartoons from the late-30s.

Am actually rather surprised that 'Chicken a La King' came from 1937, which was actually part of one of Fleischer Studios' better periods evidenced by the Popeye series in its prime era. It could easily have passed for one of their 40s cartoons when the studio was in decline (and we are not talking a slight decline, it was a significant one) and has a lot of that period's flaws, although the cartoons from that period oddly enough had better and more refined animation than here in 'Chicken a La King'.

Despite being more wrong than good, there are merits. The best asset, and the only really outstanding one, is the music, which is full of energy and rich orchestration and never once jarring with what was going on. Some of the animation is nice, the use of colour is never flat or garish and there is some nice attention to detail.

The Mae West-inspired character is a lot of fun and the only one to make much impact.

However, none of the rest of the characters make much impression (other than the not in a good way strange rooster sultan, who comes over as a borderline sleaze) and the love rivalry and wooing were more bizarre and awkward than cute and amorous. The story is very thinly plotted, actually that is something of an understatement, and is quite pedestrian. Also agree that the premise itself does not leave the most pleasant of aftertastes and its execution is not particularly tasteful either.

Morever, there is a severe shortage of gags, pretty much humourless actually. There is not even a cute charm, which gave it a forgettable blandness, and the excessive predictability undermined any tension in the suitor rivalry. Fleischer regular Jack Mercer was a talented voice actor (a prime example being the definitive voice actor for Popeye) but he does not have much to work with and there is not much of a chance for him to show off his versatility. Even the animation had been better before and since 'Chicken a La King' and this was disappointing, because the studio's animation had generally advanced quite a bit by the time this was made and released, it just looks rushed on the whole.

Overall, very strange and forgettable late-30s effort from Fleischer. Really not among their best work. 4/10