Mon gros bébé

While the drunken stork is an amusing thread running through this story of baby-swapping, there are many other memorable moments: the giant baby playing with life-size trucks, or the satire of those 1950's cautionary films with the scene of an empty yard and the narrator saying "a gatedoor carelessly left ajar, and an innocent baby wanders away..." (obviously a closed gate wouldn't have impeded the giant baby), or the giant father using a jeweler's eyepiece to see as he changes the diapers on his extremely tiny baby. Perhaps not as inventive as the classic Mars/Earth baby-swap, "Rocket-bye Baby" but still worthy.

I've always wondered what's up with the image of the drunken stork. Whatever it is, the besotted wading bird of the family Ciconiidae delivers a giant baby to a normal-sized couple, and...well, whatever your problems raising a baby are, they can't be this bad! I'm sure that "Goo Goo Goliath" was mostly a place holder (every director got to direct one or two miscellaneous cartoons each year). While not what I consider hilarious, it's easily enjoyable. Of course, you gotta pity storks. The mythical deliverers of new babies get depicted in cartoons as irresponsible alcoholics.

Anyway, worth seeing.

. . . West Coast types. Back in the 1900's, San Francisco swiped the Pride of Pittsburgh and turned him into a bay-plopping fraud. Now he'll have to wait until he expires to escape the Hall of Shame for the more famous one, according to the Commissioner of Baseball. The always prophetic Brothers Warner do a good job of anticipating this whole fiasco in GOO GOO GOLIATH. Though some purists may argue that berry should be at least as dark as his derby, this is the sort of DEI mischief that has recently been discovered to be Unconstitutional. Leader T contends that the most tangible Threat to America is White Collar Crime, as typified by Elon Muskie. That is why most U. S. billionaires were locked up during the first 100 days.

Friz Freleng's domestic comedy 'Goo Goo Goliath' takes as its starting point the idea of babies delivered to the wrong parents. Although this idea had been touched on before in cartoons such as Bob Clampett's 'Baby Bottleneck', 'Goo Goo Goliath' adds the amusing touch that the mix up is due to the drunkenness of a stork who is perpetually toasted by new parents. This concept is the best thing about this rather weak cartoon and Freleng would reprise it in the Bugs Bunny cartoon 'Apes of Wrath'. 'Goo Goo Goliath' is also similar to Chuck Jones's equally odd and misfiring 'Rocket-Bye Baby' which emerged two years after 'Goo Goo Goliath'. The idea of a giant baby delivered to a normal sized couple has very limited comic potential and 'Goo Goo Goliath' struggles to make the concept work. It's not helped by the unattractive, angular style in which the cartoon is presented. Ultimately, the jokes run dry almost immediately and there is little to recommend this unusual but unappealing cartoon.

The Stork. The Stork is only source of humor in this otherwise not funny and dry short. It's rather predictable and does not offer any real amusement. The Stork really makes you laugh but other than him, I really would not waste my time watching this.