User reviews

Thid cartoon brings back some nice early gradeschool memories, of reruns of "The Woody Woodpecker Show". Andy's exclamation, "Well, whaddaya know...a baby pelican!" still rings cheerily in my ears. And my heart always broke for that poor mama pelican, stuck down at the bottom of the ocean trapped with an anchor in her beak.

This was a happy period for the Lantz studio; Lantz always used the best Hollywood talent he could. He hired director Dick Lundy and animator Ed Love, both from the Disney studio, shortly before this time. Lantz always kept an eye to his budgets--he was forced to close his studio once about 1952. There's nothing cheap about the present cartoon, however.

. . . cartoon, pioneered--of course--by Universal, the historic home of FRANKENSTEIN MUMMY DRACULA. The ironically titled PLAYFUL PELICAN begins with a Panda doing his best to drown the title character for no apparent reason whatsoever. After being struck by an inexplicable Plague of Frogs in mid-Ocean, bully boy Andy finds himself about to become chum for--NOT chums with--a Great Grey Shark. It's likely that many if not most of America's tykes were pulling for said shark to eviscerate the fiendish panda at this juncture, after what he did to that poor pelican. Anchors aweigh, as they say, and many happy returns.

Andy Panda is scrubbing the deck of the ship when he comes across a pelican sleeping on a coil of rope. He gets it off the ship, only to find it has been setting on an egg, which promptly hatches.

There were several attempts at introducing pelicans as regular cartoon characters in the movies. With their ability to get along with people and their silly-looking bills, they would seem to be a natural. None, however, took. This pleasantly done Dick Lundy cartoon has all the hallmarks of an introductory cartoon but, despite its nice composition, including large, bright, simple Technicolor areas, just right for pleasing youngsters and its abundance of pleasing blues, this one is merely average good.