nnwahler

This is about the cream of Walter Lantz's later output. Harkening back to the old musical-cartoon days, it features a very engaging and, for me, personally endearing story of an ex-fighting-rooster who also wants his new son Pepito to take up boxing--but the kid's got more of a natural inclination to play the bongos. Pepe, the dad, holds a grudge, so the chick's mom does her best to keep the balance.

"Bongo Punch" struck a definite chord with me: My father, who was a farmer, wanted me to follow in his footsteps instead of pursuing a career as a musician.

I fell in love with this cartoon from the first time I saw it; didn't really get into Lantz's work till my late twenties. I saw it first on syndicated TV, when they showed ALL his work ("Scrub Me Mama" not counted); then it disappeared. Wasn't able to see it again till well into the YouTube era.

The cartoon does show the late-50s budget constraints, nothing too deluxe about it. But it's simply drawn, with bright colors, and storytelling done entirely to an incessant musical beat.

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.