I have to say, these Flip cartoons are a lot closer to what I'd expect from early Warner Bros. than their trying and failing MISERABLY to out-Disney Disney. These are bolder, take more risks, and aren't afraid to get family-un-friendly every once in a while! I love it! Really should see some of these.
Out of all of the part ones to these “Every Cartoon Series Reviewed” videos, this one is the most interesting! I’m really looking forward to Part 2 since Tom & Jerry is my favorite series of classic cartoons!
I’ve been excited for this! MGM is probably the golden age animation studio whose work I’ve delved into the least outside of Tom and Jerry. Honestly, even less than Fleischer and Van Bueren, so hopefully I find something new in this series!
fun fact, the whole hot dog bit from "circus" is ripped straight up off a mickey mouse cartoon, "the karnival kid" wich is where mickey's "hot dog" catchphrase originates from, as those were his first spoken words ever!
I honestly had never heard of or seen Flip the Frog, Willie Whopper or The Captain and the Kids before watching this video and had no idea Bosko appeared in MGM cartoons. Thanks for taking the time to start this venture and I'm surprised you haven't even gotten to the Tom & Jerry cartoons yet.
I've heard of Captain and the Kids, because I saw the Christmas episode on an old tape as a kid (the same one that had Toyland Broadcast on it, which I strangely like because of the Jungle Fever song, which, as a kid, I never knew about the racial connotations of it).
29:34 - 29:55 Warner Bros did the same thing when they did the first Buddy cartoon Buddy’s Day Out that Tom Palmer directed. Warners rejected it and told them to add gags to it. And I heard that Leon (Schlesinger) had to bring in Friz to rework it, and we all know how the cartoon still turned out. Out of that and I’ve Got To Sing A Torch Song, the only 2 Warner cartoons Tom Palmer directed that Leon fired him
Yahoo! It finally came out! I came like a bullet, so I very interested on MGM cartoons, mainly because tehy would go toe to toe with Disney, in terms of Animation, besides, they are mostly more funny than disney's. Also, if you want any help eith trying to find MGM cartoons to make the review series, I remebered there was a couple of them in the internet archive, like the ultimate MGM cartoons collection or the Barney bear collection, there is also the tex avery colelction that has all cartoons directed by him And finally, I kind think I know why you didn't answer the question of flip the frog since you are going to tell ypu opinion about them but if I may ask for a more detailed opinion of the flip the frog cartoons I'd appreciated, eish you luck with Your series! :)
Honestly, the character animation on those late '30s "jazz frogs" cartoons is bonkers. It's ahead of its time by a good five years and wilder than anything Tex Avery and Bob Clampett were putting out in the same period.
The stork gag from Little Orphan Willie is stolen from the early Felix the Cat cartoon "Felix at the Fair". Disney also nabbed it for their first Owsald cartoon "Poor Papa", and it probably popped up in other cartoons of the era as well.
You never saw all the Tom & Jerry ones eh?? Now you get to see all the classics! I haven't seen all the MGM shorts myself, just T&J, Tex Avery, Droopy, Barney Bear, and a few others like the hitch-hiking duck.
1:17:37: Pretty much how I feel about “Duck Soup to Nuts” and “Daffy Duck Hunt”, when the former involves a duck hunt, but the latter involves preparing the duck for dinner.
Man, the Happy Harmonies series was certainly never meant to be marathoned. You're doing God's work with these videos. Anyway, this is a nice intro to the MGM animated output. I remember watching a lot of these Happy Harmonies back in the 80s and 90s when they aired on TV in the morning. Those two shorts with the three monkeys seemed to show up a lot for some reason. Although I do remember reading Harman & Ising preferred to prioritize Art and Animation over Story and Characters, which is why a lot of their cartoons were like that. There are still some interesting one-shots in the late 30s/early 40s for MGM before they pretty much become the Tom & Jerry/Tex Avery/Barney Bear studio for the rest of their original run, so can't wait for the next part.
My gosh, I knew the pre-Hays MGM cartoons could get pretty wild, but…wow, I was still pretty shocked at just HOW racy they were. The Office Boy in particular actually kinda made my jaw drop. Anyhoo, great to see this series get started and I’m already looking forward to the next installment! 🐱🐭
I’m really excited for the Tom & Jerry ones and the Tex Avery ones! The Wolf from Red Hot Riding Hood is one of the inspirations of my profile picture!
Coming right from binging your last Waner Brothers episodes, these all look like masterpieces in comparison. Fluid animation, backgrounds with lots of detail. After hours of starving my eyes and seeing this, I was in awe.
All right ! I'm looking forward to the rest of this awesome project ! Funnily enough I grew up watching MGM cartoons (especially Tex Avery) more often than Looney Tunes, so I might be more biased towards those. I have always loved the Flip the Frog cartoons, especially because the musical timing is absolutely hilarious and Ub Iwerk's designs, in my opinion, are goofy with a bit of a mean edge. The Captain and the Kids cartoons, on the other hand... yeah, they're pretty dull, but in some of them I like the relatively slow pacing, it feels like a good contrast with the chaotic pace of most cartoons (but that's just me!) In any case, awesome video ! Keep up the fantastic work !
So funny thing about Captain and the Kids, it's kind of a spin off/parallel series to The Katzenjammer Kids, which is one of the oldest American news paper comic strips that still sees publication(to my knowledge.) Having been adapted multiple times, with the first time being around 1916-1918 making them one of the earlier recurring characters in animation(alongside Krazy Kat for those who were adapted to animation and not original.) And I have seen one of those shorts before, it was for an animation class where a number of old cartoons/animated pieces were shown. It's neat stuff, even if tertiary important to that portion of your video here. What with it being about the MGM shorts, and not the greater information connected there over all.
1:04:26 I saw Swing Wedding at a theater in the early 90’s (along with a bunch of public domain cartoons) and I recall seeing one of the frogs ( what looked like) shooting H in a really quick scene. I had to find a copy on vhs just to confirm I saw what I saw.
That is 100% accurate. I think that scene got censored if it was ever shown on TV. (most likely not all that often due to the black stereotypes) However, yeah, the frog does indeed smash his trumpet into a heroin needle and then shoots himself in the arm with it.
@@glowworm2I could swear it was uncut on the only time that Cartoon Network ever aired it, which was in the early 2000s on The ACME Hour (I think it was the 2-hour weekend version, not the one-hour weekday version that aired somewhere between 3 and 6 in the morning).
55:49 - Actually, “The Old Plantation” is NOT the first non-Disney three-strip Technicolor cartoon. There were (to my knowledge) at least two before that. Animstion filmmaker Ted Eshbaugh produced a short adaptation of the Wizard of Oz in 1933 with three-strip Technicolor & was sued by Disney, so it could only be publicly released in black & white. There was also a cartoon produced by the Metropolitan Life Corporation called “Once Upon a Time” in 1934. It was a PSA on driver safety, and with permission Disney allowed the company to produce the film in full-Technicolor, the main reason being to accurately show the proper colors on a traffic stoplight, which wouldn’t be possible with a two-strip process.
Like Warner Bros, it’s interesting to watch the MGM cartoons of their humble beginnings, their distribution phase and venturing into their own series like Happy Harmonies. It’s interesting the first stinker (or the first 3/10) doesn’t happen til roughly 20 cartoons, but when MGM miss the mark, yikes they make bad hits. It will certainly be a breath of fresh air once Droopy and especially Tom and Jerry arrive, but right now, it’s definitely a unique experience to dive into the unknown of these more obscure MGM cartoons. I was almost worried Willie Whopper would’ve just been a Buddy clone, but thank sweet Lord that wasn’t the case. The last 15 cartoons though were rough, like real rough. Can’t wait to see the next 100 or so cartoons that follow and hopefully we are to see an upgrade in quality, however, I shouldn’t Jinx myself (no I won’t apologize for that).
From what I know about MGM cartoons, they should get a lot better once Tom and Jerry and Tex Avery arrive upon the scene. Mind you, the first Tom and Jerry short shows up in 1940 while Tex Avery's first short, The Blitz Wolf, will arrive 2 years later.
47:51 I think also, "Those Beautiful Dames" at least has the song (which is actually called "Dames" (the name of the movie the song actually comes from as well), but I guess they named the Merrie Melodies short "Those Beautiful Dames" to avoid confusion with the movie the song comes from).
Well, it looks like I'm gonna enjoy this one too. I always nerd about how classic the MGM toons are including Flip the Frog (and his uh...Eric W. Schwartz counterpart which doesn't count here). Flip's shorts were really good tbh but I loved to see your thoughts on the shorts. Keep it up!
So the Flip the Frog got a Cat girl in his old cartoons. No wonder that Eric Schwartz got inspirated by that, in his... very edgy Flip the Frog cartoons. I wouldn't be surprised if that cat girl is named Clarise.
16:45 is my favorite gag in Spooks. The skeleton dog looking like he's about to piss on the floor only to actually just be itchy is really really funny. I'm going to be honest here, I'm not that familiar with a lot of the early MGM shorts, much like early Looney Tunes shorts. I'm mostly familiar with Tex Avery's shorts, Tom and Jerry, some Barney Bears and a few later one shots made by Isling, Harmon, Hanna and Barbera and even Friz Freleng. What I do know, thanks to a compilation of dirty jokes in old cartoons, is that Flip the Frog had some surprisingly risque jokes due to being made prior to the Hays Code, which makes them a lot more interesting to watch than Buddy or Bosko. Anyway, the more familiar ones to me will show up in the next part.
2022: "We also get introduced to a new character, Wilbur, WHO IS THOROUGHLY DETESTABLE." 2024: "But then in the second half, Flip and his horse have to deal with a spoiled kid, WHO IS THOROUGHLY DETESTABLE." Deja vu, anyone?
I’m glad you chose not to mention politics in this video since this type of entertainment is exactly what we need right now to stay positive and healthy. I appreciate all of the careful brief analyses you gave on each short, whether you praised something for its noble efforts or tore something else apart for its shear ineptitude. The wait was well worth it and I can’t wait for the next three or so parts. You’re still making great stuff, keep it up 👏🏻 Also, I cracked up immensely when you gave Run Sheep Run a 2/10. I loathe that cartoon.
Hard grader, although Walt Disney would disagree with your 9 rating for "To Spring" because the gnomes are ugly, it's not entirely clear what exactly they're doing (okay, they're milling the colors from a rainbow stalagmite for the trees and flowers, but how does the apparatus actually work? and how, when the colors get mixed up, do they turn that weird aqua?), and Walt said it "looks cheap." The nature scenes look like the opening credits of "Gone With the Wind" with the text removed. The primary problem with the early Happy Harmonies is their heavy-handedness, trying too hard to impress, with little or no humor. "Bottles" is still a favorite of mine, though. And "Pipe Dreams" and "Swing Wedding" (the trumpet gag toward the end--don't give it away for anyone who hasn't seen it--is truly shocking) deserve more than a 5.
You've hit the nail on the head as to why I'm not much of a fan of the Happy Harmonies/Isling/Harmon shorts. They're boring. I darsay, I'd rather watch one of Chuck Jones' early Sniffles shorts than one of those. There are a few non Tom and Jerry and Tex Avery MGM shorts I have a soft spot for though. Those should show up in the next part.
I was impressed with the Harman-Ising color cartoons when I first saw them on TV in the early 80s (the Bosko cartoons weren't among them) because I didn't even know they existed, and I also didn't know that anyone besides Disney was making color cartoons in that period that looked good. At that time I could forgive them for the meandering stories, but not now. The Flip cartoons remind me of the pre-Code Betty Boop cartoons.
Yeah, I'm going to be completely honest here, most of those Harman-Ising shorts don't do a thing for me. The handful that I've seen on Cartoon Network are pretty boring. The one exception has got to be "Peace on Earth" because it has a surprisingly dark premise behind the usual "cute little animals" schtick.
I wonder if Fleischer would come up in the pipeline soonish. Not as much of these as the Disney theatrical shorts IIRC, easier to access with a lot of them in the public domain (although some of the shorts are considered lost media), and one of the important studios from the 30s. Still looking forward to more of these reviews/rankings.
I can't wait for Part 2! I'm excited for you to talk about Tom and Jerry. I've been thinking about this, but will you review the cartoons from Fleischer studios sometime in the future?
Hey hick critic your not alone either,as a little kidni obly knew about tom and jerry and the droopy caetoons from mgm and i was aware that there were tex avery cartoons from mgm i only ever saw about 10 cartoons from his as a child(not counting his droopy directed ones)and theh were 1 blizt wolf 2 red hot riding hood 3 swing shift cinderella 4 screwball squirrel 5 bad luck blackie 6 king sized canary 7 symphony in slang 8 magical mastro 9 rock a bye bear 10 little jonnhy jet And this us mostly becuase before the tex avery blu rays were relesed were my only exposier to his mgm works thanks to the second looney tunes platinum collection blu ray,(i also had 5 the captian and the kid shorts directed by friz freling on the same set,and peace on earth and the remake,the dot and the line and the milky way, on the warner home video entertainment academy award animation collection dvd set's,but other than those shorts from child hood i never really known much more about his mgm stuff,so yeah very limeted exposer to him but at least i grew up with some if his work and had a clue of what his shorts from mgm were,but just never saw or wacth them enough like the classic disney shorts,the classic looney tunes and tom and jerry and droopy cartoons,so yeah just wanted ti tell you that your not alone on not seeing much mgm cartoons.
Have you ever considered doing the MGM *musicals* once you're done with this or a later series? Nobody ever talks about those and I think it would be awesome if somebody reviewed all of them. I know you've seen some of them, but those are only the tap, i mean tip, of the iceberg!
As to my thoughts for these collections of cartoons Flip the Frog (any similarities between his name and my username are purely coincidental) had a decent enough run of cartoons. They definitely felt more daring and funny for a first run of cartoons than Bosko’s. Not great, but most of them are fairly entertaining. My personal favorite of his is Room Runners Willie Whopper wasn’t too memorable, but, like Flip’s, his cartoons did definitely have a lot of creativity behind them. Stratos-Fear was also my favorite of his The Happy Harmonies flat-out suck. Not to say that cartoons like To Spring and Bottles aren’t genuinely good, because they are, and so are a few others even, but for the most part these cartoons are sickeningly cute to an extent that WB never really got to. My personal *least* favorite of these is Poor Little Me, which I consider absolutely terrible. That cartoon has actually reached a point to where it’s an inside joke between me and one of my friends to act like it’s God’s gift to animation The Captain and the Kids cartoons were… very average. I found some of them pretty funny and I guess the Captain had some personality although he wasn’t a great character by any means. I didn’t dislike the series quite to the extent you did but it didn’t really do much for me. Petunia National Park is my favorite of them
@thehickcritic hey man, love your videos, when we get to the Tom and Jerry shorts...where do you rank Buddies Thicker Than Water from 1962? I say a 9/10 and the best one from the Gene Deitch era of these shorts. My favorite gag was the white mouse gag where Jerry put his owners makeup on to scare Tom out of the apartment
I don't actually remember much from the Gene Deitch cartoons that I have seen since it's been so long, so when I do watch them, it'll be like I'm watching them for the first time.
@OctacleEdits Ultimately it's his call and while I wouldn't be surprised if he did include them from a modern point of view I just wouldn't be surprised if he chooses not to include them because at that point MGM didn't distribute them nor did they own United Artists.
Hugh Harman regretted making all but 3 of the cartoons he ever made, one of them was The Old Mill Pond. The other two of them we should see in the next part!
Finally! Despite watching 1 Flip the Frog cartoon, I’m pretty sure that the whole series is amazing! Besides, it is made by one of the original Mickey Mouse creators!
These early MGM cartoons either feel like a product of their time, not that great (especially with those Captain Kid ones which made me feel bad for the ones who had to make it) or could be underappreciated gems. But part 2 should have the stuff that I am definitely more familiar with.
Same here. A majority of these shorts I am not familiar with, and any that I have seen have been for the most part, on RUclips around my college age years and onwards out of curiosity. Most I have not seen on TV. Part two, on the other hand, should be a treat as we'll finally get into the good stuff like Tom and Jerry and Tex Avery. The Tex Avery stuff is fantastic.
Yeah especially the Iwerks shorts until RUclips I haven't seen them some of the Happy Harmonies Captain and the Kids Count Screwloose Barney Bear the 2nd Harman Ising era Tom &Jerry Tex Avery and the 2 one off Chuck Jones shorts were the only MGM shorts I saw.
@@stephenholloway6893 It was mostly Tom and Jerry shorts (classic Hanna and Barbera, Gene Deitch and Chuck Jones), Tex Avery, Barney Bear (Dick Lundy one's included), and a few Harman/ Isling/ Freleng/Hanna Barbera one-short shorts that I saw on TV, mainly the Acme Hour and Cartoon Network's Tom and Jerry half hour blocks. Also saw The Bear That Wasn't and The Dot and the Line. I've only watched one Captain and the Kids short (the Santa Claus one, out of curiosity, had some of the Freleng directed shorts as a bonus on a Looney Tunes Golden Collection DVD set) and one of the Count Screwloose shorts on RUclips (Wanted, No Master). Honestly, I'm not a big fan of the Barney Bear shorts, but I'll explain that further on in the next part of this review when the bear appears.
@glowworm2 Droopy was another MGM character I saw but because Tex directed the majority of them I put him with Avery. And yes all 3 Tom and Jerry eras were included when I brought them up.
The title for the last Captain and Kids short was called that was because to Mama the hat was new eventhough it was used. Still a bad short but hopefully it at least explains the title.
Howdy Ho Hick Critic, long time now see. Anyhow unlike the monotonous rambling from last time, I'm gonna (try to) make these comments a lot shorter than those of the Looney Tunes series so that they're more easily digestable Ready, Go: I like how you start intergrating short clips from all sorts of media to help get your point across (or to just get a laugh) I like how you get more bolder and bolder with your commentary (The starting joke in Leghorn Swoggled, the dad leaving to get the milk comment in the first peanuts video, and now the unhinged lunacy of the s3x jokes from the flip cartoons way before the haze code) I personally don't consider words like hell or damn to be necessarly profanities but ok I guess Didn't you kinda already cover the Controversy before in your Rapsidy Rabbit review? The angelic music when the Tex Avery pic showed up on the end of the video was just cathartic. That's about it, cya
I have to say, these Flip cartoons are a lot closer to what I'd expect from early Warner Bros. than their trying and failing MISERABLY to out-Disney Disney. These are bolder, take more risks, and aren't afraid to get family-un-friendly every once in a while! I love it! Really should see some of these.
I don’t think MGM really found their footing until the arrival of Tom and Jerry and Tex Avery.
After seeing this, I agree.
Out of all of the part ones to these “Every Cartoon Series Reviewed” videos, this one is the most interesting! I’m really looking forward to Part 2 since Tom & Jerry is my favorite series of classic cartoons!
I’ve been excited for this! MGM is probably the golden age animation studio whose work I’ve delved into the least outside of Tom and Jerry. Honestly, even less than Fleischer and Van Bueren, so hopefully I find something new in this series!
Can't wait for the Tom and Jerry cartoons. Especially one of them from the Gene Deitch era
these videos are gold as a person who loves the history of animation these videos are extremely important for me to catalog what to watch next
fun fact, the whole hot dog bit from "circus" is ripped straight up off a mickey mouse cartoon, "the karnival kid" wich is where mickey's "hot dog" catchphrase originates from, as those were his first spoken words ever!
HOLY CRAP, IT'S LEO LAFIA, A SPONGEBOB CREW MEMBER!
It actually came from All Wet, an Oswald short.
@walkerphillips2818 talk about recycling lmao
Oh wow didn't expect to see you here lol
@@LukeVaughn__wherever there's rubber hose you'll find me lol
I honestly had never heard of or seen Flip the Frog, Willie Whopper or The Captain and the Kids before watching this video and had no idea Bosko appeared in MGM cartoons. Thanks for taking the time to start this venture and I'm surprised you haven't even gotten to the Tom & Jerry cartoons yet.
Yeah, the first Tom and Jerry short doesn't show up until 1940. The first MGM Tex Avery short will show up 2 years afterwards.
a company named thunbderbean re-issued the Flip the frog shorts on blu-ray in case you collect physical media.
I've heard of Captain and the Kids, because I saw the Christmas episode on an old tape as a kid (the same one that had Toyland Broadcast on it, which I strangely like because of the Jungle Fever song, which, as a kid, I never knew about the racial connotations of it).
This was so good! can't wait to see you review Screwy Squirrel
Fun Fact: Little orphan willie and flying fists were originally in color but, those versions are gone now. (According to Wikipedia).
you reviewing flip was the last thing I expected but I am so gland you did!
I have been waiting for the mgm review for a long time thank you so much,keep doing you man
29:34 - 29:55 Warner Bros did the same thing when they did the first Buddy cartoon Buddy’s Day Out that Tom Palmer directed. Warners rejected it and told them to add gags to it. And I heard that Leon (Schlesinger) had to bring in Friz to rework it, and we all know how the cartoon still turned out. Out of that and I’ve Got To Sing A Torch Song, the only 2 Warner cartoons Tom Palmer directed that Leon fired him
The only difference was that the Warner short was distributed by them unlike the Iwerks shorts that MGM rejected.
Yahoo! It finally came out! I came like a bullet, so I very interested on MGM cartoons, mainly because tehy would go toe to toe with Disney, in terms of Animation, besides, they are mostly more funny than disney's.
Also, if you want any help eith trying to find MGM cartoons to make the review series, I remebered there was a couple of them in the internet archive, like the ultimate MGM cartoons collection or the Barney bear collection, there is also the tex avery colelction that has all cartoons directed by him
And finally, I kind think I know why you didn't answer the question of flip the frog since you are going to tell ypu opinion about them but if I may ask for a more detailed opinion of the flip the frog cartoons I'd appreciated, eish you luck with Your series! :)
57:46 LOOK HOW THEY MASACURED MY BOY!!!
😂
I should've used that clip!
My boy...
Look how they massacred my boy...
Honestly, the character animation on those late '30s "jazz frogs" cartoons is bonkers. It's ahead of its time by a good five years and wilder than anything Tex Avery and Bob Clampett were putting out in the same period.
DROOPY: ..... you know what?..... this series makes me happy.....
Tom and Jerry: I'm so excited to be in the next part
“Telling fantastical tales to his peers, Mater-style” REALLY got me. How did I never make that connection before
@@flippyfrogman yeah
The stork gag from Little Orphan Willie is stolen from the early Felix the Cat cartoon "Felix at the Fair". Disney also nabbed it for their first Owsald cartoon "Poor Papa", and it probably popped up in other cartoons of the era as well.
You never saw all the Tom & Jerry ones eh?? Now you get to see all the classics!
I haven't seen all the MGM shorts myself, just T&J, Tex Avery, Droopy, Barney Bear, and a few others like the hitch-hiking duck.
I'm excited for the Tom and Jerry Shorts in the next part.
1:17:37: Pretty much how I feel about “Duck Soup to Nuts” and “Daffy Duck Hunt”, when the former involves a duck hunt, but the latter involves preparing the duck for dinner.
And finally we are here! I know this series will give me a inspiration to do myself a marathon of MGM cartoons. Great job again The Hick Critic ❤
Man, the Happy Harmonies series was certainly never meant to be marathoned. You're doing God's work with these videos.
Anyway, this is a nice intro to the MGM animated output. I remember watching a lot of these Happy Harmonies back in the 80s and 90s when they aired on TV in the morning. Those two shorts with the three monkeys seemed to show up a lot for some reason. Although I do remember reading Harman & Ising preferred to prioritize Art and Animation over Story and Characters, which is why a lot of their cartoons were like that.
There are still some interesting one-shots in the late 30s/early 40s for MGM before they pretty much become the Tom & Jerry/Tex Avery/Barney Bear studio for the rest of their original run, so can't wait for the next part.
Well, let's get prepared for the Hick Critic taking on Tom and Jerry! I would definitely want to find out which would be the best ones to watch.
My gosh, I knew the pre-Hays MGM cartoons could get pretty wild, but…wow, I was still pretty shocked at just HOW racy they were. The Office Boy in particular actually kinda made my jaw drop.
Anyhoo, great to see this series get started and I’m already looking forward to the next installment! 🐱🐭
Yeah at least the Iwerks shorts definitely pushed the animation envelope far as how far they could get away with it before the code went into effect.
I'll have to watch this whole video. Based on the bits and pieces I saw, I had to go check out "An Optical Poem", and I liked it a lot!
I also checked out An Optical Poem and thoroughly enjoyed it.
thats nice that someone talks about these old cartoons that are forgotten to the general public
1:04:16: That same sound effect was used in “The Milky Waif” when Tuffy was spanked by Tom, and Jerry got peeved off because of it.
Not to mention countless 70s-80s cartoons.when they're fighting monsters.
When you say his last appearance for 52 years ( 1:09:02 ) are you talking about his guest appearance in Tiny Toons? Or was there another?
Tiny Toons.
I’m really excited for the Tom & Jerry ones and the Tex Avery ones! The Wolf from Red Hot Riding Hood is one of the inspirations of my profile picture!
YEEESSS, I WAS WAITING FOR THIS LIKE CRAZY
Coming right from binging your last Waner Brothers episodes, these all look like masterpieces in comparison. Fluid animation, backgrounds with lots of detail. After hours of starving my eyes and seeing this, I was in awe.
All right ! I'm looking forward to the rest of this awesome project ! Funnily enough I grew up watching MGM cartoons (especially Tex Avery) more often than Looney Tunes, so I might be more biased towards those. I have always loved the Flip the Frog cartoons, especially because the musical timing is absolutely hilarious and Ub Iwerk's designs, in my opinion, are goofy with a bit of a mean edge. The Captain and the Kids cartoons, on the other hand... yeah, they're pretty dull, but in some of them I like the relatively slow pacing, it feels like a good contrast with the chaotic pace of most cartoons (but that's just me!) In any case, awesome video ! Keep up the fantastic work !
a company named thunbderbean re-issued the Flip the frog shorts on blu-ray in case you collect physical media.
School Days was remade by Ub Iwerks as a Mary Had a Little Lamb cartoon, with the same dog and teacher designs.
Yes but the remake was independently released just like the rest of the Comicolor shorts.
So funny thing about Captain and the Kids, it's kind of a spin off/parallel series to The Katzenjammer Kids, which is one of the oldest American news paper comic strips that still sees publication(to my knowledge.) Having been adapted multiple times, with the first time being around 1916-1918 making them one of the earlier recurring characters in animation(alongside Krazy Kat for those who were adapted to animation and not original.)
And I have seen one of those shorts before, it was for an animation class where a number of old cartoons/animated pieces were shown. It's neat stuff, even if tertiary important to that portion of your video here. What with it being about the MGM shorts, and not the greater information connected there over all.
I can't wait for the part with Tom and Jerry.
Cartoons they're like the staple of it
i've officially learned more watching your videos than i ever learned watching toonheads on cartoon network or cartoon alley on tcm.
1:04:26 I saw Swing Wedding at a theater in the early 90’s (along with a bunch of public domain cartoons) and I recall seeing one of the frogs ( what looked like) shooting H in a really quick scene. I had to find a copy on vhs just to confirm I saw what I saw.
That is 100% accurate. I think that scene got censored if it was ever shown on TV. (most likely not all that often due to the black stereotypes) However, yeah, the frog does indeed smash his trumpet into a heroin needle and then shoots himself in the arm with it.
@@glowworm2I could swear it was uncut on the only time that Cartoon Network ever aired it, which was in the early 2000s on The ACME Hour (I think it was the 2-hour weekend version, not the one-hour weekday version that aired somewhere between 3 and 6 in the morning).
Just wait till he gets to the Tex Avery shorts
Yeah, because the MGM Tex Avery shorts are crazier than what Avery produced at Warner Bros.
55:49 - Actually, “The Old Plantation” is NOT the first non-Disney three-strip Technicolor cartoon. There were (to my knowledge) at least two before that.
Animstion filmmaker Ted Eshbaugh produced a short adaptation of the Wizard of Oz in 1933 with three-strip Technicolor & was sued by Disney, so it could only be publicly released in black & white.
There was also a cartoon produced by the Metropolitan Life Corporation called “Once Upon a Time” in 1934. It was a PSA on driver safety, and with permission Disney allowed the company to produce the film in full-Technicolor, the main reason being to accurately show the proper colors on a traffic stoplight, which wouldn’t be possible with a two-strip process.
Like Warner Bros, it’s interesting to watch the MGM cartoons of their humble beginnings, their distribution phase and venturing into their own series like Happy Harmonies. It’s interesting the first stinker (or the first 3/10) doesn’t happen til roughly 20 cartoons, but when MGM miss the mark, yikes they make bad hits. It will certainly be a breath of fresh air once Droopy and especially Tom and Jerry arrive, but right now, it’s definitely a unique experience to dive into the unknown of these more obscure MGM cartoons. I was almost worried Willie Whopper would’ve just been a Buddy clone, but thank sweet Lord that wasn’t the case. The last 15 cartoons though were rough, like real rough. Can’t wait to see the next 100 or so cartoons that follow and hopefully we are to see an upgrade in quality, however, I shouldn’t Jinx myself (no I won’t apologize for that).
From what I know about MGM cartoons, they should get a lot better once Tom and Jerry and Tex Avery arrive upon the scene. Mind you, the first Tom and Jerry short shows up in 1940 while Tex Avery's first short, The Blitz Wolf, will arrive 2 years later.
1:27:36 you will not be disappointed. I’ve seen all of them. They’re the best work he’s done.
47:51 I think also, "Those Beautiful Dames" at least has the song (which is actually called "Dames" (the name of the movie the song actually comes from as well), but I guess they named the Merrie Melodies short "Those Beautiful Dames" to avoid confusion with the movie the song comes from).
Well, it looks like I'm gonna enjoy this one too. I always nerd about how classic the MGM toons are including Flip the Frog (and his uh...Eric W. Schwartz counterpart which doesn't count here). Flip's shorts were really good tbh but I loved to see your thoughts on the shorts. Keep it up!
a company named thunbderbean re-issued the Flip the frog shorts on blu-ray in case you collect physical media.
@@toastrave7820 no I've heard about them. I'm a follower of them too.
While not off to a great start, all I can say is...the best is yet to come for Part 2 onwards.
So the Flip the Frog got a Cat girl in his old cartoons. No wonder that Eric Schwartz got inspirated by that, in his... very edgy Flip the Frog cartoons.
I wouldn't be surprised if that cat girl is named Clarise.
16:45 is my favorite gag in Spooks. The skeleton dog looking like he's about to piss on the floor only to actually just be itchy is really really funny.
I'm going to be honest here, I'm not that familiar with a lot of the early MGM shorts, much like early Looney Tunes shorts. I'm mostly familiar with Tex Avery's shorts, Tom and Jerry, some Barney Bears and a few later one shots made by Isling, Harmon, Hanna and Barbera and even Friz Freleng. What I do know, thanks to a compilation of dirty jokes in old cartoons, is that Flip the Frog had some surprisingly risque jokes due to being made prior to the Hays Code, which makes them a lot more interesting to watch than Buddy or Bosko. Anyway, the more familiar ones to me will show up in the next part.
2022: "We also get introduced to a new character, Wilbur, WHO IS THOROUGHLY DETESTABLE."
2024: "But then in the second half, Flip and his horse have to deal with a spoiled kid, WHO IS THOROUGHLY DETESTABLE."
Deja vu, anyone?
They're basically the same character.
@@thehickcritic Yeah...
I’m glad you chose not to mention politics in this video since this type of entertainment is exactly what we need right now to stay positive and healthy. I appreciate all of the careful brief analyses you gave on each short, whether you praised something for its noble efforts or tore something else apart for its shear ineptitude. The wait was well worth it and I can’t wait for the next three or so parts. You’re still making great stuff, keep it up 👏🏻
Also, I cracked up immensely when you gave Run Sheep Run a 2/10. I loathe that cartoon.
Got this in my recommended feed before I got it in my notifications
I'm subscribed with notifications btw
Great video
Can't wait for the next part!!
Hard grader, although Walt Disney would disagree with your 9 rating for "To Spring" because the gnomes are ugly, it's not entirely clear what exactly they're doing (okay, they're milling the colors from a rainbow stalagmite for the trees and flowers, but how does the apparatus actually work? and how, when the colors get mixed up, do they turn that weird aqua?), and Walt said it "looks cheap." The nature scenes look like the opening credits of "Gone With the Wind" with the text removed.
The primary problem with the early Happy Harmonies is their heavy-handedness, trying too hard to impress, with little or no humor. "Bottles" is still a favorite of mine, though. And "Pipe Dreams" and "Swing Wedding" (the trumpet gag toward the end--don't give it away for anyone who hasn't seen it--is truly shocking) deserve more than a 5.
You've hit the nail on the head as to why I'm not much of a fan of the Happy Harmonies/Isling/Harmon shorts. They're boring. I darsay, I'd rather watch one of Chuck Jones' early Sniffles shorts than one of those. There are a few non Tom and Jerry and Tex Avery MGM shorts I have a soft spot for though. Those should show up in the next part.
Nurse maid came out a day after my birthday (but I exist until 1970 as a HippityHop and 2008 as a human)
Love the vid and I think it would be cool if you reviewed all of the Cuphead Show episodes as they are like a modern take on these classic cartoons.
Dude, these early MGM cartoons have SO MUCH EDGE compared to the early Looney Tunes/Merrie Melodies and I love it!
I'm very excited foy your new series (especially when it comes to the Tom & Jerry Cartoons), good luck!
I was impressed with the Harman-Ising color cartoons when I first saw them on TV in the early 80s (the Bosko cartoons weren't among them) because I didn't even know they existed, and I also didn't know that anyone besides Disney was making color cartoons in that period that looked good. At that time I could forgive them for the meandering stories, but not now. The Flip cartoons remind me of the pre-Code Betty Boop cartoons.
Yeah, I'm going to be completely honest here, most of those Harman-Ising shorts don't do a thing for me. The handful that I've seen on Cartoon Network are pretty boring. The one exception has got to be "Peace on Earth" because it has a surprisingly dark premise behind the usual "cute little animals" schtick.
MGM really tried doing a lot to find an identity, and these cartoons really show!
And Tex Avery as well
I wonder if Fleischer would come up in the pipeline soonish. Not as much of these as the Disney theatrical shorts IIRC, easier to access with a lot of them in the public domain (although some of the shorts are considered lost media), and one of the important studios from the 30s. Still looking forward to more of these reviews/rankings.
Bosko's return!
And the run of cartoons that completely ruined his image, figuratively, and literally.
Yeah the MGM Boskos are worse compared to his Warner days.
Willie Whopper was probably the kid who came up with "My Dad works at Nintendo". Must have seen the name on some Hanafuda cards.
I can't wait for Part 2! I'm excited for you to talk about Tom and Jerry. I've been thinking about this, but will you review the cartoons from Fleischer studios sometime in the future?
Hey hick critic your not alone either,as a little kidni obly knew about tom and jerry and the droopy caetoons from mgm and i was aware that there were tex avery cartoons from mgm i only ever saw about 10 cartoons from his as a child(not counting his droopy directed ones)and theh were
1 blizt wolf
2 red hot riding hood
3 swing shift cinderella
4 screwball squirrel
5 bad luck blackie
6 king sized canary
7 symphony in slang
8 magical mastro
9 rock a bye bear
10 little jonnhy jet
And this us mostly becuase before the tex avery blu rays were relesed were my only exposier to his mgm works thanks to the second looney tunes platinum collection blu ray,(i also had 5 the captian and the kid shorts directed by friz freling on the same set,and peace on earth and the remake,the dot and the line and the milky way, on the warner home video entertainment academy award animation collection dvd set's,but other than those shorts from child hood i never really known much more about his mgm stuff,so yeah very limeted exposer to him but at least i grew up with some if his work and had a clue of what his shorts from mgm were,but just never saw or wacth them enough like the classic disney shorts,the classic looney tunes and tom and jerry and droopy cartoons,so yeah just wanted ti tell you that your not alone on not seeing much mgm cartoons.
You know, there is an archive with the cartoons in good quality, idk if i can send it tho
Angel showing the middle finger lol
22:58 Circus is a direct clone of a short Iwerks did at Disney called The Karnival Kid
Have you ever considered doing the MGM *musicals* once you're done with this or a later series? Nobody ever talks about those and I think it would be awesome if somebody reviewed all of them.
I know you've seen some of them, but those are only the tap, i mean tip, of the iceberg!
14:25 buster keaton one week 1920 25:55 Buster Keaton 7 chances 1925 30:54 Buster keaton the paleface 1922
As to my thoughts for these collections of cartoons
Flip the Frog (any similarities between his name and my username are purely coincidental) had a decent enough run of cartoons. They definitely felt more daring and funny for a first run of cartoons than Bosko’s. Not great, but most of them are fairly entertaining. My personal favorite of his is Room Runners
Willie Whopper wasn’t too memorable, but, like Flip’s, his cartoons did definitely have a lot of creativity behind them. Stratos-Fear was also my favorite of his
The Happy Harmonies flat-out suck. Not to say that cartoons like To Spring and Bottles aren’t genuinely good, because they are, and so are a few others even, but for the most part these cartoons are sickeningly cute to an extent that WB never really got to. My personal *least* favorite of these is Poor Little Me, which I consider absolutely terrible. That cartoon has actually reached a point to where it’s an inside joke between me and one of my friends to act like it’s God’s gift to animation
The Captain and the Kids cartoons were… very average. I found some of them pretty funny and I guess the Captain had some personality although he wasn’t a great character by any means. I didn’t dislike the series quite to the extent you did but it didn’t really do much for me. Petunia National Park is my favorite of them
57:41
Look how they massacred my boy
I wonder what font you used for this?
Metro Mayer Serif.
@@thehickcritic I see.
@thehickcritic hey man, love your videos, when we get to the Tom and Jerry shorts...where do you rank Buddies Thicker Than Water from 1962? I say a 9/10 and the best one from the Gene Deitch era of these shorts. My favorite gag was the white mouse gag where Jerry put his owners makeup on to scare Tom out of the apartment
I don't actually remember much from the Gene Deitch cartoons that I have seen since it's been so long, so when I do watch them, it'll be like I'm watching them for the first time.
@@thehickcritic
I'm intrigued. I didn't like those shorts as a kid (I have grown to like a select few, though).
Fun fact hick: do you know ub iwerks works both Disney "yes", and Looney tunes "ironic from Gabby"
Is this going to include the DFE-produced MGM shorts like Pink Panther going forward? I’d love to see what you think of “Shocking Pink”.
While MGM now owns the shorts the distributor was United Artists which didn't merge with MGM til after the Pink Panther shorts ended.
@@stephenholloway6893I still think it’s worth counting either way.
@OctacleEdits Ultimately it's his call and while I wouldn't be surprised if he did include them from a modern point of view I just wouldn't be surprised if he chooses not to include them because at that point MGM didn't distribute them nor did they own United Artists.
That Bosko redesign... why? Just why?
22:50 The exact same thing happens in the 1929 Mickey Mouse short The Karnival Kid.
The emperor in The Chinese Nightingale looks like ET. He’s so wrinkly
28:26 the plan was if the antagonist fail the send Flip as dress as him so he could win if he loses
i didnt thought you would DO alll MGM Cartoons ... i expected all Tom and Jerry but .... DOING ALL of them ....wow
30:04 It would be universal that would be taking legal action against them at this time because, they owned the rights to him at the time.
Hugh Harman regretted making all but 3 of the cartoons he ever made, one of them was The Old Mill Pond. The other two of them we should see in the next part!
50:36 - 50:43 actually, they did use actual cloth for the backgrounds. They like stitched cloth onto the cels
Finally! Despite watching 1 Flip the Frog cartoon, I’m pretty sure that the whole series is amazing! Besides, it is made by one of the original Mickey Mouse creators!
These early MGM cartoons either feel like a product of their time, not that great (especially with those Captain Kid ones which made me feel bad for the ones who had to make it) or could be underappreciated gems. But part 2 should have the stuff that I am definitely more familiar with.
Same here. A majority of these shorts I am not familiar with, and any that I have seen have been for the most part, on RUclips around my college age years and onwards out of curiosity. Most I have not seen on TV. Part two, on the other hand, should be a treat as we'll finally get into the good stuff like Tom and Jerry and Tex Avery. The Tex Avery stuff is fantastic.
Yeah especially the Iwerks shorts until RUclips I haven't seen them some of the Happy Harmonies Captain and the Kids Count Screwloose Barney Bear the 2nd Harman Ising era Tom &Jerry Tex Avery and the 2 one off Chuck Jones shorts were the only MGM shorts I saw.
@@stephenholloway6893 It was mostly Tom and Jerry shorts (classic Hanna and Barbera, Gene Deitch and Chuck Jones), Tex Avery, Barney Bear (Dick Lundy one's included), and a few Harman/ Isling/ Freleng/Hanna Barbera one-short shorts that I saw on TV, mainly the Acme Hour and Cartoon Network's Tom and Jerry half hour blocks. Also saw The Bear That Wasn't and The Dot and the Line. I've only watched one Captain and the Kids short (the Santa Claus one, out of curiosity, had some of the Freleng directed shorts as a bonus on a Looney Tunes Golden Collection DVD set) and one of the Count Screwloose shorts on RUclips (Wanted, No Master). Honestly, I'm not a big fan of the Barney Bear shorts, but I'll explain that further on in the next part of this review when the bear appears.
@glowworm2 Droopy was another MGM character I saw but because Tex directed the majority of them I put him with Avery. And yes all 3 Tom and Jerry eras were included when I brought them up.
Droopy was one of my favorites of Tex Avery’s MGM characters.
The title for the last Captain and Kids short was called that was because to Mama the hat was new eventhough it was used. Still a bad short but hopefully it at least explains the title.
Oh yes, the return of Bosko, oh God!!!
"Little Cheeser" gets points from me for the dirty minded "Man taking a shower" joke Cheeser tells to his shoulder angel while drunk.
Howdy Ho Hick Critic, long time now see. Anyhow unlike the monotonous rambling from last time, I'm gonna (try to) make these comments a lot shorter than those of the Looney Tunes series so that they're more easily digestable
Ready, Go:
I like how you start intergrating short clips from all sorts of media to help get your point across (or to just get a laugh)
I like how you get more bolder and bolder with your commentary (The starting joke in Leghorn Swoggled, the dad leaving to get the milk comment in the first peanuts video, and now the unhinged lunacy of the s3x jokes from the flip cartoons way before the haze code)
I personally don't consider words like hell or damn to be necessarly profanities but ok I guess
Didn't you kinda already cover the Controversy before in your Rapsidy Rabbit review?
The angelic music when the Tex Avery pic showed up on the end of the video was just cathartic.
That's about it, cya
I watched Toyland Broadcast back around 3007 on Boomerang
bros from the future
Boomerang had an MGM cartoons block and that short was heavily edited.
*2007
@brycefourn2001 thanx
@MasamuneNoirFilms YW :)
Can you post the individual reviews as shorts like you did for the Looney Tunes?
I haven't decided yet if I'm going to do it now or wait until this entire series is over, but I do plan on doing it.
57:40 Do you mean the movie from 2005 or another version that I don't recall?
No I am talking about the 2005 Disney version.
There was a animated short that was released during the 2nd World War based on the tale as well.
I'm of the belief that you ought to include an Optical Poem since it is on the list, after all.
Will u review every Disney cartoon next
Metro Goldwyn Oscar Mayer Mayonnaise!!
Edit:
29:54 :is, is that legal?
Pretty sure they cancelled the Air Race cartoon because saint Peter flips the bird at a passing aviator.
He did it in the released version as well just not on a cloud.
Flippy and Little Whopper need to be brought back.
Next if he finishes the MGM cartoon he will do Disney next (i think)
Your Next Big Ranking Project Should Either Be The Disney Cartoons Or The Walter Lantz Cartoons
Or The Fleischer Studios Cartoons So You Could Rank Betty Boop And Popeye
When is the 2nd part