This is a cartoon in the Aesop's Fables series produced by Van Beuren studio. There will be spoilers ahead:
Van Beuren cartoons could be quite strange, particularly the early ones. This one is an excellent example of that. It has the usual hallmarks of an early 1930s cartoon-rubbery limbs, rough synchronization of sound and picture and so on. The gags are very odd ones, even for the studio and the time frame.
We see a lion at a piano, apparently trying to compose a melody. He gets frustrated, starts speaking vehemently in what sounds like German and begins pacing the floor-and his piano does likewise! After they settle back to work, a monkey comes in, words are exchanged and the monkey goes to the back of the piano with a brush and a dustpan. Musical notes flow out of the piano onto the floor and the monkey brushes most of them into the dustpan and drops them back into the piano. The monkey soon has a close and hilarious encounter with a note in what might be the best gag in the short.
The lion leaves after putting on a cape with a mind of its own and we cut to the next scene-the front of an opera house billing a new opera and the audience flowing into the building. There's an extended bit involving a hippo in the wrong seat and a monkey who has the ticket for that seat. It's funny with a great gag at the end.
The lion is now the conductor and an odd opera begins. There's everything you might expect in a cartoon opera, including a lengthy fight scene and then the short ends with the lion playing his piano to a surprise conclusion, which I won't spoil here.
This cartoon is well worth seeing.
Van Beuren cartoons could be quite strange, particularly the early ones. This one is an excellent example of that. It has the usual hallmarks of an early 1930s cartoon-rubbery limbs, rough synchronization of sound and picture and so on. The gags are very odd ones, even for the studio and the time frame.
We see a lion at a piano, apparently trying to compose a melody. He gets frustrated, starts speaking vehemently in what sounds like German and begins pacing the floor-and his piano does likewise! After they settle back to work, a monkey comes in, words are exchanged and the monkey goes to the back of the piano with a brush and a dustpan. Musical notes flow out of the piano onto the floor and the monkey brushes most of them into the dustpan and drops them back into the piano. The monkey soon has a close and hilarious encounter with a note in what might be the best gag in the short.
The lion leaves after putting on a cape with a mind of its own and we cut to the next scene-the front of an opera house billing a new opera and the audience flowing into the building. There's an extended bit involving a hippo in the wrong seat and a monkey who has the ticket for that seat. It's funny with a great gag at the end.
The lion is now the conductor and an odd opera begins. There's everything you might expect in a cartoon opera, including a lengthy fight scene and then the short ends with the lion playing his piano to a surprise conclusion, which I won't spoil here.
This cartoon is well worth seeing.