Frisky Frolics (1932) User Reviews

Frozen Foolery

[boblipton · 5/10 · 5 December 2010]

This is pretty much of a generic van Beuren cartoon from Mannie Davis and John Foster at this stage, featuring the usual assortment of animal characters doing winter sports on a frozen lake, including skating and ice hockey. It begins with a rather elaborate sequence of countermovement as characters skate in various directions and the figures are done in some detail with elaborate black and white backgrounding for the period, but the quality soon eases off, both in terms of cheating shots -- the first sequence soon reveals itself as a looped serious of movement -- and in the typical weightless, insubstantial way the characters move. Certainly not the worst cartoon made in this period, it won't add much to your enjoyment of the stuff.

Poorer animation than usual for Van Buren...and that's saying a lot.

[planktonrules · 2/10 · 15 May 2022]

Of the major animation studios, Van Buren was among the weakest. Much of it is because they were a bargain basement outfit...making films much, much cheaper than the competition...and it usually showed. In the case of "Frisky Frolics", however, the animation is much worse than usual...with mouths way out of sycn with the voices and some roughly drawn scenes. You certainly WON'T mistake this for a Disney nor Fleischer Brothers film.

This story is set on a frozen lake during winter. All sorts of nonsense occurs...most of which isn't particularly funny nor inspired. The repetitive use of cels didn't help any...nor the apparently lack of plot. Overall, a poor cartoon even by Van Buren standards.