Hello, cartoon lovers! I'm OutOfOdor, and this is another Cartoon Discussion of the Week! But before I jump into this week's discussion, let me ask you something: what am I doing wrong? I notice I don't really get the hive of activity that I expect when I do these discussions, and that has prompted me to mentally ask myself: what am I doing wrong? Or is it just that these forums aren't getting enough activity? 'tis a shame either way, and frankly I hardly understand it, since much of the CDotW's back on the archived GAC boards had much going on.

Now that's out of the way, let's get on with this week's cartoon, from New York's Famous Studios:

Release Date: Feb. 26, 1954 (according to BCDB)
Direction: Izzy Sparber
Story: Isadore Klein
Animation: Al Eugster, William Pattengill (possibly others, uncredited)
Backgrounds: Robert Little
Music: Winston Sharples
Summary: Spotgagger glimpsing at life at the appropriately named Crazy Town, where the stork delivers parents to the baby, and anything half off is literally that- cut in half (shades of Willy Wonka!!)

I'm not a fan of Famous Studios' work that much (there's a reason I love the comic book version of Casper better than the cartoons), but I love this little one-shot cartoon here. The gags here are pretty funny, although not as much as anything from WB or MGM, but still give me a nice chuckle (using "Window Paint" to add a window to a house and "Door Paint" to add the door- heh!). Nice score from Mr. Sharples, as always, and I wouldn't be surprised if some of the score here ended up in the cue library used in shows like "Tennessee Tuxedo" and "Milton the Monster". Especially like the arrangement of "Home! Sweet Home" which plays multiple times throughout.

'Til next week, folks, this is OutOfOdor signing off! Discuss away!!

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I'll reserve a separate thread as to why I feel these threads aren't getting enough attention.

On to the topic of the short at hand. I don’t like this cartoon. I felt the gags were smirk-worthy at best and not all that funny. Cartoons like these prove that Famous Studios was aiming them squarely at kids.

EDIT: One positive thing: the animation is passable.

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Some of the gags are okay, but I think Avery would've done something much similar and better. Also, I have suspicion that this was originally going to be a "Kartune" (formerly, the "Screen Song" series). However, the series was canceled by this point and I guess the staff replaced the planned song with more "crazy" gags.