One Off the Shelf
Last chapter in our Book Report Week — Frank Tashlin’s “Have You Got Any Castles”, one of those great ‘inanimate-things-come-to-life-late-at-night’ Warner Brothers cartoons. In this case, appropriately enough, it’s books in a library, and, baby, we’re talkin’ puns bigtime. Cringe inducing, groan inspiring, eye roll encouraging puns. Lots of ‘em. I fully expect the air to reverberate with the sound of foreheads flattened by the palms of ReFrederator regulars going “Bulldog Drummin’? Cheesh!”
Pretty funny stuff if you can catch all the reference points — lots of great music too. But since this cartoon is crammed to its sprocket holes with improper ethnic caricatures, it has traditionally shown up in heavily edited versions of any number of lengths. We’re presenting it today in all of it’s politically incorrect splendor (fair warning!)
If you yam, in fact, what you yam, you may well enjoy next week’s ReFrederator theme — five days of Purely Popeye. Grab a can of uncooked, clearly labeled spinach and join us Monday.
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On September 15th, 2006 at 12:00 am
This is one that I’ve seen before on those cheap VHS compilations of PD cartoons (I also think I recall seeing another cartoon with the exact same “books come to life” premise but different gags). That quadruple monster mash is the best Refrederator frame grab ever! It’s also notable that, despite the conceit of the cartoon being that the characters come to life from the books, the character design of both Fu Manchu and Frankenstein follow the conventions set by the film versions. In fact, Fu Manchu having a mustache and ponytail actually contradicts Sax Rohmer’s version of the character, in which he’s described as completely lacking facial hair (see http://www.njedge.net/~knapp/irony.htm ).
On September 18th, 2006 at 12:00 am
There are a lot of movie versions of literary originals in “Castles.” Charles Laughton is Captain Bligh from Mutiny on the Bounty, and a caricature of of William Powell is used for the Thin Man (even though the character Powell played was not the title character!)