Louey, Louey!
Okay. Alright. Download today’s cartoon. Watch it. Think about it. Then email me. AND TELL ME WHAT THE HECK IT’S SUPPOSED TO MEAN! Damned if I know!
From 1933, we see Sentinel Louey in “A Dizzy Day,” and it appears to be a collaboration between RKO Van Beuren Studios and New Yorker cartoonist Otto Soglow. The same alliance resulted in some the Little King cartoons — seems like they were trying to cook up a brand new character here. A cheerful little sentry goes off on a series of jolly little adventures THAT MAKE NO SENSE WHATSOEVER. A plot that vanishes before our very eyes, odd gags with no apparent punchline, role reversals that lead… nowhere — not so much a dizzy day as a dada day. And all of this is rendered in that minimalist French curve style Mr. Soglow made famous back when Art Deco was considered cutting edge. Weirdness —big time!
Humor in Uniform Week marches on!
For your free subscription to ReFrederator, click
here, or visit iTunes!
»
On October 19th, 2006 at 12:00 am
What an odd style. And what glacial gags!
On October 20th, 2006 at 12:00 am
Sentinel Louey was teh top strip for Soglow’s Little King Sunday comics page. it features iddball spot gags which were fine once a week, but but were a real challenge to build into a cartoon series. I have both Sentinel Louey cartoons, from Bosko Video. They were probably a big stretch for Van Beuren, what with the highly stylized characters, background, and, for this period, very strange music. To me, they have always looked like stone-age UPA.
On October 23rd, 2006 at 12:00 am
Stone-age UPA — nice observation! The lightly orchestrated music track with the odd soloist noodling around here and there really underscores that comparison. I’m thinkin’ the two Sentinel Louie toons preceeded the Little King films. Louie’s attitudes toward animals and battered women probably preclude much of a revival in the near future.
On October 23rd, 2006 at 12:00 am
Yes, the Little King cartoons come right after the Loueys. The second one, “A.M to P.M.” is better paced, and the music more typical of the period, though still a notch above Van Beuren’s average. They still did a very good job of keeping Soglow’s style - much better & more consistent than in the Little King cartoons. “A.M to P.M.” also introduces a bizarre supporting character, with his own theme song, “the mysterious Mr. Zoot.” I don’t think he was in the strips, but I haven’t seen enough to be certain.
On November 1st, 2006 at 12:00 am
I, honestly, couldn’t wait for this cartoon to end. I wanted to stop it several times.
I’m all for absurd humor, honestly. Monty Python, all that, hilarious. But this? This was actually warping my brain and I couldn’t wait for it to be over. Seriously, every time I see the name “Van Beuren” in the credits I start to think twice before watching it.
Meanwhile, I love Felix the Cat. The weirder the better. I don’t know what it was with Sentinel Louey but I just plain hated it.