After being dormant for a couple of years, after 1949's 'A Ham in a Role', the Goofy Gophers return this time with Fritz Freleng at the helm.
While this reviewer prefers their earlier cartoons, especially 1947's 'The Goofy Gophers', 1951's 'A Bone for a Bone' is still excellent with not much wrong other than that it's not quite as funny, clever or as original as the earlier outings.
Here in 'A Bone for a Bone', the animation is great, with some luscious colours and richly detailed backgrounds and everything is very fluidly and smoothly drawn with no obviously jarring movements or frames. Carl Stalling has been consistently wonderful with his music, it is always dynamic and beautiful to listen to while also enhancing the action and colour(which is what music in cartoons should do) and his energetically vibrant and whimsical scoring for 'A Bone for a Bone' is not a disappointment whatsoever.
The dialogue is razor-sharp and witty, most of it is absolutely hilarious. The gags, in laugh-a-minute mode, are imaginative and executed very well indeed, if not quite as brilliantly as in 'The Goofy Gophers' for example. The fast pacing and fun story, detailing of the intellectual and well-spoken dog even when crafty not being a match for the overly-polite and also very dangerous gophers Mac and Tosh, further complement the humour. The slapstick and violence, while not as dark and brutal as the earlier outings while still being so, also add to the fun without being too over-the-top cartoonish or too sadistic that it's stomach churning.
Mac, Tosh and the dog work wonders together, and voiced with aplomb by the always entertaining Stan Freberg and particularly one of the gods of voice-acting Mel Blanc.
Overall, Fritz Freleng takes on the Goofy Gophers series to surprisingly great effect. 9/10 Bethany Cox
