Hysterical High Spots in American History

"Hysterical High Spots in American History" (1941) is a Technicolor cartoon from Walter Lantz that offers a six-and-a-half-minute survey of scenes from New World and American history with obvious gags added to them, e.g. the first Thanksgiving ("Thank you," "Thank you," etc.), the call to arms of the Minutemen ("Okay, wait a minute, just a minute, gimme a minute"), and Lincoln's Gettysburg address (take a wild guess). It starts out with Columbus (who looks through a telescope when land is spotted and sees a movie marquee advertising a Universal Pictures double feature, "It's a Date" with "Seven Sinners") and moves on to Ponce de Leon and the Fountain of Youth, the Spanish missions, the Pilgrims, the Revolution, the Gold Rush, various technical marvels of the 19th Century, the stock market crash, the Depression and the New Deal, ending up with the Draft Bill and peacetime conscription.

Some of the less obvious gags include a cute take on the Indians' sale--at auction!--of Manhattan Island ("Sold to the little Dutchman for 24 dollars!"). George Washington is seen throwing a coin across the Potomac only to get trampled in the rush to retrieve it. Robert Fulton stands on his sinking steamboat and comments, "Confidentially, it sinks." Thomas Edison makes his first recording of "Mary Had a Little Lamb" and plays it back, only to hear it in the voice of a character from a then-popular radio comedy, "Fibber McGee and Molly." The best gag takes place at the mission at San Juan Capistrano in California and involves a darkly humorous reference to the famous song, "When the Swallows Come Back to Capistrano." There are a couple of old spinsters, Brandy and Kerzina, who get excited when the soldiers come marching through, first during the Revolution and then…well, let's just say they pop up unexpectedly much later.

It's never very funny, but it's consistently amusing and generates a chuckle or two. Besides, it's always exciting to watch American history being given the full-blown studio cartoon treatment and noting what's covered and what's not (i.e., what lends itself to easy gag treatment and what doesn't). It's all done very well, with detailed background art and varying character design for some of the famous figures depicted, cartoonish for some (Columbus, Robert Fulton), but much more lifelike for others (Washington, Samuel Morse, Thomas Edison). The Edison scene is remarkably detailed, not just in the animated depiction of Edison himself, but in the reproduction of the Edison cylinder phonograph, although what we see is clearly a later model and not an exact duplicate of the original machine on which the recording was made. This cartoon is found in the Woody Woodpecker and Friends Classic Cartoon Collection DVD box set.

. . . Manhattan Island in 1626 is about $48 trillion today, adjusted for inflation. It actually amounts to the relatively paltry sum of $1,143 at an updated valuation, the last time I checked. HYSTERICAL HIGH SPOTS IN AMERICAN HISTORY shows a ruminative Pete smirking at snatching this prime piece of real estate "for a steal." This is how "The Art of the Deal" always has gone down in America. All the historical figures referred to by name here were artists, all right: Specifically, Con Artists. People such as Chris Columbus, Bill Bradford, Pete Minuit, George Washington, Paul Revere, Sam Morse, Tom Edison, Hank Ford and Herb Hoover shared a single talent: Their uncanny knack of stealing the credit for other people's ideas, accomplishments and work, and litigating a fortune on the backs of abused ordinary honest working Americans.

A vast majority of Walter Lantz's work ranges between well worth seeing and must watches, even if some theatrical series are better than others (not unexpected as that is true of pretty much every animation director). He was responsible for some misses, but on the whole he hit more than he missed. American history has always fascinated me and it's not often when one sees it lampooned in animation. Lantz was a good choice for director, he was no stranger to lampooning various subjects and in general well.

He fares well here in 'Hysterical High Spots in American History'. It is not hysterical or a high spot in Lantz's career, but it is well crafted, very interesting and enjoyable and a good way of making American history accessible to younger audiences. It did make me want to read up more on the less familiar historical figures and events, most familiar and some not so familiar (which actually has always been fun in cartoons with this kind of premise), lampooned.

'n my view 'Hysterical High Spots in American History' does feel a little rushed and over-stuffed, with so much featured (too much) and too little time to breathe. Not all the gags properly landed, especially the slightly too cutesy Manhattan Island sale and tired Gettysburg Address lampoon, and some of the dialogue is a little too corny like the Robert Fulton one.

Didn't care for a few of the character designs, especially for Robert Fulton and Christopher Columbus.

So much is good though. The music is lush and characterful throughout and a vast majority of the animation is excellent. Loved the extremely rich attention to detail in the backgrounds, especially in the Thomas Edison part, and Edison and George Washington are extremely well drawn. The story is non existent but this was a case of not caring about that when there was so much energy.

While not all the humour works and nothing is hilarious (it also depends on how familiar you are with what is covered, the cartoon was very mixed in this regard), many of the gags are amusing and humorous. The Washington, Edison and San Juan Capistrano mission ones stand out. When it comes to the history, it was educational too and always interesting, good on the cartoon for including content not usually seen let alone lampooned in animation, not everyday you see the Great Depression, the First Thanksgiving and Spanish Wars depicted in animation.

Summing up, a lot of fun and interesting but doesn't ever quite live up to the title. 7/10.