Land of the Midnight Fun

Tex Avery did quite a few shorts lampooning the travelogue shorts that were prevalent in the 1930s and one or two satires on the newsreels pre-television visual accounts of news of the week/month. Here he does a short presented in the form of a newsreel that pokes fun at travelogues. Very nice figureskating sequence using rotoscoping -the shooting of live-action footage that is later animated-that is one of the better bits. Good short, but Avery did better in the same vein. Still worth seeking out (I personally think that even Avery's less successful shorts are better or as good as some other directors best work!). Recommended.

As was Tex Avery's style during his Warner Bros. tenure, he uses "Land of the Midnight Fun" to spoof travelogues and newsreels. This one focuses on a voyage to the Arctic, replete with gags: the ship hugs the coastline, an Eskimo rubs lipstick on her nose to "kiss" her beau, and a timber wolf shouts "Timber!". But the cartoon's true high point is the rotoscoped figure skater. She was really hot! Cartoons like these serve as reminders why Tex Avery was WB's top animation director in the late '30s. He led the studio's animation department away from the Disney-style "cuteness" that they probably would have taken otherwise. Really funny.

Like I said, that figure skater was ONE HOT BABE!!!!!!

PS: The end gag was topical humor. It was the Trilon from the 1939 World's Fair in New York.

For a cartoon from 1939, this one isn't bad and it holds up reasonably well. However, many viewers who love classic cartoons would be shocked to hear that it's from Tex Avery--a man who created some of the most wonderful cartoon shorts of the 1940s and 50 with MGM. However, before this he worked for Warner Brothers/Looney Tunes and his films are much different. Some of this is because Avery hadn't fully developed his bizarro sensibilities with cartoons and part of it was because Looney Tunes simply was afraid to let him make the sort of strange cartoons he wanted to make. As a result, "Land of the Midnight Sun" is amazingly conventional for an Avery outing...and filled with ultra cornball jokes. They aren't all bad and the animation is nice...but when you compare this to such Avery classics as "Swingshift Cinderella" (made just a few years later), it comes up wanting. Worth seeing...and worth skipping. And, by the way, penguins do NOT live in the Arctic! Additionally, the object the ship is resting on is the iconic Trilon of the 1939 New York World's Fair.

I'm not sure if this is among several WB/Merrie Melodies featurettes I saw when I was younger/little at any point on any channel they aired. I don't remember already seeing this one on t.v. as well as some certain others. But I played/viewed this on Youtube months ago and I think this probably (or possibly) just may be my most favorite of the travelogue/newsreel series and one of my faves coming out of this particular animation company/studio from the '30s, as well as my favored mini cartoons directed by the late, great Tex Avery. As I paraphrase one of the other reviewers on here and as it reads in the title of my review, this is one of those that rely heavily on gags and puns. I concur, that figure skater is fine. But I also like the timber wolf and everything else about this short really. Perhaps what more I find enthralling is the scenery/cinematography of Alaska, one of many reasons why I love this so much. Also, I concur this is worthy and recommended. I've never seen the brief documentary it lampoons, but maybe I'll do a search for it on Youtube and if available watch it. For those who may not already know this and are interested, this title has been released on DVD as a bonus feature of the John Wayne flick, Allegheny Uprising, which I'd like and I plan to get eventually, more so for this Warners cartoon, since the movie would be new to me. I'd consider this amongst the best of the '30s Warners animated featurettes.Another great short from the classic era!

Love animation, it was a big part of my life as a child, particularly Disney, Looney Tunes and Tom and Jerry, and still love it whether it's film, television or cartoons.

Also have much admiration for Tex Avery, an animation genius whose best cartoons are animated masterpieces and some of the best ever made by anybody. 'Land of the Midnight Fun' is decent, but Avery has definitely done far better. It is always interesting to see an Avery cartoon before his prime period (all the cartoons he made before his 1942-1950s period at MGM are worth watching though few masterpieces), if more primarily for interest to see how Avery fared early on when he was still evolving and his distinctive style was not as strong or yet to be found.

This cartoon, as said, is a decent interesting watch, but Avery has done far better than decent interesting cartoons. He has done funnier and more imaginative cartoons, and 'Land of the Midnight Fun' was also made during a time where his cartoons by Avery standards were pretty tame. Oh and the story is best forgotten.

Not much risk-taking or boundary-breaking here, let alone his typical wacky wildness, and for me that was a huge part of his appeal as well as his visual and humour uniqueness.

However, it is no surprise that, as with a vast majority of Avery's cartoons regardless of the period, the animation is excellent. Beautifully drawn, very detailed and the colours are vibrant.

Carl Stalling's music score is typically lushly and cleverly orchestrated, with lively and energetic rhythms, it's also beautifully synchronised with the action and gestures/expressions and even enhances the impact.

Some very humorous lampooning of its two main subjects (newsreels and travelogues) and the rotoscoped female ice skater has rightly been singled out as a highlight. It is well-timed, if not inventively so, the characters engage and the voice acting from the ever versatile Mel Blanc and Robert C. Bruce, who does entertaining and educational narrations better than anyone, is reliably great.

In short, fun but tame. 7/10 Bethany Cox