Get Lost! Little Doggy

Was very fond of Woody Woodpecker and his cartoons as a child. Still get much enjoyment out of them now as a young adult, even if there are more interesting in personality cartoon characters and better overall cartoons.

That is in no way knocking Woody, because many of his cartoons are a lot of fun to watch and more and also still like him a lot as a character. Having been underwhelmed by Sid Marcus' 1963 Woody Woodpecker cartoons, when it came to his previous 1964 efforts was pleasantly surprised by 'Skin Folks' and found 'Woody's Clip Joint' very uninspired but watchable. 'Get Lost! Little Doggy' was closer to the quality of the 1963 cartoons than with 'Skin Folks'. Again, It does prove to me that Woody at this point was well past his glory days and that Walter Lantz Studios had run out of ideas long before, evidenced in tired and repetitive situations, toning Woody's personality down, animation limitations, very variable opponents and even more hit and miss humour. The music and voice work were pretty much the only things that were near-consistently good.

Starting with the good things, the music is bouncy, energetic and very lushly orchestrated, not only synchronising and fitting with the action very well but enhancing it. There is the occasional bout of energy, occasional amusing moments and Duffy is absolutely adorable.

Voice acting is solid. Grace Stafford in particular continues to prove why she was the best voice actor for the character and the one that understood him the most. As said, really liked Duffy.

However, Mrs Meany is neither formidable (for her character name she could have been meaner actually) or entertaining enough to be a good foil for Woody and the conflict between them was too repetitive and under-characterised to work properly. Woody's personality once again is dulled down and nothing like when he was in his prime in the 40s all the way through to the mid-50s, his material isn't fun enough being too derivative and he doesn't even have enough to him to be a pest let alone manic.

Generally there is a lack of energy once again, this is fairly routine as far as Woody Woodpecker cartoons go rather than the original manic energy and it all feels very safe when early and prime Woody Woodpecker took risks.

Chemistry in 'Get Lost! Little Doggy' is bland, thanks to the under-characterising of the characters, and not much is particularly funny, with lacklustre timing, not enough laughs and less than witty gags. Very little is done to give freshness to a very formulaic story heavy in repetition and it's all derivative of better stuff.

Just as problematic is the animation quality. Time and budget constraints shows in a lot of the animation, which is very rushed looking in the drawing and detail wise it's on the simplistic and careless side like many of Woody's cartoons from this period continuing through to the 60s.

In conclusion, very lacklustre. 4/10 Bethany Cox

Most of Marcus's early Lantz shorts had some issues. He hadn't found his place yet, and his early shorts reflect this, with pacing being pretty slow and deliberate. That doesn't make his early shorts bad though, more so just simply a little underwhelming. As always, let's start of with the good: Art Davis and Ray Abrams do a great job animating everything, with great movement from Davis and very appealing character designs from Abrams. Duffy, as a character, is great, with a fantastic personality that makes you feel for him, yet also understanding of his demonic side, as well. Woody is used to great comic effect here, with several solid-good gags, most of which feel very heavily inspired from earlier Woody shorts from the 50's and from Marcus's time at Screen Gems. Mrs. Meany, while not quite living up to her name here, is still a great foil and has some good moments here. The part where she wants to 'kiss the bride' is really funny, and here design has always stuck with me from this short. However, this is where things get slow... real slow. The pacing in this short is pretty consistent... as in consistently slow. The gags never really feel that punch due to how they'd be better utilized in a rapid fire sequence, like with what Marcus would do later on in his mid-60's shorts. The slower paced gags and building of tension in some of them, like the room and tea pot gags for example, do help to elevate this one to just about watchable, with the seeds of funny/hilarious ideas trying really hard to bloom, but honestly never doing so completely. Still, I'd recommended it to see if someone like you might actually favor the pacing of it, but personally, it was a big downer. Still a completely watchable short in almost all regulars, but DEFINITELY could've been better. Some real missed potential here, unfortunately/sadly.