Abner the Baseball

'Abner the Baseball' is an extremely low-budget cartoon from Paramount, the studio that consistently produced the least entertaining and least imaginative animation. The opening credits of this cartoon (with a choral theme song) place so much emphasis on the title character, they make this toon seem intended as the debut of an ongoing series. But this is strictly a one-off, and it's hard to see how it could have been otherwise: Abner is just a talking baseball ... and he isn't even a talker, so much as a mere narrator.

We meet Abner propped upon a pillow in the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York. With an annoyingly twee voice emerging from his anthropomorphised face, Abner reveals the events leading up to his arrival in this hallowed hall. It seems that Abner is the baseball that got whacked by Mickey Mantle for a home run against the Detroit Tigers, on 10 September 1960 ... sailing for an astonishing 634 feet (193 metres). Abner gets whacked right out of Briggs Stadium and into the street, where he's found by a kid who is honest enough to bring him back to the stadium. Abner's narration tells us that this is the longest home run ever hit. Actually, Mantle had previously hit at least one longer home run, in an exhibition game.

We see a cartoon version of Mickey Mantle, although the only part of him that's recognisable is the number 7 on his jersey. The animation here is quite bad even by Paramount's low standard, and repetitive with it. Every single time the catcher signals a pitch, he always gives the two-finger signal. (My cultural references are British, so I got a big laugh out of this ... for the wrong reason.) Each time the pitcher goes into his wind-up, he invariably cocks his leg absolutely straight up into the air. Even a very unsophisticated child who knows nothing about animation cels will notice that the animators are using the same actions over and over in this brief toon.

A baseball is not the best possible object for animators to imbue with anthropomorphic existence. Abner is drawn to look like a regulation baseball, but with a human-ish face. (As if the baseball-headed mascot of the New York Mets got his body chopped off.) Kids who watch this cartoon might be prompted to wonder how a humanised baseball feels when it gets knocked for a home run, or when it lands in the street outside the stadium. Doesn't this hurt? Abner never addresses this.

Nor are we ever told why this particular baseball is named Abner. The obvious assumption is that this refers to Abner Doubleday. It's now thoroughly discredited that Abner Doubleday invented baseball: this canard was created by an Anglophobe sport-equipment manufacturer who wanted to suppress the fact that America's national pastime was invented in England. Still, the disproven myth refuses to die. When I visited Arlington National Cemetery -- where Doubleday is buried -- I was annoyed that the tour guide kept saying that Doubleday invented baseball (which he didn't do), while mentioning nothing at all about Doubleday's actual achievements as a general in America's Civil War.

I'll rate 'Abner the Baseball' just 1 point in 10, and that's only because I'm a baseball fan.