The Bookworm

Hey, I'll bet you saw this and didn't really think about it.

By this time, there had already been many cartoons that played with the notion that they exist as drawings on a page. So it seemed natural to have cartoon characters co-exist with books.

In this particular one, characters from books come out of them and intermingle, beginning with the three witches from "Hamlet." They task the Raven from the eponymous "book" with getting a worm for their potion.

The central portion of the cartoon is a traditional chase game between the hunter and hunted. I'm sure there are all sorts of interesting societal notions to be drawn from the prevalence of these stories, But what interests me is this wrapper. Its amazingly sophisticated in its abstraction, the humor of abstraction.

The witches are stolen from Disney, "Snow White," I think.

Ted's Evaluation -- 2 of 3: Has some interesting elements.

The witches in MacBeth are working on their potion. They decide to need a worm. A crow offers to get it for them. But the title character is tougher to catch than anticipated.

MGM had gotten rid of Harman and Ising. Their black-and-white cartoons hadn't been crowd pleasers, so they called them back in. In this one, Hugh Harman unexpectedly turns out a funny cartoon with the uncredited help of Friz Freleng. While the bookworm is another of the cutesy characters of which Harman was so fond, the crow is far more to my taste: hungry, inept, and funny, with well-timed gags to punctuate the goings-on.

'The Bookworm,' a 1939 MGM cartoon short directed by Friz Freleng and Hugh Harman, takes an interesting concept and has some good fun with it. On a dark and stormy night in somebody's library, characters from literature emerge from their books and interact with each other. The three witches from "Hamlet" are wickedly brewing a potion, only to find that a crucial ingredient – a worm – is missing. The evil witches bully the skulking raven from Edgar Allen Poe's eponymous novel into acquiring a worm for them. Across the room, an innocent young bookworm emerges from his bulky encyclopedia, proclaiming himself to be "full of science and philosophy" and yearning for some adventure.

After the raven catches sight of his quarry, he tries every means possible to capture the poor bookworm, and the evil characters of literature wait in the shadows with anticipation. However, the little worms resourcefulness proves greater than anybody could have imagined, and he constantly eludes the frustrated bird, finally satisfying his thirst for adventure. The bookworm doesn't do it all alone, either. After it is evident that he is in trouble, all the noble figures of history and literature – include Paul Revere, Black Beauty, Robin Hood and the aging heroes of Gettysburg – emerge from their pages to lend a hand. Eventually, it is an enthusiastic troop of boy scouts from a scouting handbook who arrive to rescue the bookworm from a fiery death.

The concept behind the short, of book characters coming alive when you're not looking, reminded me a bit of Pixar's 'Toy Story (1995)' (substituting books for toys, obviously) and perhaps this cartoon served as an inspiration. The devilish raven was voiced by "The Man of a Thousand Voices," Mel Blanc, in only his third year of voice-acting. The animation in the film is a bit rough at times – certainly not as meticulously-drawn as many of Disney's films of that era – but it gets the story across well enough, and this roughness sort of complements the rather dark tone of the film. 'The Bookworm' can currently be found as a special feature in the "Complete Thin Man Collection," on the DVD for the third film in the series, 'Another Thin Man.'

Inside someone's personal library, all of the characters from the books and magazines come to life. The witches from "MacBeth" (not "Hamlet", as another reviewer stated) are making their brew, and they realize they need a worm. The raven from Edgar Allan Poe's "The Raven" is commissioned for the task. Fortunately for the story, a meek little worm just happens to be perusing the books at the time. The rest of the story is a long chase scene between the raven and the bookworm.

There's nothing here you haven't seen numerous times with Bugs Bunny & Elmer Fudd, Wile E. Coyote & the Road Runner, Tom & Jerry, Sylvester & Tweety, etc. But this cartoon still has a certain creative charm the way various characters from literature, pop fiction (for the time), and magazines are incorporated into the story's events.

An amusing way to spend eight minutes.