Snow Foolin'

This is a good deal of fun. It's December 21 and winter has struck. First, animals must go to the furriers to get their winter coats. Once done, the fun begins and especially the skating. From alligators to centipedes, everyone seems to have some kind of skate or skating device. The use is colorful and clever. I never really cared for the bouncing ball stuff. I actually remember going to a couple movies where these were done, but even in the Fifties the audiences were a little harsh. We really wanted the Road Runner.

This cartoon starts with a bunch of animals putting on their winter coats and quickly gives way to lots of animals skating and what appears to be body-slalom with various happenings which I suppose were supposed to be jokes, but I didn't find very funny.

Then, a kangaroo tells to follow the bouncing egg we're suddenly in a bizarre sing-along version of Jingle Bells. The amazing part about this is they do all the verses, then a little more skating, then it's over. There's no real plot, not even a slapstick joke-plot and the gags were all done better in other cartoons of the era. Certainly odd and interesting to people who are into early (pre-TV) animation, but not going to be a holiday classic anytime soon.

What I appreciated in here were the innovative sight gags, things I hadn't seen in the hundreds and hundreds of other animated shorts from the 1930s, '40s and '50s. Some were subtle and clever, others as subtle as the fox turning his calendar, observing "Hey, it's the first day of winter" and immediately having a ton of snow dropped on his head!

The "clever" material including a skating ostrich who did eight "the hard way" with his skates, little mice finding a way to use an elephant as a cannon in a snowball fight, and more. . Kudos to Isadore Klein for the story.

The sight gags come fast and furious in here as we see how animals all have fun with the winter. However, this is one of those "Screen Song" sing-a-long cartoons, so once the jokes end, you have the spend the last two minutes singing "Jingle Bells," which lowers the rating of the cartoon.

However, it is still recommended.

Both previous commenters have gotten certain animals mixed up: It's a rabbit who declares the start of winter just before snow falls on him and a hen who tells us to follow the bouncing "hen egg". Now that I cleared that up, I thought this was a highly amusing, if not hilarious, cartoon with wonderful gags that lead to the song before the last gag afterwards. Loved the ostrich doing "eight the hard way", and the skunk saying, "Nauseating, isn't it!" (What's he responding to? Watch the cartoon!) And then there's a kangaroo and her son falling down from the sky (don't worry, the son is all right!). When "Jingle Bells" is playing with the bouncing egg jumping on the lyrics, you also see the second and third verse which I don't think I've ever heard anyone else singing whenever I listen to Christmas songs on the radio. On that note, Snow Foolin' is worth seeing for anyone who loves holiday cartoons.

. . . low-effort, lazy, static, one-slide, unimaginative, indolent, cheap, tawdry, embarrassing, shameless, patronizing, abusive, demeaning, out-of-touch, clueless, misdirected, controversial travesties from the self-proclaimed "Famous Studios." As Einstein famously observed, "Not everything that flutters is famous." If famous is as famous does, SNOW FOOLING's day of infamy may well last six or seven Eternities. If the producers had exercised an ounce of imagination, they might have come up with some humorous original lyrics along the lines of "Grandma got run over by a reindeer." Instead they curse us with 18 more banal verses of "Jingle Bells."