Don't judge DePatie-Freleng Enterprises solely on the Crazylegs Crane theatrical series, or that of the Tijuana Toads and Blue Racer. Not all their output is below average or bad. In fact, the 1960s Pink Panther cartoons (and some of those from the early 70s) and the Inspector and Ant and the Aardvark theatrical series were very good and excellent at their best. And the Roland and Rattfink and Sherriff Hoot Kloot series, while uneven, had their good moments. So on the whole, generally the output was the opposite of bad.
The Crazylegs Crane theatrical series is for me easily the worst of the studio's theatrical series, with none of the cartoons being good (those of Tijuana Toads and Blue Racer had sporadic flashes of above average-ness). Nearly everything in all the sixteen Crazylegs Crane cartoons are done poorly, the worst aspects quite awful even. All of the cartoons have exactly the same problems and are very similar in plotting except with different settings so repetition in my reviews for the cartoons (something that really is trying to be avoided these days) were inevitable when it was like seeing the same cartoon sixteen times with slight variations.
Only one thing is halfway decent, which is the catchy and characterful music which fits at least. Even if it is on the forgettable side.
Everything else fails significantly. The animation looks rather cheap, have said in other reviews for the various DePatie-Freleng Enterprises theatrical series that the studio had a purposefully abstract visual style, but the Crazylegs Crane fared the worst at taking abstract to simplistic extremes. Everything just looks flatly coloured and like it was made in a rush.
All the gags, and there are far too few anyway, are stale retreads with no imagination at all and the dialogue lacks any wit, so there is nothing memorable. All the stories are paper thin and are predictable and repetitive, as well as completely lacking in energy. Nothing about the father-son relationship that dominates the series is entertaining, relatable or fresh, and has no energy.
Crazylegs didn't really work as a supporting character in the Tijuana Toads/Blue Racer/Dogfather series, due to his supposed craftiness always coming over as too dim-witted. Here he is very bland from having little personality, there is no craftiness here and he just comes over as stupid. His son is very annoying and there is no chemistry between the two characters, no respect in fact. Even more annoying is the dragonfly, because of his voice primarily and also because he doesn't really do very much.
Voice acting is very poor, Larry D Mann's voice fits a little better here than it did in the Tijuana Toads etc series when Crazylegs was in support, because Mann's oafish voice always jarred with Crazylegs supposedly crafty antics before whereas because Crazylegs is not near as crafty it doesn't jar as much. It is very annoying and one note voice work though that sounds like Mann had just gotten out of bed still half asleep. What also infuriated me about the series was how they made Frank Welker, one of the voice acting gods, irritating, especially as the dragonfly.
Really bad all in all. If you want to see a good representation of the studio see the Pink Panther, The Inspector and the Ant and the Aardvark theatrical series instead. This is best erased from the memory if possible. 2/10.
