It's A Very Special Cel Bloc Xmas: Ginger Nutt's Christmas Circus (1949)

Ginger Nutt's Christmas Circus (A Gaumont Animaland short, 1949)
Dir.: Bert Felstead
Cel Bloc Rating: 6/9

It is time to go a little bit more obscure with our holiday cartoon selections. A few years ago, I posted a trio of other reviews for the Animaland cartoons produced by former Disney director David Hand when he left America in 1944 to start a new animation studio in Great Britain with Gaumont. There were only nine cartoons produced in the Animaland series overall, four of them featuring a squirrel character named Ginger Nutt.

The Animaland cartoons featured a wide variety of animals, with a few species having not been seen much in cartoons from other studios. Hand and his staff selected some characters slightly off the beaten path, though they did have oft-used creatures such as weasels, parrots, lions, cats, and of course, squirrels. But their first film, The Australian Platypus, not only featured a pair of those rather more obscure monotremes as the titular characters, but also gave a prominent role to another Australian pair, two wacky kookaburras, laughing like crazy throughout the short. In The Lion (Felis Leo), after some moments with a more commonplace elephant, we spend time with an African Cape Buffalo and its calf, a species which rarely gets encountered in cartoons.

Hand's more naturalistic approach to his animal films -- while the shorts were actually directed by Bert Felstead -- carried over from his time at Disney, where he made his name directing both Bambi and Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. While the animals were anthropomorphized much in the Disney style to the greater degree in most of these Animaland shorts, once in a while Hand's team could get as wacky as something from Warner Bros. or Walter Lantz -- or at least try to get as wacky. In The Cuckoo, probably the strangest and darkest of the Animaland shorts, a truly unappealing lead character gets progressively more unappealing through the entire film, and pretty much ends up where he started.

And in Ginger Nutt's Christmas Circus, they go for straight ahead slapstick. While the other three squirrel films -- Ginger Nutt's Bee-Bother, It's A Lovely Day (both 1949), and Ginger Nutt's Forest Dragon (1950, and the last Animaland film) -- rely more on the cuteness factor of its lead character and in establishing the animal community in which he lives, Christmas Circus shifts Ginger almost entirely to the background while numerous other characters -- in particular, a parrot and a weasel battling over entry to the circus Ginger runs -- get most of the camera time.

The film has a peaceful beginning, as we are shown a pleasant winter night with circus music beckoning in the background, as we see a sign pointing its way indeed "To the Circus". Birds swoop past the sign and over to a large evergreen shrouded by snow beneath a full moon, and we can make the shadowy outlines of forest citizens as they head towards the tree. We see numerous animals of many species piling through the door in the side of the tree, where a bright light shines from within. As the last of the animals enter, we can clearly see another sign reading "No Gate-Crashers".

A parrot named Boko congas his way, with accompanying music, through the snow on his way to the door, and he passes the sign without a thought. He disappears into the door, and then a split second later comes zipping uncontrollably back through the door at a high rate of speed. Boko smash hard into yet another sign stating, "Ticket Holders Only". Hanging upside-down by his feet, Boko slips into the snow below and then pops up out of it. He hears a noise off-camera, and shouts, "Rah! Here's the ticket!"

The camera cuts to Willie Weasel cutting a determined path through the snow, holding a red ticket out in front of him with one hand. When Willie reaches the circus, Boko is standing beneath a sign reading "Ticket Collector". There is an arrow underneath it pointing right, so Boko spins the arrow until it points down at his head. The weasel walks up to the parrot, who asks, "Ticket please?" Willie hands it unthinkingly to Boko, who inspects it and says, "Hmm... nice seat you've got!" Willie then traipses unknowingly into the circus without his ticket, and Boko runs over the poor weasel in order to get to the actual ticket booth inside before him.

A lovely lady squirrel named Hazel, who happens to be Ginger Nutt's girlfriend, takes the ticket from the devious Boko, but when Willie walks up to her counter without one, she puts on the sternest countenance possible from someone running a circus inside a fir tree. "Ginger! Ginger!" she yells. "He's a gate crasher! Throw 'im out!" (It should be pointed out that most of the creatures have British accents. It's not all that important, but when one is used to seeing so many American cartoons, it is very noticeable.) From inside the tree, we see flashes of light and the sounds of a good deal of unseen violence, and then Willie comes flying uncontrollably out of the tree just as Boko did previously. The weasel smashes into the "Ticket Holders Only" sign, causing it to spin around several times. When it stops revolving, Willie is seen with his head and hands sticking through the sign as if he were being punished in stocks.

A transitional wipe takes us back inside the circus, where Boko is seated amongst a large group of other birds. He pulls out a balloon and pops it, sending all of the birds scattering away, leaving him alone happily in the seating section, which naturally is comprised of tree branches, and therefore, for the birds.

Circus fanfare plays. Ginger Nutt is seen acting as ringmaster upon a platform, and a parade begins to march into the center ring. An owl acts as parade marshall, followed by a tall, thin, Father Christmas figure with a human face. A small bird carries a bass drum several sizes too big for him, and just behind is the Cuckoo bird (mentioned earlier in regards to another film), who has about a dozen instruments strapped to his limbs and serves as a one-man band. The small bird can't see where he is going as he bangs his giant drum, and he tumbles and falls through drum. His clumsiness makes him land upon the train of Father Christmas' coat, and pulls it off his body. That "body" is revealed to be two creatures: a rabbit -- namely, Loopy Hare -- who is walking on his hands in a pair of boots while using his feet to hold up a mole named Dusty, who was wearing a human mask all along. Dusty Mole rushes back to angrily collect the Santa costume, and then puts it back on as he stomps out of the circus ring, much, much shorter than before.

Meanwhile, Willie Weasel is attempting to get back inside the circus he should rightfully be attending. He sneaks up to a knothole in the big tree seemingly to peer inside, but then he squeezes his skinny head and streamlined body right through the small knothole. Boko sees him right way, and warns Ginger, "Hey, Professor! Look! A gate crasher! He's got no ticket! Throw him out! Throw him out!" Ginger turns to look with a scowl on his face, puffs up his chest, and heads towards Willie. We then see a repeat from outside of the crashing and noises that accompanied Willie the first time he was thrown out, but this time, he is sent flying towards a gate outside. He goes hard right feet-first through the door of the gate, but then is mystified how in the aftermath the door shows two holes where his feet went through, when the momentum of his body should have created just a single hole.

Inside the circus, Dusty Mole pops up wearing a clown hat from out of the ground, holding a sign that reads "Kobber & Kate - The Kookaburras". Kobber and Kate roll into the ring on a pair of unicycles, laughing non-stop as they start to perform their tricks. A large clown hat drops down out of the sky and lands over the top of Kate. Kobber lifts it up, and Kate is seen taking a bath in the tiniest tub ever seen. The clown hat comes back down and is lifted a second time. Kate is now playing a tiny piano very quickly. A third time, and Kate sits laughing on top of a large pile of fruit eating a sundae. 

Kobber rings a bell on the hat, and Kate comes out through a door in the side. She runs around the hat, leaving Kobber to run inside the hat to disappear. She lifts the hat, and is confronted with a smaller hat. She lifts that, and a third, then a fourth, fifth, sixth, and seventh hat are each revealed. The seventh very diminutive hat spins around on the ground in circles, and when Kate lifts it, Kobber is now several sizes smaller than he used to be. He laughs crazily on an equally small unicycle and speeds around her. The unicycle cuts a hole in the ground, and then Kate falls through it to complete the routine.

Chester the Cat is presented as the next act, and the feline spins his way to the top of an extremely tall, striped pole, where he begins a high-wire act perched atop a red and yellow ball. He rolls out onto the wire easily, and yawns as he appears bored by his own act. Down below, Boko decides to cause more trouble, and starts to bark loudly. The cat freaks out, starts running wildly on top of the ball, and then falls hard to the ground, crawling out of the hole his body creates. The ball then hits him on the head and shoots sideways, and he falls back inside the hole. The ball continues to rocket out of the door to the circus, hitting Willie Weasel in the stomach and knocking him into another tree, where he ends up balancing himself upon the ball on a branch before falling down to earth.

Zimmy Lion and Oscar Ostrich are announced by the mole as the next act, and they perform a variation on the old lion tamer routine. With Zimmy sitting inside a cage whipping his tail, Oscar enters the cage as Zimmy holds the door. Zimmy slams the door shut, but it falls off its hinges and onto the ground. The little ostrich is not thrown by this and continues his act. Oscar silently and "bravely" motions for the lion to open his mouth. Zimmy complies, and starts to put his mouth over the ostrich's head. It is quite noticeable that the lion appears to be lacking any teeth. Boko goes ballistic. "It's a fake! A swindle! I want my money back! I bet he's got no teeth!" "Indeed, I have!" says the lion, "Two!" The parrot demands that the lion show them, Zimmy sticks out two non-pointy teeth to the crowd. "Indeed he has two!" responds Boko, adding "Has two! Two two! Get it?" He chuckles, and again says, "Get it?" (Nope, Boko, I really don't.)

One more act's name appears on a sign held by Dusty Mole: "Digger and Dinkum, the Platypusses" [sic]. Dinkum, the girl platypus, hits red and green balls with her tail down low, while Digger, the boy, hits them back to her with his tail while balanced on his hands. [I say hands instead of paws when discussing animal cartoons, unless the animal in question is clearly using his appendages in a natural manner.] Boko continues to be a jackass out in the crowd, screeching, "Platypuses? Platypuses? Pussies! Ack! They don't look like cats to me! Pussies! Cats! Get it!" He laughs once again, but Digger is not happy with the bird's annoying outbursts. Digger smacks several balls in Boko's directions, but the parrot ducks, and the balls each hit Willie Weasel, who was sneaking up on Boko, square in the face over and over. He stumbles backwards back outside the circus tree. Finally, the last red ball smacks Boko in the face, sending him spinning on his branch.

The big finale is next. Most of the performers are balanced atop the ears and arms of Loopy Hare, who himself teeters on a unicycle. While Boko watches, he is unaware that Willie Weasel has returned. Willie grabs Boko, but the bird slips out of his feathers like it was a suit, and they remain in Willie's grasp as the now naked and pink parrot runs across the circus ring. He crashes into Loopy, sending all of the performers sprawling onto the ground, and Boko comes out riding the unicycle away. Ginger Nutt is even angrier now, and he heads towards Boko with his whip. Boko changes direction and crashes through the side of the tree, leaving a hole in his shape, but then rolls back through backwards as Willie stomps slowly towards him.

Willie chases Boko, and when he tries to grab the bird, he ends up taking the unicycle from Boko instead. Riding it now, the weasel continues to chase the parrot, and they zoom right past a massive cannon in front of a sign that reads, "Corny the Cannonball Crow". Corny himself stands next to the cannon, his mouth agape, and holding a match he was about to light for his act. Boko hides inside the cannon, and then comes out the other end to pull the now lit match down upon the fuse. Boko then returns and pulls the safety helmet from Corny's head and puts it on his own. Willie ducks inside the cannon to find Boko, but then there is a huge explosion!

The pair of miscreants fly out through a hole created between the snow-covered branches of the giant circus tree, and they land softly on the snowy ground beyond. They come up ready for fisticuffs, but then Dusty Mole, wearing his Father Christmas outfit, pops up with a sign reading "Peace on Earth" in a fancy typeface. He grabs a hand from each creature and clasps them together. Willie and Boko decide to let bygones be bygones in the Christmas season, and smile and shake hands as bells are heard chiming on the soundtrack. When the mole ducks back down into the ground, Willie grabs the "Peace on Earth" sign and justly smashes it over Boko's head. Boko sees stars spinning around his head, and then the pair are caught within an "iris out" as Willie looks like he is about to land on Boko to continue the beating.

This is the second most violent of the Animaland cartoons, though The Cuckoo, the most outwardly violent, is far, far darker. And, apart from The Cuckoo, the expanded violence doesn't really fit this generally quite gentle series very well. The gags in Christmas Circus are never really all that funny (a couple are amusing), though the pacing does well to impart the sense of slowly building pressure to the climax. The animation, too, is well-turned, and I especially appreciate the detailed backgrounds and use of color. (These were the common high marks of the series throughout its brief run.) Of the individual scenes, while several characters are appealing, the kookaburras come off the best. Their clown act works very well, and would not be out of place in a Woody Woodpecker cartoon. For the most part, a first watch of this short can convince the viewer they are seeing a lost classic of sorts. I had that feeling myself when I first saw it a few years ago.

But there are just far too many characters here crammed into one seven-minute short. Practically every character that appears in the Animaland series (though not quite all) is given screen time in this film. Most of the circus performers have their own films or are supporting characters in the Ginger Nutt films as a whole. As for Mr. Nutt, he gets totally lost in a short bearing his own name, appearing only when he needs to seem angry or leading into the circus. His girlfriend Hazel only has the one scene near the beginning, and the rest of the film is left up to the other characters. This points to how one-dimensional Ginger Nutt is in general -- he is never given much to do beyond act tough or to romance his girl in his films -- and so that he gets lost here is no surprise; it's just disappointing. It almost seems like Hand and his staff had no real faith in the character, though he was apparently merchandised by the copyright holders long after Mr. Hand had departed Gaumont (and animation at that).

As for the Christmas connection, this is another short (as in Broken Toys) that only sneaks in the holiday right at the tail end of the story. Yes, the atmosphere is all wintery loveliness. The circus itself takes place inside a huge evergreen tree. But that is about it for setting a holiday mood (apart from the appearance of the Father Christmas costume) up until the mole pops out of the snow at the end of the picture to remind Willie and Boko of how brotherhood should be upheld. I guess if Animaland were really the province of just cutesy, family friendly characters, that might have been the end of it. 

But then there is that wallop with the sign. Maybe just a few films in, the Gaumont animators were looking to expand beyond the simple animal stories and mix things up a bit. If so, I have to admire their gumption, even if they did it inside just another simple animal story. It is also the one moment where Christmas Circus does succeed in the more manic humor Hand and company are attempting elsewhere throughout the cartoon.

It is also sort of the way this Christmas season feels to me. I am trying really hard to be involved in the festivities -- even knocking out post after post about Christmas cartoons -- but with everything going on in the world, the fact that I am still unemployed after nine months, and now trying to set up my own freelance business -- my head is spinning constantly. I am not in the best place in my head, and I tend to hide my true feelings to the faces that I see every day at home. On top of this, we have three Christmas trees in the house (the one Jen and I used everywhere on our own, and two that belong to Jen's mom). The house has been lightly decorated outside, but our neighbors are going full force with the over-the-top light displays and the generator-driven character balloons. The holiday season just pounds away at you, trying in a passive-aggressive way to force you to be as cheerful and joyful as everyone else is pretending to be.

It feels exactly like someone has smashed a "Peace on Earth" sign over my head. "You will be happy... or else!" It's the "Or else what?" that always pisses them off. And now they are coming in for the kill.

RTJ

*****

And in case you haven't seen it...

The Lion (Felis Leo) (1948)

The Lion (Felis Leo) (David Hand's Animaland/Gaumont)
Dir.: Bert Felstead
Cel Bloc Rating: 6/9 (pending lion approval, of course)

"I'm the king of the jungle! They call me Tigerman!" - Lux Interior

I never really cared much for lions. Despite their legendary ferocity and reputation as man-eaters, lions always looked a bit scrawny and unworthy of the whole "King of the Jungle" title. First off, lions don't even normally live in the jungle; they live on the savannah. Hyenas gang up on them and kick their ass. Male lions don't even do most of the hunting; that is left to the lionesses, who do all the work and then have to sit back while the big boys get the spoils. It is when the males go rogue that they become dangerous to humans, but even then they usually pick off the weak and helpless most of the time.

The Lion King was a chore for me to watch, mainly because I was rooting for Scar and the hyenas, but also because its the elephants who are the real creatures you don't want to mess with in Africa, and they could have taken care of that whole "Nazi hyena" situation in about a quarter hour. Warner Bros. was always pretty good about making lions the butts of the joke in several cartoons ("Suuuuckahhhh...!"), though they did come in handy against Yosemite Sam and Nero, once. Born Free, even as a child, though beautiful, was somewhat boring. Aslan moved me about as much as his religious counterpart, which is zero. Endless Tarzan books and movies left the image in my mind that most lions only existed -- except for Jad-bal-ja -- to provide a momentary distraction from the plot at hand (and easily dispatched with sinewy effort, cries of "Kreegah!" and a sharp knife). The only lion that I have ever considered worthwhile was that Cowardly one in Oz, but he had charms that overwhelmed any extant lion behavior. In all, as large predatory cats go, lions were always on the bottom of my list.

No, for me, it was tigers all the way. "Three cheers and a tiger for me!", as the genie in A-Lad-in His Lamp would say. Tigers actually live in the jungle, and are definitely the kings of that realm. They also eat more people than lions could ever dare dream of devouring. Shere Khan was and still remains a smooth kickass villain. I have twice had the wonderful opportunity of holding a baby tiger at petting zoos. We have Siberian tigers at the zoo in Alaska (but not lions, because tigers are all-weather felines). And for many years, I had the side-nickname (as opposed to my normal one, namely Boog) of Tigger, doubly due to my obsession with A.A. Milne's Pooh stories and especially his springy bon vivant character, whose behavior I often could replicate because of my naturally hyperactive and AAD-laden energy. (I would often "bounce" people back in the day). Plus, tigers have that whole stripey thing going for them, making the tiger far more appealing visually than the dusty, dirty, often scraggly lion. Yup, it has always been tigers for me.

Two things, though, over the last few years have changed my opinion of lions. The first occurred when I, or rather, my cat discovered Big Cat Diary, a show which Animal Planet ran a few years back. Spare, nearly silent except for the roars of the lions, leopards and cheetahs who were the solitary stars of each episode, Big Cat Diary was basically raw nature footage of the big cats of Africa doing what they do best, which is being the big cats of Africa. My cat, Buster Keaton Ghidorah, brought the show into our lives (accidentally? I think not...) when he stepped on the remote one night, changing the channel from a Marx Brothers film to Big Cat Diary, and the show became a mainstay on Saturday nights for the next couple of years.

But not because I was watching it. No, it was Buster, who often sat down and watched TV throughout his long 22 years, who was the audience for the show in our house. He would sit and bob his head anytime one of the cats would stalk something, meow occasionally at the goings on, and would sometimes dart at the tube when there was a chase or even a mating ritual occurring. I would often watch his favorite TV show with him, and it was there that I began to really appreciate the lion, though I have to be honest and tell you that it was the lionesses, as always, who really rocked the screen. But I began to see past most of my prejudices involving the creature, and they made the jump above cougars on my list.

Finally, earlier this year, we attended the San Diego Wild Animal Park, where I had been a couple times before (and am an annual pass holder of both it and the San Diego Zoo). They had added the Lion Camp exhibit since our previous visit, and it was an eye-opener. I had seen lions in zoos numerous times, but the lions were almost always lazing about and completely unconcerned with the people milling around outside of the glass of their enclosure. Lion Camp was different. The viewing areas to see the lions are far superior to anything that I have seen before, but the part that truly sold me on the worth of the lion was our encounter with the sole lion that had the nerve to be outside that day. He was sitting about twenty feet away from the glass, but inattentive he was not. He stared intently in our direction, sniffing the air and growling in a menacing fashion. His muscles were quite clearly twitching on his shoulders as he wrestled with darting towards the glass at our party, and I became entranced by him. We left the area, and about a hundred yards down the path, we heard a tremendous roar that completely shattered my nerves. And now, I can't wait to see the lions again. Apparently, I am a convert. Nothing like a little fear to set you straight.

The hunter who narrates as he writes about his adventures in the David Hand production of The Lion (Felis Leo), from 1948, has no seeming concern about the deadliness of his subject. He instructs us about the development of a young lion cub who learns the lessons of life inside a lush and beautifully detailed jungle. Typing earnestly, we see only his pith-helmeted shadow cast upon the walls of his tent as he begins his tale.

The lion cub at the core of this narrative is seen learning how to stalk his prey through the "heart of Darkest Africa". His prey just happens to be a massive elephant fifty times his size, and the narrator points out how the young prince "stalks his prey with true regal dignity", just before falling into a deep mud puddle that he mistakes for one of the elephant tracks he has been following. A log then blocks his progress, but after a couple of failed attempts to scale it, he charges and somehow dives hard enough to burrow underneath it in one burst. 

All thought of his prey is forgotten, however, when he is distracted by a leaf. He chases it playfully, but the leaf gets sucked into the trunk of the elephant. The lion crawls through the elephant's legs as if they were mere tree trunks, and tries to regain possession of the leaf. Thus begins the lion's tormenting at the hands, er, trunk of the larger beast, which teases him mercilessly in a number of ways. The lion freaks out and bolts for safety, running straight through the log, leaving a cub-shaped door in the side of the log, which the cub runs back and shuts to keep the elephant from following him. (There is an especially nice bit where the nostrils of the trunk appear to be like a pair of eyes to the younger creature.)

The narrative skips three years, and the cub has grown up into the leonine version of an awkward teenager, flirting with the first stirrings of young love. As the lion tries to cultivate his "cool" new mane, he is teased with bad puns and mockery by an annoying parrot named Boko on a nearby branch. As Boko cracks wise about the "mane idea", the lion accidentally loses all but one of the hairs atop his nervous head. He roars at the parrot, whose feathers roll up his body so that he is essentially bottomless. A lovely young lioness begins to flirt and tease our hero, and the parrot hoarsely and flatly starts in on a song called Bet'cher Life It's Love as she paws, slaps, and generally tortures him.

Partway through the tune, the parrot says "Let's be frank... Sinatra" and twists a flower into a bowtie, the stem of the now denuded plant becomes his microphone, and he turns totally pale and wan (in the manner attributed to Sinatra at a certain early point in his career) before launching back into the number, this time with a much better though not-quite-Frankie singing voice. He next impersonates Jimmy Durante (poorly) for a bit, until he is interrupted by his female and better singing half, who throws him into their home in the tree before finishing the song on her own, as the lioness drags her intended love by his tail into her heart-shaped cave.

Six years later, the now fully grown male is following the trail of a water buffalo, but he passes up his prey due to his own earnestness, and he ends being followed by the buffalo calf instead. When he sits his rear down on the calf's head, he jumps back in fear. He is almost playful with his reaction to the calf at first, but then remembers who he is and what he is out to do. The recoiling calf looks as if it were a steak to the lion's eyes, and the lion begins to chase the smaller and weaker animal. The calf finally leaps onto a small island in a pond to hide, and the lion prepares his assault.

However, the mother buffalo has awoken from her slumber and has begun breathing threateningly on the lion's tail. The lion uses his tail like a hand, flicking the point on the buffalo's horn to test its sharpness. The lion's jaw drops and he ends up with a mouthful of the pond water, and a fish jumps out of his gaping maw. The buffalo bumps the lion into the air, and then again until he gets caught with his hind end sticking out of a hole in a tree. Another hole above him gives the lion a chance to check on his opponent's progress as he tries to unstick himself (this makes for a cute visual). A third hole gives the lion a chance to push his bottom inside the tree, but it does not work. The buffalo hits him, and the lion is shot high above the jungle canopy, and then down he falls towards a prickly pear plant, but the lion stops his progress long enough to move the plant over so that he may hit the ground without being speared.

He finds himself near the tent where the narrator continues his writing. "In summing up," he says, "the lion, so far from being the king of beasts, appears to be a cowardly, half-starved creature. But, king or no king, of one thing I am convinced..." The lion takes umbrage at this statement, and marches full on into the tent. We see the lion's shadow as it melds with that of the writer, and then the lion emerges from the tent, but there is no longer the shadow of the hunter on the walls. The lion opens his mouth, and we hear the narrator conclude his statement: "...That the lion will not eat man!" The lion smiles at the camera, very satisfied with his improvised meal, and walks off into the distance, the typewriter causing his side to jut out over and over again as the writer continues to type towards his eventual digestion.

Um, I guess that I should consider myself warned. Uh... Lions rock! Yep, they sure do!

(But I still like tigers much better...)

RTJ

[This article was updated with new photos on 12/20/15.]

The Cuckoo (1948)

The Cuckoo (David Hand's Animaland/Gaumont, 1948) 
Dir: Bert Felstead
Cel Bloc Rating: 7/9

Cuckoos creep me out. I know they are just birds, and not particularly horrid looking birds at that. There is nothing in their appearance to bring this mood out in me. No, it is the parasitic behavior of their kind that brings this feeling to my chilled bones. The way they lay their eggs in the nest of a different host species, and then, when the egg hatches, the way that the invading hatchling will then push the other eggs out of the nest, or if they have already hatched, the way it will terrorize and push the other offspring out and down to their doom below just gives me the willies.

It doesn't help that this mood is escalated by the horror film music that often accompanies the cuckoo's portrayal in any number of nature documentaries, as the bird insidiously kicks one of the host birds' eggs out of the nest to make way for one of its own, often colored quite similar to the egg that is being bombed to the forest floor.

Then, when I was a teenager, a reading of The Day of the Triffids (after I saw the movie, naturally) led me to another novel by that book's author, John Wyndham, called The Midwich Cuckoos, a story about aliens who knock out an entire town, and after the town wakes up from their forced slumber, every woman in the village is pregnant, unknowingly, with an alien child. These children have terrible and deadly mind powers (much like in Scanners). They look odd with their cold, staring eyes, and they try to control everyone that crosses their path. Whatever the faults of the book overall, it was made into a terrifically suspenseful and eerie film called Village of the Damned (1960, and remade in 1995), and once I saw that film a little while later, the cuckoo was completely evil in my head, even if the story has nothing to do with the creatures, and is nothing more than a metaphor. Regardless, damage done.

Some fought in the cuckoo's defense, but despite the combined efforts over the years of Sonny the Cuckoo Bird, Nurse Ratched and the beloved family cuckoo clock that we grew up with in our home, I still have this negative picture of the cuckoo in my head, and no damn crazy bird was going to get my Cocoa Puffs. And all of this without ever seeing, while in my adolescence, the David Hand Animaland cartoon, The Cuckoo, from 1948. If I had, it certainly would not have changed my impression to the positive at all, but would have instead firmed up my resolve in the cuckoo department for all times.

The beginning plays much like the documentaries that I have mentioned, though the music is a bit less menacing as a lurking and shadowy cuckoo sneaks across the screen from branch to branch as it she were an avian Big Bad Wolf. Perhaps, she is, for all intents. She leaves her egg as described, and not surprising from the supervisor of Bambi, the film does not pull back on her action in sending the sparrow's egg falling to the ground below. We do not see the impact, nor is there the saving grace of seeing a little baby pop out of it at the last second. The egg is gone for good. To that point, the narrator mentions that the cuckoo wastes no time in "destroying the egg". The mother housesparrow sits on both the alien egg and her own for a good long while, but eventually she feels a kicking beneath, and soon enough, her actual offspring kicks his way out of the shell. He is a round-headed little cutie pie, who proclaims, "Hello, Mummy!" when he emerges.

Mr. Housesparrow arrives to check out the new family member, but after he joyously meets his real son, the other egg starts jumping, smacking the father repeatedly under the chin. The egg bounces high into the air, and Father Housesparrow, believing it to be his other real egg, has to run to catch the egg before it smashes to pieces. He catches it successfully, but soon he will wish that he hadn't done such a thing. The alien egg cracks open and the cuckoo baby, nearly four times as big as the sparrow chick, dumps into the straining arms of the much smaller father.

The cuckoo is extremely dopey looking, with a huge schnoz substituted for a useful beak, a goofy smile, and a never-ending appetite. This is evident in the next scene, where the pair of mismatched brothers rock back and forth in the nest as the cuckoo baby grabs food left and right from the parents, leaving not even a morsel for the real sparrow chick. That night, the pair of chicks are abed in the nest, but the snoring cuckoo kicks the sparrow child out of the nest, perhaps not so accidentally, given the cuckoo's track record. The sparrow kid uses the cuckoo's foot for a pillow, as the narrator tells of the mournful condition of the doomed bird. "Poor baby sparrow," he intones. "Nowhere to sleep, nothing to eat. His world becomes a nightmare..."

Suddenly, the air around the chick goes dark as the film enters the nightmare within his head. The stomach and two legs of the cuckoo expand and puff up around the baby. He pushes them apart, and they turn into three mushrooms, which then roll over, turn into sundae cups, and then are filled with delicious ice cream and toppings. A spoon lies by the sparrow's seat on the black floor of the nightmare chamber, but before he can gather even one bite of the dreamland desserts, the first sundae turns into a cuckoo and begins singing a song called The Cuckoo Ain't So Cuckoo After All. Each of other sundaes turn into two more cuckoos, and all three of the malicious fiends torment the baby sparrow with their song, teasing him with food, but then keeping it from him throughout the course of the dream.

"Oh, a cuckoo ain't so cuckoo after all!
Oh, a cuckoo ain't as cuckoo when he's full!
Hunger makes you crazy
Takes wings to make you lazy
A cuckoo ain't so cuckoo after all!

When you're blue, go cuckoo like the cuckoo in the spring.
Realize he's really wise and not a silly thing!

Oh, the cuckoo ain't so cuckoo after all!
Oh, the cuckoo ain't as cuckoo as his call! (Cuckoo, cuckoo)
He never toils or labors
He borrows from his neighbors
The cuckoo ain't so cuckoo after all!

Oh, a cuckoo ain't so cuckoo after all!
Oh, the cuckoo ain't as cuckoo as his call!
Sail the whole world over
He's the clown who's found the clover
No, a cuckoo ain't so cuckoo after all!

Oh, a cuckoo ain't so [indeterminate at this point; sung drunkenly]
He knows which are lemonades and which'll fizz
He's a hearty smarty
His life is one long party
Oh, the cuckoo ain't so cuckoo after all!
Ain't so cuckoo (cuckoo, cuckoo)
Ain't so cuckoo (cuckoo, cuckoo)"

The cuckoos adopt a variety of disguises throughout the sequence, including that of Napoleon (when the word "crazy" is mentioned) and a trio of sailors. When the nightmare is over, the baby wakes up to morning, and the fat, lazy cuckoo kicks the baby off the branch. The seemingly doomed sparrow plummets to the ground below. No sooner does he hit the turf than he is met by a weasel, and he has nothing but bad designs on the kid's future. However, he talks himself into the bird's confidence, and tricks him into his cave. The hungry bird is more than willing to learn what it takes to make the menu item called "inside soup" with which the weasel tempts the starving little runt. He convinces the bird that to make "inside soup,” you first crawl inside the pot. Then you stir it inside the pot as you sit there. And then, finally, he slams the lid on the pot, trapping the baby bird inside.

But the smell of the soup drifts out through the opening of the cave, and inevitably, it reaches the nostrils of the always ravenous cuckoo. He waddles into the cave, and then comes back out with the entire pot. The weasel steals it back and carries it into his home. But the cuckoo intercepts him, and when the weasel thinks he is gnawing on a bird, he ends up chewing his own tail up instead. 

So obsessed with taking everything in the world from the baby sparrow is the cuckoo, that he doesn't understand that the baby is the main ingredient in the soup, and roughly shoves him out of the pot as if he were trying to steal it. He then drinks a ladleful of the soup, but the weasel distracts him, and then starts punching, kicking and throttling the cuckoo. The lazy bird calls out for help, and the baby sparrow tries to rescue him by picking up a club and bashing the weasel's tail with it. All it does is turn the weasel's attention to the smaller and weaker baby. He chases the sparrow throughout every inch of the cave at lightning speed, while the cuckoo, who has seemingly already forgotten about his distress, returns to devouring the "inside soup". 

The sparrow runs to the cuckoo for protection, but the schmuck kicks the sparrow away and then returns to his gluttony. The sparrow, however, has discovered the fire upon which the pot was cooking, and lights the tail of the weasel on fire. The weasel runs off and out of the picture for good.

The sparrow, feeling his oats from vanquishing one villain, now sets in on lambasting his larger "brother" for his behavior. The cuckoo actually begins to feel ashamed, ducking behind the pot as the tiny bird berates him, and a final verse of the Cuckoo song plays over the action:

"Oh, the cuckoo ain't so cuckoo, he's just mad
Oh, the cuckoo ain't so cuckoo, he's a cad
One way or another
He will rob his little brother
Oh, the cuckoo's just a cuckoo, not a friend!
Oh, the cuckoo's just a cuckoo!
Just a cuckoo, cuckoo, cuckoo!
Oh, the cuckoo's just a cuckoo, not a friend!"

While the song finishes, the cuckoo takes off after the angry, strutting sparrow to explain himself, but then remembers the remainder of the soup, and returns to drink it all down. Then, he picks up the empty pot, opens his enormous maw as wide as it can go, and swallows the entire cast iron pot. It plops to the bottom of his stomach, and he drags it with him as he runs out of the cave.

Serious shades of Pink Elephants on Parade on display here, but that's fine. Disney has swiped from that Dumbo sequence numerous times themselves over the years, and probably will continue to forever. Some great atmosphere throughout the entire cartoon, excellent characterizations, and the chase in the cave yields several fun camera angles. There may also be, inside the cave, a morbid Disney reference when the weasel is leading the little tyke deeper into his lair. There is a skull on the ground, that the weasel rests his foot atop momentarily, which is probably just a generic duck, but it looks remarkably like that of Disney's beloved Donald Duck. As Hand left Disney for not necessarily greener pastures, is this a hidden cheeky swipe at Walt and Co.? Or is it mere coincidence? A weaker second half keeps the film from being a true lost classic, and instead, leaves it being a still nearly excellent piece of animation. 

Regardless, this film renders fully that ol' cuckoo creepiness into my being. Now, I know that not all cuckoos behave this way. Most of the North American varieties do not take on host species like the European ones do (you can read whatever you want about Old World imperialism into that statement. I am too tired during this writing to pursue it any further.) Of course, some would say that there is an abundance of pro-cuckoo propaganda out there, too. Roadrunners, after all, are members of the cuckoo family, and there is a plentitude of Warner Brothers' cartoons demonstrating the remarkably versatile capabilities of their Road Runner. Of course, this presumes that I am not on Wile E. Coyote's side in this dispute.

But I am on his side. The Coyote is the true and much put-upon hero of those cartoons. Cuckoos... you suck.

RTJ

*****

And in case you haven't seen it:

[This article was updated with new photos on 12/19/15.]