Ko-Ko's Queen

Before the Fleischer brothers gained fame with their Betty Boop and Popeye cartoons, they produced a series of mostly silent cartoons starring Ko-Ko the Clown...an amiable gent who came out of the inkwell at the beginning of most of these films. Often, he'd interact with the real world and this is the case with much of this cartoon.

When the film begins, Max Fleischer is at his drawing board and he brings Ko-Ko as well as his dog to life. But the two animated characters aren't happy. After all, Max is going out with his girlfriend and they want one as well...so Max draws them very ugly ones! Both try their best to make their new girlfriends look better and it's all rather cruel and politically incorrect--particularly when Ko-Ko enters his new girlfriend in a beauty contest! It all ends very strangely--with Ko-Ko, a very pretty girlfriend he just drew for himself and Max all having a big fight!

Like all the Ko-Ko films, it's wonderful today to see the character interacting with the real world as it's all very charming and well done for the period. Overall, well made and clever.

Max has a beauty queen girlfriend, so Ko-Ko and Fitz demand he draw them companions. When they turn out unsatisfactorily, Ko-Ko draws his own and must battle Max for her in this typically fine Out of the Inkwell cartoon.

The print that the National Film Preservation Foundation has posted on their website -- along with a lively score by Michael Mortilla -- has some decomposition in its last couple of minutes, but is quite watchable throughout, aided, as always, by the way that reality bleeds into the cartoon world and vice versa. Some very funny gags also help immensely.

Dave Fleischer was responsible for many gems. Ones that were amusing and charming, though over-cuteness did come through in some efforts and the stories were always pretty thin, with appealing characters, outstanding music and visuals that were inventive and with innovative animation techniques.

Ko-Ko similarly was an always amiable character to watch and among the better recurring characters in Fleischer's early work. Likewise, his series of Out of the Inkwell cartoons were among the best early efforts of Fleischer and silent cartoons in general. Fleischer may not be at his very finest, but 'Ko-Ko's Queen' is nonetheless a lot of fun and very hard to dislike.

It is slight and not the most surprising in terms of story, but really there is little to complain about here.

The character interplay is truly delightful and the mix of animation and live action and how they blend is seamless.

One expects the animation to be primitive and very low quality, judging by that it's the 20s when animation techniques were not as many, as refined, as ambitious and in their infancy. While Fleischer became more refined and inventive later certainly, the animation is surprisingly good with some nice visual wackiness and wit. The live action also looks good.

It all goes at a bright and breezy pace, while there are a fair share of funny and suitably wild, well-timed and clever moments, also some of the most imaginative and cleverest of the early Ko-Ko cartoons. The atmosphere is similarly suitably charming and at times entertainingly nuts.

Ko-Ko as ever is very likeable and amusing. Likewise with Max.

Overall, very enjoyable. 8/10 Bethany Cox