Toy Town Hall

Love animation, it was a big part of my life as a child, particularly Disney, Looney Tunes and Tom and Jerry, and still love it whether it's film, television or cartoons. Actually appreciate it even more through young adults eyes, due to having more knowledge of it, various animation styles, studios, directors and how it all works.

'Toy Town Hall' is not one of Friz Freleng's, a director who did many great cartoons and a director held in high admiration by me, best, not being one of his funniest, wittiest or freshest. For relatively early Freleng, 'Toy Town Hall' is watchable though he would do much better later. Freleng's later efforts show more evenness and confidence in directing and the story.

It is quite thin in terms of story, the basic premise is predictable and melodramatic and not executed with enough freshness, and the structure is basically an excuse to string events along.

Content is similarly thin on the ground, lacking freshness and feels more tired than witty, a feeling that is accentuated by the fact that much of the cartoon is recycled from previous cartoons with a few differences, like the characters being made into toys. Laughs are lacking and there is a tendency to be a bit saccharine. Also found that the characters in 'The Lady in Red' part didn't really fit with everything else.

'Toy Town Hall' however has a few amusing and charming moments, as well as a couple of inventive ones. It is not a dull cartoon as such and it starts off well, the jack in the box character is very memorable and the most interesting in terms of personality.

Animation is very good, it's fluid in movement, crisp in shading, vibrant in colour and very meticulous in detail. The music is outstanding, being lovely on the ears, lushly orchestrated, full of lively energy and characterful in rhythm, not only adding to the action but also enhancing it. The title song is very catchy.

Overall, very watchable but other than the animation, music and a few nice elements there is not an awful lot exceptional. 5/10 Bethany Cox

This is a clip show: Like over 1/2 of this cartoon's animation is reused from older and better cartoons. It's colorful, but that's all I'm going to give it credit for. Also, the kid's voice is thoroughly annoying, and he is one of my least favorite characters in this series. I am very glad he was a one-off. Also, the wraparound segments aren't interesting, so that detracts from it even further. I am glad Friz Freleng improved as a director as during this period he was putting out some of the worst cartoons produced by Schlesinger Productions. This one makes me angry due to the sheer audacity of these people to be this lazy. Like I know, it's the middle of the Great Depression and you're trying to save money, but could you please not base your entire cartoon off of recycled footage.

I agree with Lee Eisenberg's review. The Warner cartoons before about 1941 were, all in all, not especially good or inspired. When they finally discovered zaniness and great characters, they made the best cartoon shorts...period. But, as this is from 1936, it's in the dull old days for Looney Tunes. The artwork is good compared to most other studios and it is in color. But, it's also a bit creepy--especially the jack-in-the-box. There's also A LOT of singing--such that I assume kids would have been bored to death by this. It's really hard to believe that the same decade that brought us the great Hal Roach comedy shorts also brought a lot of horrid cartoons. Aside from Disney, they just don't hold up well to cartoons made just a decade later. Give me a Daffy Duck, Bugs Bunny or Tom & Jerry any time. However, despite disliking it a lot, I must give it a 4 because compared to non-Disney cartoons, it's actually better than average! Yikes!

For a six minute cartoon, you can't help but like the animation and the story about a little boy who dreams about listening to the radio rather than going to sleep. It appeared on the DVD with "Shall We Dance" and "Sheik to Sheik." There is not much to say in six minutes.

Friz Freleng's "Toy Town Hall" has the feel of one of the really early cartoons from Warner Bros., before they figured out the really zany path that they wanted to take (I believe that that started with Daffy Duck's debut). In this short, a boy wants to listen to the radio but has to go to bed. But in his bedroom, the toys put on their own radio show, often featuring celebrity caricatures. Toys just know no limits, do they? For me, at least, one of the most eye-opening moments was when one of the characters - I think that he might have been an Eddie Cantor caricature - sings "Merrily We Roll Along". For the uninitiated, that's the song played during the openings of Merrie Melodies cartoons while the Warner Bros. shield approaches (Looney Tunes cartoons play "Merry-Go-Round Broke Down"). So in that respect, this cartoon was sort of a sign of things to come, if unwittingly.

Anyway, it's an OK cartoon, a common representation of their pre-Bugs Bunny days.