Cleaning House

"The Katzenjammer Kids" is the longest running comic strip of them all. Rudolf Dirks created it in 1897 and would later continue it under the title "The Captain and the Kids" (a long story). The longevity is understandable. The characters are naturally funny. The very sight of them suggests dysfunction. "Cleaning House" is the first of 15 cartoons MGM would produce with them. A bit frenzied, it still manages to capture some of the charm of the strip. Der Inspector even makes an appearance. The kids are bent on raising hell, and Der Captain, not surprisingly, is a bit of an overgrown kid himself.

Cleaning House (1938)

** 1/2 (out of 4)

First of eighteen animated shorts of MGM's The Captain and the Kids series. The mother has the kids and the Captain doing housework but the Cap decides to play sick. Not too many laughs but the animation is nice and there's a good trick ending. It's funny to know that MGM didn't think this series would last so they went cheap and made this first film in B&W.

Petunia National Park (1939)

** 1/2 (out of 4)

The series must have been doing good because this The Captain and the Kids short was filmed in Technicolor. The Captain takes the family to the title place so that they can understand the nature. A few funny bits including the best gag being where the Captain tries to avoid feeding a bear.

Mama's New Hat (1939)

** 1/2 (out of 4)

Final cartoon from The Captain and the Kids series and it's back in black and white. The boys buy mama a hat for mother's day but this makes a female horse jealous so she tries to steal the hat. This one here has a lot more action than the previous two films but they forgot to make the horse funny or charming.

For about a year, MGM's cartoon division made some Katzenjammer Kids shorts, though oddly they were renamed 'The Captain and the Kids' cartoons. They were fully licensed...though I have no idea why there was a name change.

I've seen a few of the only 15 Captain and the Kids shorts MGM made and some of them bear little semblance to the original cartoon series. This one, however, does capture some of this as the Captain is bedeviled by his bratty kids...though once again, it's mostly his fault. In this case, the Captain pretends to be sick to get out of doing chores...and the kids decide to teach him a lesson. So, they kidnap the doc...then they proceed to pretend that they are doctors! Then, they insist they need to operate!! What's next?

I liked this one very much and think if all the MGM shorts in the series had been like this one, they could have succeeded. Clever, similar to the source material and it sure holds up well today. Well worth seeing.

It's spring cleaning, and Mama has everyone hard at work. Even the Inspector is helping out.... well, his beard is. When Mama finds the Captain slacking, he decides the best way out is to pretend to be sick. Hans and Fritz realize this offers a fine opportunity to torment him.

It's a decent cartoon that owes a lot to the comic strip, but the standout character is a stork who battles Mama to a draw. The question on my mind is whatever happened to the shorts director, Robert Allen. The IMDb has him apparently showing up as an animator in 1934 for Harman-Ising, Fred Quimby hiring him away from them in 1937. Then a few credits, ending in 1945. Other sources call him active through 1955, but nothing else is known.

It's spring cleaning time. Mama is the only one actually cleaning. Everybody else is slacking off and fake-cleaning. Captain pretends to be sick. Mama calls the doctor but the kids intercept him. The stork does show up.

This is The Captain and the Kids cartoon. It's chaotic. The stork needs a better misunderstanding. The kids are brats. This should end with both Captain and the Kids doing the cleaning. Mama should be the one resting her feet. The Captain and the Kids are not the most beloved of characters. This is pretty good although they are still not my favorite characters.