Mama's New Hat

It's Mother's Day. Hans and Fritz pass up the obvious wheelbarrow and buy mama a new hat. On the way home, they dunk it in mud, so they switch it with a cart horse's hat. Mama is delighted with her chapeau, but the horse wants his own hat back.

It's one of the uncredited cartoons Friz Freleng directed at MGM before he fled back to Termite Terrace and the welcome voice of Leon Schlesinger ordering "Roll the cr*p." It's unclear why Freleng was so unhappy. Certainly this is a funny cartoon, with a rising arc of improbability that kept me happy throughout. Probably his boss, Fred Quimby, hated his job, hated cartoons, and only smiled when he strode onstage to accept the Best Animated Short Oscar that the Tom & Jerry cartoons regularly won. At least Schlesinger spent most of his time at the race track.

This is an average cartoon in a decidedly mixed series based on a comic strip. The primary focus and source of most of the laughs and all the best gags is a horse less than pleased to have his most prized fashion accessory "creatively acquired" by Hans and Fritz. The rest of the cartoon basically lays there in a stupor, waiting for the horse to do something to make things funny. Some concepts just simply don't translate well to active media. Worth seeing at least once, but average at best. Lukewarm recommendation.

It's Mother's Day and Hans and Fritz have bought their mom a new hat. After exiting the store, they trip and fall into a puddle of mud and spoil the hat. Nearby, a hat-wearing workhorse, sees what happens and laughs. The kids look up, see his hat and grab it, giving the nag the dirty one. The horse, thanks to a nearby mirror, sees his "new" hat, shakes it off, stomps on it and goes racing after the kids, who get away safely.

At home, Mama is very pleased with the gift. She looks in the mirror and suddenly is transformed into Marlene Dietrich. "Hmm, not bad," she says, admiring herself. She goes out to show off the hat to her neighbor. Meanwhile, the horse, with a nose like a bloodhound, is out sniffing around trying to get the scent of his hat. He soon sees it and smells it as Mama parades by, but it unable to get it back. He chases Mama all the way to her house. Later, the two chase each other in the house! Finally, the kids corral the animal and try to please it by showing it mama's other hats.

What happens after that is truly insane stuff, incredibly wild. Overall, it is the best of the Captain and the Kids cartoons I've seen. It was appropriate that it was included in an equally- insane Marx Brothers movie DVD presentation of "A Day At The Races."

First, about the series title: "The Captain and the Kids" was the name Rudolph Dirks named his comic strip creation after leaving his original syndicate, King Features, and moved to its rival, United Features, since "The Katzenjamer Kids" name was owned by King and was still drawn there by Harold Knerr. Now on to the story. Hans and Franz have bought a new hat for Mama for Mother's Day but it gets dirtied when they fall in a mud puddle. A horse nearby laughs. The kids sees the hat on the horse and sneakily switch it with their dirty one. The horse, hating the switched hat, stomps on it and follows the kids to their home. Mama loves the hat so much she doesn't notice at first that the horse is following her and trying to get it back...I'll stop right there and say there's plenty of funny gags concerning Mama's ignorance, like when she inadvertently steps on an elevator door on the ground and unknowingly drops down as the horse unsuccessfully tries to grab hat, as well as the horse's attempts at chasing everybody in the house and the things he (or she) keeps bumping into. The ending might be a little ridiculous but it's well animated and shows not everyone gets what they want...

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.

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.

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.