Booby Hatched

This is an incredibly funny cartoon, but a minor character steals the show. There is a hibernating bear who has two lines and the second is one of the funniest bits in the whole short. Other things to watch for are the roll call of the baby ducks' names after they hatch and Robspierre's closing line at the very end. Well worth looking for. Recommended.

One of Warner's many pre-1948 cartoons stripped of its opening credits and carrying the Blue Ribbon logo in their place, Frank Tashlin's "Booby Hatched" really seems to have come out of left field. Probably the neatest scene is when the mother duck rattles off the ducklings' names: Franklin, Eleanor and Winston*, before she realizes that Robespierre is missing. Of course, the thought of her son having that name brings to my mind the fact that so many children nowadays have last names as first names. Above all, it's a good thing that I first watched this cartoon nowadays when I'm old enough to understand what it portrays. Had I watched it when I was about six, I wouldn't have understood the ducklings' names.

Anyway, the wolf and bear don't stick in my mind as much as the idea of a duck named Robespierre. But it is a pretty neat cartoon. Worth seeing.

*What about Joseph? Then again, she probably wouldn't want to name any of her children after Stalin.

And this is coming from someone who likes Frank Tashlin without considering him a favourite. Booby Hatched might not be one of the greatest cartoons of all time, however that doesn't stop it from being thoroughly entertaining. It is colourfully and fluidly animated, and camera shots show a master animation director who puts a lot of thought and care into what he does. Carl Stalling's music score is without fault, it fits so well, sounds beautiful and is full of energy. The writing has freshness and wit, who can forget the lines of the hibernating bear? While the story has enough excitement and twists to stop it being too routine. Booby Hatched is solidly paced, and underneath all the hilarity the duckling in the blizzard is so heartfelt you cannot be touched by it. The line proceeding it is funny if a little bit obtrusive to the mood. The characters engage throughout, the hibernating bear is priceless, and the voice work is perfectly pitched by Mel Blanc and Sara Berner. To conclude, very good and great entertainment. 9/10 Bethany Cox

Frank Tashlin's 'Booby Hatched' is a splendid cartoon full to bursting with all sorts of different types of gag. A mother duck tries desperately to keep her eggs warm in subzero temperatures (and this set up alone spawns five or six great jokes in only a couple of minutes). All but one finally hatch out and the unhatched egg sets out on a journey to find warmth. 'Booby Hatched' seems to pack a ridiculous amount of plot into its seven minutes, incorporating the mother duck's attempts to hatch the eggs, the introduction of the unhatched protagonist, his attempts to find a source of heat, the discovery of his disappearance, the very late introduction of the main villain, a frantic chase, an unexpected twist and finally the punch line. That's without even mentioning the cameo appearance of a hibernating bear who steals the cartoon with just two lines! Tashlin's direction here is as magnificent as ever with some great executions of some tricky concepts (the egg x-ray sequence that opens the cartoon is particularly beautiful) and 'Booby Hatched' emerges as something of an undiscovered masterpiece, a tremendously satisfying classic which has happily reached a wider audience through its much deserved distribution on the Looney Tunes Golden Collection Volume 4 DVD.