I've Got Rings on My Fingers

I've Got Rings on My Fingers (1929)

** 1/2 (out of 4)

The Fleischer Studio produced a number of these animated short films where the "bouncing ball" would have audience members singing together. The "story" here has a cop stationed high in the air where he directs a traffic sign for the birds. Then a mouse comes flying through the air on his plane. If you're familiar with this type of short then you know the story is just very little and basically just leads you to the bouncing ball scene. Once again the animation itself was good and the short at least kept me entertained for what it was. There's nothing ground-breaking here but it's at least short and entertaining.

This was another of these early Max Fleischer Screen Song talkie cartoons I watched on YouTube. In this one, a traffic cop is up in the sky on a platform guiding various planes and birds on their way. He stops one mouse flier mainly because he went the wrong way though he gives him a list of other violations that made no sense when they're shown on screen. No matter, since that mouse uses his anchor to grab the cop on his tail before he's dropped on an island full of cannibals as the bouncing ball then comes into view as the singer warbles the title song with the words appearing on screen and that ball going on each one as it gets sung. This was another pretty amusing short "directed" by Max's brother Dave. On that note, I've Got Rings on My Fingers is worth a look for any fan of these Fleischer cartoons.

This takes another popular song of the 20's and puts it on the silver screen. It starts off fair enough, with a bit where a traffic cop tries to stop passing planes as if they were on a street. But after a while, we are treated to a bunch of African natives who portray ugly stereotypes. These characters are treated as if they were a subspecies of animals. They are outpaced by the white characters. Even the mice are more developed than these black people.