Fun at the Fair

The setting for this Famous Studios is a fun fair or circus at which all the acts and all the attendees are animals. These set up the usual gags for the first half of the cartoon, a variety of good ones, stolen ones and ones that have fallen out of favor, until the song is introduced: "Wait Til The Sun Shines, Nelly."

This song had its music written by Harry von Tilzer (nee Harry Gummbinsky). Tilzer's peak period of composition was in the first decade of the 20th Century, although he lived to be 73 in 1946; those of his songs that still survive tend to be sentimental tunes, like "I Want A Girl Just Like The Girl That Married Dear Old Dad".

While it was an inconsistent series, the Kartunes series from Famous Studios was still worth watching, even if for most of the cartoons it was one time watch level rather than repeat viewings. Some of the cartoons were not great, with the first half generally being better than the second in most of them. But the weakest ones still managed to not be misfires (unlike the better known Screen Song cartoons), more watchable but uneven, and the best surprisingly very good, like for example the first 'Vegetable Vaudeville'.

'Fun at the Fair' is one of the more average, lesser Kartunes cartoons. It's not a bad cartoon, don't consider any of them inherently bad, and has some very strong things. It also sadly fails in some rather crucial components. It could have done with a lot more imagination, the pacing problems are more obvious here than in the first two Kartunes cartoons and veers on being a little too cute, but the animation and music in particular are enough to make 'Fun at the Fair' worth a one off look.

Am going to start with the good. It is beautifully animated. The colours are vibrant and there is meticulous attention to detail in the backgrounds. If there was one aspect that was consistently good in Famous Studios' 1940s and 1950s output, it was the music scoring. And it is outstanding here. The orchestration has a lot of energy and there are some truly luscious sounds throughout.

There are some amusing gags in the first half, corny but amusing. The characters are lively and have personality.

Having said all of that, 'Fun at the Fair' is still not great. The second half is not as good as the first, it's made up of the singalong and while the song itself is a lot of fun the singalong material wise felt too cutesy and was in serious need of variety.

It is also in this half where there are some serious pacing issues as a result, with the pace being quite tedious. Actually did find the pace on the dull side throughout, but the singalong was where it was at its most obvious. As to be expected, the plot is non existent and a series of gags of the blackout kind and it is generally very predictable.

Concluding, rather average. 5/10.