Was very fond of Woody Woodpecker and his cartoons as a child. Still get much enjoyment out of them now as a young adult, even if there are more interesting in personality cartoon characters and better overall cartoons.
That is in no way knocking Woody, because many of his cartoons are a lot of fun to watch and more and also still like him a lot as a character. This is going to be a reiteration of a lot of my reviews for the later Woody Woodpecker cartoons, but mainly because the later Paul J. Smith-directed cartoons have pretty much the same strengths and faults. Not all Smith's efforts are average or less, 'Niagara Fools' is one of the not many very good and more Woody Woodpecker cartoons of his (excellent in that cartoon's case despite the lacking animation). 'Janie Get Your Gun', while better than 'Canned Dog Feud', is another one of the weaker early 60s Woody Woodpecker cartoons. With a few exceptions such as 'Skin Folks' and especially 'Three Little Woodpeckers' Woody was well past his best at this point and 'Janie Get Your Gun' does nothing to change my mind.
If there was a best asset, it would have to be the music score. It is bouncy, energetic and very lushly orchestrated, not only synchronising and fitting with the action very well but enhancing it. Calamity Jane is a fun feisty character, the character that has the most life although her motives and action lack consistency and sense at times.
Voice acting is solid. Grace Stafford continues to prove why she was the best voice actor for the character and the one that understood him the most. There are a couple of decent amusing moments.
However, Woody compared to his original manic personality is just too subdued and his material is too obvious and safe, one misses the manic energy and the risk taking. The criminal isn't in the cartoon anywhere near enough to make an impression, character-wise he is quite similar to other outlaw/criminal-like foils of Woody.
Other than a couple of decent gags, most of 'Janie Get Your Gun' is not funny, being sloppy in timing and most of the gags being too obvious (the barrel sequence being the worst) and suffering from overuse of anachronisms and the Polaroid camera. The pace is dull and the story completely lacks freshness, is heavy in repetition and has a who cares vibe that makes it impossible to root for anybody here, including Woody.
Just as problematic is the animation quality. Time and budget constraints shows in a lot of the animation, which is very rushed looking in the drawing and detail wise it's on the simplistic and careless side like many of Woody's cartoons from this period continuing through to the 60s. The ending is a rather strange one and didn't gel with the rest of the cartoon.
To conclude, yet another Woody Woodpecker cartoon lacking in lustre. 4/10 Bethany Cox
