Reducing Creme

Willie Whopper gets coated in reducing creme and shrinks to the size of a mouse. The cat chases him into the kitchen, where the cook is alternately kneading dough and canoodling with the serving maid. Willie and the cat get liberally coated n dough.

After he broke with Disney, who would not share credit with him nor Carl Stalling, Ub Iwerks found backing from old-line producer Pat Powers for his own cartoon factory, releasing through MGM. Although his best-remembered series is Flip the Frog, Willie, who survived only two years, was usually a more imaginative and for my taste enjoyable series.

Ub Iwerks's Willie Whopper series of cartoons was short-lived, only lasting a year from 1933 to 1934. On the most part the Willie Whopper cartoons are not great or cartoon/animated masterpieces and it is sort of understandable as to why Willie didn't make it bigger. However they are far from terrible ones either and do amuse and charm.

1934's 'Reducing Creme' is not quite one of the best Willie Whopper cartoons. It's still very entertaining though and to me it is one of the better ones. And this is coming from somebody who has only just gotten acquainted with the series as a huge animation fan. Just don't expect a masterpiece or too much.

'Reducing Creme' may be on the formulaic side with conflict that is somewhat predictable, it is not hard to figure out at all how it all ends.

Willie himself is slightly bland and a fairly limited character, while still being likeable. The animation sometimes lacks finesse especially in some of the drawings.

However, there is a lot of nice background work, smooth drawing, lively black and white (although it was originally meant to be in colour) and inventive little things. The music is energetic and characterful with appealing orchestration. The cartoon goes at a lively pace, has an appealing charm and the tale is wonderfully outlandish.

There are a lot of very amusing and sweet little laughs which makes it entertaining. Although slightly bland, Willie avoids being annoying and he avoids being sickly sweet as well, fairly likeable. The supporting characters are a lively bunch, especially the cat whose rapport with Willie carries the cartoon. The more romance-oriented aspect charms.

To conclude, decent. 7/10 Bethany Cox