“Open! Open!”
Animation by Rollin Hamilton and Tom McKimson; Music by Frank Marsales. A Merrie Melody released on August 6, 1932.
Don’t we all love parades? To be honest, I never really did. They were always too loud. Way too many sirens blaring, and music assaulting my tender eardrums. All I ever wanted to see was the horses. (I love horses.) Even the candy they sometimes threw didn’t placate me. (Couldn’t enjoy it. Everyone turned into barbarians and were willing to kill for tootsie rolls that were getting crushed under wheels and coated in horse crap.) However, if this short is any indication, parades are only fun to watch at circuses.
I spoke too soon. That clown on the title card is terrifying! I feel him eating my soul. Good thing he doesn’t actually appear in the short. (And if he does, I’ve successfully suppressed that memory. And it will stay that way.) The crowd of transparent ghost animals loves the fun times that are going on here. Or maybe, they just get a kick out of seeing Mickey Mouse clone #219 being part of it. He is holding a drum that a lion is beating. A little too hard, as he breaks a hole in it. He solves his musical problem the way Toons in the thirties did: by hurting another animal. In this case: shoving the drum inside of a dog.
We also have another one of those confusing type jokes: even though we just saw a lion being treated as an equal member of the parade, the next one is locked in a cage. (Until the driver of the vehicle said cage is one enters a pipe. Upon exiting, they’ve switched.) With all this fun and more that I’m not mentioning so you actually have a reason to watch the film, who could possibly not enjoy a parade? Answer: the street cleaner following the elephants. (Subtle toilet humor. My favorite kind!)
What kind of sideshow attractions does this circus have? A rubber man who can become a tire! (He can also strum his nose, but that’s not as impressive. I saw Bosko do that in his first cartoon.) Some Siamese pig twins. (Conjoined will never sound as cool) They do the classic gag of one head smoking, and the other exhaling. A tattooed man with several tattoos. (Which is commonplace nowadays. For both genders. Shame, too. Women are far less sexy when they have ink under their skin) Speaking of women, one (who I guess is the show’s fat lady. Also rather commonplace today. For both genders, again.) is tickled by a child’s noisemaker. He hides just as she turns to see the tattoo guy making a groping motion to make his art move. (Bad timing.) We even have a skinny guy! Ghandi? (It’s not that offensive. If you starved yourself, you’d be in the circus too.)
Another classic gag is the fat hippo lady. We have one here who is riding on a horse. (Who has a rattlesnake rattle on its hind quarters) The two switch places. We also see a mouse on a bike on an elephant. (Clearly, this is Mickey Mouse clone #76.) Speaking of other studio’s characters being in this show, I think that tightrope walker is Oswald’s girlfriend, Ortensia. And the short ends with not much of an ending gag. After a lion (also in a cage. How did that first one get such great treatment?) and his tamer put their heads in each other’s mouths. He has a flea problem, and solves it by removing his teeth and scratching himself with them. (Do I love a parade? Not really, but I do think this short is much more enjoyable to watch.)
Personal Rating: 1