Parade of the Wooden Soldiers
Parade of the Wooden Soldiers 1933

Parade of the Wooden Soldiers

Released
2 Dec 1933
Running time
00:08:00
Directed by
Dave Fleischer; William Henning (animation director)

After a live-action prologue in which the violinist Dave Rubinoff and his orchestra play Leon Jessel's "Parade of the Wooden Soldiers", the cartoon opens in a vast toy factory whose whole machinery labours to produce a single small package, which is rushed to a toyshop.

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About the cartoon

Studio: Fleischer Studios
Distributor: Paramount Pictures
Produced by: Max Fleischer

Short Synopsis

After a live-action prologue in which the violinist Dave Rubinoff and his orchestra play Leon Jessel's "Parade of the Wooden Soldiers", the cartoon opens in a vast toy factory whose whole machinery labours to produce a single small package, which is rushed to a toyshop. The box opens and a Betty Boop doll steps out. The other toys come alive after hours, march in formation to the tune, and crown her their queen. A giant stuffed King Kong, eight months after the film, breaks up the celebration, seizes Betty and climbs the shelves with her while the toy soldiers attack with pop-guns and toy cannon. The ape is finally brought down, and the toys, somewhat the worse for wear, resume their parade, before the scene fades to them lying still in a shop that sells damaged toys.

Why It Matters

  • The toy-shop-at-night cartoon was a staple of the early 1930s, but the Fleischer version has two things the others lack: a King Kong parody made the same year as the film, with the ape scaling toy shelves instead of the Empire State Building, and the rueful ending in which the surviving toys are marked down as damaged goods.
  • It is one of the most-shown Betty Boops of its year. It belongs to the Fleischers' series of musical cartoons built around a popular bandleader, after the Cab Calloway films, with Rubinoff, then a radio celebrity, in the live-action frame.

Notes and Trivia

  • Rubinoff was the orchestra leader on Eddie Cantor's radio show and a household name in 1933.
  • Bonnie Poe voices Betty, as she did in several 1933-34 entries.
  • See also: Midnight in a Toy Shop (1930), Minnie the Moocher (1932), King Kong (1933).

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