Studio: Van Beuren Studios (Cubby Bear series)
Distributor: RKO Radio Pictures
Short Synopsis
Cubby Bear is a gaucho on the Argentine pampas, in a cartoon South America of sombreros, guitars and cacti borrowed from Hollywood's Latin romances of the day. He serenades a señorita, dances a tango, and tangles with a rival or a bandit who wants the girl for himself, and the courtship and the fight are played as musical numbers to Gene Rodemich's Latin-flavoured score, with the horse, the guitar and the rope all joining in. The ending, in which Cubby wins the girl, is as fixed as the setting. Detailed accounts of the gags are not in the sources used here; the outline follows the premise and the series' pattern, and the film survives in television prints.
Why It Matters
- The Latin setting was a fashion of 1933, when Hollywood had discovered the tango and the rumba, and the Van Beuren studio's version has a loose, jazzy charm, with Rodemich's music and the dance sequences doing most of the work. Mannie Davis and George Gordon, who directed most of the Cubby series, give the bear more swagger here than usual.
- The Cubby Bear cartoons are a footnote in animation history, a small studio's attempt to compete with Disney on a fraction of the budget, but they document the New York style at the end of its first era, just before Burt Gillett arrived from Disney and tried to remake Van Beuren in his old studio's image. The Gay Gaucho is a typical and cheerful example.
Notes and Trivia
- The title adjective meant "merry" in 1933; the film's gaucho is a ladies' man.
- Mannie Davis later directed Terrytoons for twenty years, including Mighty Mouse cartoons.
- See also: Cubby's Picnic (1933), Goode Knight (1934), Fiddlin' Fun (1934).