Studio: Harman-Ising Productions / MGM
Distributor: Loew's, Inc.
Produced by: Hugh Harman, Rudolf Ising
Short Synopsis
The toys in a toy room come to life and put on a radio show for the rest of the toy box: baby dolls in a pram, rag dolls, a monkey on a stick swinging beside a spinning top. The broadcast is a variety programme, and each act is a toy version of a famous radio star of the day. A crooner in the style of Bing Crosby sings, the Mills Brothers, Kate Smith and the Boswell Sisters all appear in caricature, Paul Whiteman leads a band, Rudy Vallée and Ethel Waters take a turn, and a wild-haired toy violinist caricatures David Rubinoff, bowing away with great drama. The film is structured as a string of musical turns rather than a story.
Why It Matters
- The joke is in the casting: each famous singer or bandleader is reinvented as a toy, with the right shape, mannerism and vocal style, and the colour design, with soft pastel dolls and candy-striped tops, is among the most attractive of MGM's early cartoons.
- It is an early example of a genre the Hollywood studios relied on heavily in the 1930s, the celebrity caricature cartoon, which traded on audiences' familiarity with radio stars. It also shows Harman and Ising, newly at MGM after leaving Warner Bros., trying to rival Disney's Silly Symphonies with lavish colour and musical production.
Notes and Trivia
- Wikipedia describes the caricatures as "1940s" celebrities, but the stars shown were radio favourites of the early 1930s.
- Ising's direction was uncredited on screen.
- See also: Bosko's Parlor Pranks (1934).