User Reviews

. . . SEAL SKINNERS seems to be about the World Sex Trade in the 1930s. During the course of this animated short, a bidding war erupts over "Patti," a "trained seal." (As Patti's auction price gradually rises to $300,000, it becomes clear to viewers that Patti's "training" seems limited to swallowing six- to nine-inch-long "fish," rather indiscriminately). With visions of future revenues dancing in their eyes, three grizzled geezers resort to Dirty Tricks in their attempts to corner the market for Patti. Pegleg John Silver goes so far as to demonstrate Deep-Throating HIMSELF for Patti, while he's gussied up in the latest "seal" fashion. However, a rival pimp styling himself as "The Captain" sweetens the pot for Patti's affections by offering her the opportunity to babysit his kids between tricks. This tale is far sleazier and much more tawdry than Good Taste allows me to tell, but you can see and judge it for yourself as a "Special Feature" on Looney Tunes Golden Collection, Volume 6, Disc 2.

. . . to become the Real Stars of SEAL SKINNERS. (Though the title of this piece suggests that it is an expose about the Canadian National Pastime, there are no scenes here of cute little baby critters being flayed alive for their pelts as their wailing mommies are splattered with arterial spray nearby.) A more recent cartoon featured flocks of sea gulls exclaiming "Me, me, me!" as they swooped toward a food source. Near the end of SEAL SKINNERS, there are two such incidents of avian greediness. However, in both cases the potential feeding arena consists of an adult man and messes of apparently dead fish. Therefore, squeamish young tykes are not as likely to be upset by this version of SEAL SKINNERS as they surely would by the Real Life Canadian variety of wildlife desecrators. Though the FINDING NEMO and SPONGE BOB franchises may have smoothed away some of the rough edges from oceanic animation, SEAL SKINNERS is almost as jagged as the recent LITTLE MERMAID "Live" TV show.