User Reviews

This retelling of the story of Noah is quite limiting. He is surprised when it starts to rain, yet the ark had already been built. The animals get on board and, fortunately, they can sing and dance. It is funny that the skunks have their own boat tethered to the ark. One question I'm going to ask and perhaps there is a response. In these and many cartoons, several of the animals have what appear to be targets on their bellies (are these navels?). Just wondering.

Van Beuren cartoons are extremely variable, especially in the number of gags and whether the absurdist humour shines through enough (sometimes it does, other times it doesn't), but are strangely interesting. Although they are often poorly animated with barely existent stories and less than compelling lead characters, they are also often outstandingly scored, there can be some fun support characters and some are well-timed and amusing.

'Noah Knew His Ark' is one of the best Aesop's Fables cartoons and also to me one of Van Beuren's best overall. It may not be a masterpiece or a cartoon classic, but it is so much more entertaining than most Aesop's Fables/Van Beuren cartoons. There are a few of the usual flaws but a lot is done right as well.

It is let down by the final third, which is representative of what makes too many of Van Beuren's cartoons the mediocre at best ones they are, namely pretty bad animation, too few and not very funny or inventive gags, a complete lack of story and after such a lively and entertaining first two thirds the momentum is lost.

Like most of the Van Beuren output and the Aesop's Fables series. theanimation is not good, in fact it is downright bad most of the time with erratically sloppy character designs in particular while the simplistic background detail and lack of fluidity and crispness are just as difficult to ignore.

Same with the relative slightness of the story, though not as badly as most of Van Beuren's output.

However, two thirds of 'Noah Knew His Ark' goes at a snappy pace and contain some well-timed and amusing gags that are many and has a likeable strangeness. Don't expect it to make sense, it doesn't. The difference is that so much is executed so well it is much easier to forgive than with most of their efforts that don't excel anywhere near as much.

The characters are engaging, the energy is lively and the synchronisation has a smoothness.

Best of all is the music score, it is typically peppy and great fun to listen to. It is so beautifully and cleverly orchestrated and full of lively energy, doing so well with enhancing the action. Synchronisation is nicely done.

In summation, decent effort. 7/10 Bethany Cox

I think animators especially liked music back in the early '30s because many cartoons revolved around animals playing tunes with crazy sight gags accompanying their playing. This begins with an example of that as Noah is playing music with a few animals.

However, Noah has a problem: he has corns that are killing him. They are bothering his feet so bad we see corn stalks sprouting out of his toes! A closer look at his digits shows even worse. Since his corns hurt, he says, "I'll guess we'll definitely have some rain." This is definitely not the Noah of the Bible! By the way, he's wearing a sailor's cap and shirt.

The fun kind of stopped when it turned strictly into a musical the last 60 percent of the time, with the animals dancing and the songs so-so, at best. That part really wasn't all that entertaining. Too bad, because this had the makings of super cartoon. It was still good overall.