User Reviews

Time and a different element for entertainment sure can make a big difference. When I was a small, I used to read all the comic books, which included Little Lulu and Little Audrey. I mention those two together because Paramount Studios made animated shorts of these "girls." I think the comic strips were more interesting, but maybe that's because I was kid and enjoyed them all. Now, being much older, these look really primitive to me - nothing on the order of Popeye, Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, etc.

Nevertheless, the cartoon has some humor and some nostalgic value as we see an elementary school teacher and her classroom back around 1950.

Audrey has a mind of her own and while the class is all reading "Mother Goose," she slips a copy of the comic book "Phony Funnies" inside her Goose book and enjoys that instead, preferring to read "modern" stuff like "Pin Head and Bird-Brain in "The Gold Brick Robbery."

She gets caught with the comic, is sent to the corner of the room, dunce cap and all (which was not part of the '50s in any classroom I was ever in) and then falls asleep. What she dreams turns out to be the message of the film: that Mother Goose is not old-fashioned and her stories will never go out of style.

The humor comes when the old MG characters speak and sing "jive." I laughed at some of the "hip" expressions of the day here and the characterizations (i.e. Frank Sinatra being "Little Tommy Tucker," Edward G. Robinson in a quick cameo as "Humpty Dumpty.")

The dream that Audrey has saves the cartoon and makes it worthwhile to watch.

Bored to distraction by a classroom lesson in Mother Goose, Little Audrey pulls out a copy of "Phony Funnies" to take the edge off. We follow a few panels of Pinhead and Bird-Brain as they attempt to knock over Fort Knox. When called upon to read by her extremely hot teacher, Audrey hits her with a few lines of comic book noir. Donning a dunce cap, Audrey sits in the corner and daydreams. The differences between Audrey (Famous Studios) and Ralph Phillips (Warner Bros.) are incredible. Ralph daydreams to escape, while Audrey's teacher becomes Mother Goose and acts as her tour guide. Ralph's daydreams are fueled by his own imagination, not some cheap comic book device geared to capitalize on a national craze. The rest of the short finds Audrey and Mother Goose flying above storybook land, the latter singing nursery rhymes as they watch the locals enact lame puns. One amusing moment has a twenty-something Mary dancing to the jewelry store with a seventy-something sugar daddy, complete with shopping cart, in tow. The fact that Audrey knows enough to find this funny is rather telling. Frank Sinatra emerges from behind a broom to croon a chorus of "Let's Get Lost." At the fair grounds, Pinhead and Bird-Brain morph into Audrey's dream. In order to show just how mean this pair is, they roll a somewhat fey piglet for a penny. Stealing from Warners, we find a goose that lays golden eggs to the tune of "Turkey in the Straw." (An egg slicer cuts the hen fruit into coins.) Realizing that the crooks do not belong in this dream, Audrey grabs a trumpet and takes flight on Mother's goose. The highlight is Edward G. Robinson as a "hard berled" Humpty Dumpty the no one can crack up. No sooner does Audrey get her hands on them, she wakes up wrestling a stool in her classroom. Suddenly, Audrey is hep to the jive and spewing jazz lingo. A bird, similar to the one in Bird-Brain's head, pops out from behind Audrey's hair ribbon to sing the finale.

While not quite as good as 'Butterscotch and Soda' and 'Song of the Birds' before it, 'Goofy Goofy Gander' is still towards the top half of the generally under-appreciated (by today's standards) Little Audrey cartoons.

As with a lot of the Little Audrey cartoons, the story is slight and pretty simplistic and it's once the action cuts to Little Audrey going to the nursery rhyme world where the cartoon really comes to life. It also however has the right amount of confectionery sweetness without feeling too sugary or making one sick, and has a lot of charm. This is the same for Little Audrey herself, an adorable and charming character that falls on the right side of sweet thankfully.

Much of Famous Studios' output boasts very good animation, more so their early efforts all the way through to the mid-50s before their cartoons started suffering from lower budgets and tighter deadlines. As to be expected, the animation is rich and colourful, with very meticulous and beautifully drawn backgrounds and well-rendered character designs that don't look too stiff, allowing one to really become immersed in this lovingly rendered and nostalgic nursery rhyme world. Winston Sharples provides yet another outstanding music score, even in mediocre or worse cartoons Sharples' music was never among the flaws (if anything always one of the strengths or the best asset).

Love the lusciousness of the orchestration here and how characterful and whimsical the music was without going overboard in either, even better was how well it fitted in the cartoon and how it merged with the action. The main song is very infectious too.

Plenty of amusement here, as well as great visual imagination. There were some very imaginative ideas that will delight children and also hold interest for adults as long as not too much is demanded. Everything here has the right amount of sweetness without being too sugary or making one queasy with sickness, and in some places it's even quite touching.

What is particularly great about 'Goofy Goofy Gander' are the wonderfully hip expressions of the day and spotting the famous nursery rhyme characters and their stories themselves, which is more than likely to make one feel nostalgic and warm to the toes. Particularly great were Humpty Dumpty and Little Boy Tucker. The message is one that is delivered without falling into preachiness and doesn't give the cartoon too much of a moralistic edge. The voice acting is fine.

In summary, a very good Little Audrey cartoon and a very pleasant diversion. 9/10 Bethany Cox