User Reviews

Just watched this Paramount Modern Madcap cartoon on YouTube as linked from Cartoon Brew. In this one, the title character has a bad day at work but is nice to all the people on the way home despite the treatment he gets (he lets a lady on a bus and then watches other passersby stomp on him as they go ahead of him, a lady's dog chases him, and a window washer drops a pail of water on him). Then he arrives home and treats his wife like a slave. Wife then hits his head with a frying pan and threatens a divorce. So Harry goes to a psychiatrist who counsels him to do the opposite of what he's been doing. So he stomps over those same passersby, barks at that lady's dog, and pours water over that lady window washer. Then at home, he attempts to do all his wife's chores with disastrous results. So once again, he gets hit on the head with a frying pan. The end...I didn't think this cartoon was funny until Harry turned the tables, but even then it's obvious he needs a LOT of help with his behavior. Director Seymour Kneitel's treatment of the cruel husband, frustrated wife isn't as cleverly funny as Robert McKimson's Wild Wife from several years earlier but it's still fascinating as a study of what was considered as acceptable comedy during the pre-women's lib era. One more thing, Winston Sharples takes the instrumental bridge he co-wrote for the Fleischers' Gulliver Travels-the song "It's a Hap-Hap-Happy Day"-and incorporates it here. So on that note, Harry Happy is worth a look for Famous/Paramount cartoon completists.