Off-Topic: "Oh, Mickey- Nabisco!"

It's been hard to find good prints of Fleischer films lately, although I will probably post "Play Safe" when I'm up to it. Even though it's off topic, I am going to post something from Max Fleischer's rival when the namesake person of the company was still alive and when the vise versa rival's founders were still working for Paramount. This is one of my favorites, although it looks kinda in terrible shape. It is a Disney Mickey Mouse cartoon selling Nabsico cookies and crackers, long before a certain dairy products (of mostly cheese) company acquired them and much longer before that company bought rights to General Foods products. Mickey's Surprise Party, released as part of the World's Fair.

There's no production credits in the opening titles, no Mickey Mouse head card (if there was, it may have been cut off in this YouTube post), no MPAA number (since it was advertising) and no reference to Disney in the end title. For the actual cartoon, it was probably a VHS or older DVD copy, so the color isn't that great, it looks much similar to the quality in the edited "Spirit of Mickey" VHS version.


Alongside from that, it was a fun way to sell cookies after what it seems like Great Depression victims having enough of elves and dwarves and all of those robust plots incorporated in advertising cartoons.


I'm not sure who animated this but it is one of my favorite Nabisco commercials (even though it was cinema) alongside with the old Ritz Bitz claymation commercials, and the Chips Ahoy commercial with Benny Goodman's "Sing Sing Sing (With a Swing)".

I like this because I normally associate Kraft/Nabisco with Nickelodeon characters such as Spongebob and Timmy Turner when it comes to merchandising and partnerships.

Disney Magic Selections and Keebler got Mickey away those Fig Newtons that he said he "liked" in the end, at least in my time!

And one more thing, it has a similar end title cue that the Paramount cartoons use for end title fanfares, and if I'm not mistaken, it sounds like the "Hunky and Spunky" end title piece.

Off-Topic: WALL-E Review

I know, this is a Disney movie. But I did not want to post this to "Random Research", because posting this here on Classic Paramount Cartoons would probably get more animation buff attention.



I just saw WALL-E, and here is my review:


Sorry, Jerry Beck, even though I think you're a great Paramount cartoon fan, I would have liked "Kung Fu Panda" if I saw, but I'm with the nitpickers. And no offense, I'm not much into that type of setting for a movie.

I was used to the less surreal animated features where characters talked a lot, plus such formulaic plot (doesn't mean I hate Famous Studios) and unoriginal plots. I even liked movies that is purely "based on" something. Even though there's that controversy over it being based on a real robot, it is nearly original because it is surreal with a pinch of plot as the storyline progresses.

The score was not your typical Toy Story vibe, and there weren't very many freckeled characters. You could almost forget who made this because it was different than all of the previous Pixar features combined.

The film starts with an MGM-era Tex Avery-style Pixar short called "Presto". It was a cartoony short trying their best to recreate a typical Tex Avery cartoon. The bunny's speed resembled the character movement of bunny characters from the real Mcoy (execpt Bugs Bunny, of course).

Then we begin the actual feature with the opening logos and titles. Wall-E is trying to clean up a mess affecting Earth left behind due to an outer space trip promotion by a world-dominating Wal-Mart like chain named Buy-N-Large. At first, we see Eve being an evilesque robot until she befriends Wall-E. Wall-E gives an important gift- a plant. Wall-E finds this huge ship landing after a small lava disaster and Eve is kidnapped. Later, we see how lazy and bored the humans are in the new spaceship Buy-N-Large area. They've decided to go back to Earth, but the robots and computers push them not to go.

I'll just say this- Pixar decided to go a different direction for plot after what happened with how "Finding Nemo" began.

One of the running ingredients to the jokes/plot is a less popular to kids Fox musical named Hello Dolly. I like it because it makes it different film when you're picking a pop culture reference that people don't always know as more well-known classics.

If you're concerned about the future and don't think Meet The Robinsons is good enough of a future predictor (after all, life isn't perfect), see this movie.

Well, that's my review and I hope you enjoyed listening to my opinion.

See you,

ParamountCartoons.