The CooCoo Nut Grove (1936)

User Rating:

6.2/10   

Director:

Friz Freleng

Release Date:

28 November 1936 (USA)

Genre:

Family | Animation | Short | Comedy

Plot:

A visit to a Hollywood nightclub, featuring caricatures of, among others, Walter Winchell, Hugh Herbert...

Plot Keywords:

Quintuplets | Dionne Quintuplets | Nightclub | Crying | Reference To Lupe Valez

Cast

Verna Deane	...	Voice (uncredited)
Bernice Hansen	...	Dionne Quintuplets (voice) (uncredited)
Peter Lind Hayes	...	Voice (uncredited)
Tedd Pierce	...	Voice (uncredited)
The Rhythmettes	...	Voices (uncredited)
Danny Webb	...	Mouse (voice) (uncredited)

Runtime:

7 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color (Technicolor)

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono

Certification:

USA:Approved (PCA #2776) | USA:TV-G (TV rating) | USA:Not Rated (DVD)

Company:

Leon Schlesinger Studios

Trivia:

The caricatured celebrities are, in order of appearance: Ben Birdie: Ben Bernie; Walter Windpipe: Walter Winchell; Happy man: Hugh Herbert; Pig: W.C. Fields; Horse (Miss Heartburn): Katharine Hepburn; Grouchy man: Ned Sparks; Tarzan and date: Johnny Weissmuller and Lupe Velez; The "Profile": John Barrymore; Man chasing woman: Harpo Marx; Turtle and Chickadee: George Arliss and Mae West; Monkey and Pig: Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy; Old lady dancer: Edna May Oliver; Man with big ears: Clark Gable; "Pixillated" man: Gary Cooper; Singing children: the Dionne Quintuplets; "Woman" being chased: Groucho Marx; Torch Singer: Helen Morgan; Man eating banana: Wallace Beery; Tough guys: Edward G. Robinson and George Raft; In crowd scenes: Charles Laughton, Joe E. Brown, Fred Astaire, Greta Garbo.

Movie Connections:

Referenced in Behind the Tunes: Looney Tunes Go Hollywood (2004) (V)

Soundtrack:

The Little Things You Used to Do

A jumbled celebrity caricature cartoon

Friz Freleng's 'The Coo Coo Nut Grove' is a Hollywood stars caricature cartoon with a difference. The difference is that some of the celebrities are portrayed as animals. Harpo Marx is a bird, Laurel and Hardy are a pig and a monkey, Katherine Hepburn is a horse, etc. This promising concept is soured, however, by the odd fact that only some of the stars are animals. Curiously, some of the caricatures are humans. I can't help but feel that it would have been a funnier concept had all of the characters been animals or humans. Mixing them together just makes it seem odd, particularly when we discover that Groucho Marx is a human while Harpo is a bird?! Tex Avery made a much better caricature cartoon five years later called 'Hollywood Steps Out' in which all the stars were portrayed in their human form. As is generally the case with these cartoons, the fun is in spotting the celebrities and trying to get the references. 'The Coo Coo Nut Grove' would have brought the house down in its day when all the references were topical, now its more fascinating than funny.