As I watched this cartoon short, it reminded me exactly why the Fleischer Brothers Studio failed when it tried to go head to head with Disney. Now during most of the 1930s, Disney and Fleischer Brothers both had niches--very different animated niches. Disney had, of course, the Mouse as well as their Silly Symphonies--which won several Oscars for their artistry. While Fleischer Brothers didn't have the glorious color Disney had nor the awards, their black & white cartoons were stunningly beautiful--and often with a nice 3-D effect. And, Betty Boop and Popeye were very popular in their own right. But the Fleischers wanted to go head to head with Disney--and their two animated features as well as their experiments with color shorts were pretty dismal by comparison. A great example of this is "Chicken a La King"--a thoroughly forgettable and slightly unsavory little short.
The film begins with a rooster in his harem of chickens. They treat him like a sultan--and he's bored! So, when a sexy(???) duck comes along, the rooster is instantly in love with Ducky Wucky. But, when Ducky's boyfriend finds out, he beats the rooster to a pulp--and demonstrating that folks should be happy with what they have and not want something they don't need.
The biggest problems with this cartoon are the animation and the writing--of course, what else is left?! The animation is splashy but lacks the wonderful backgrounds and high quality characters you'd expect from this studio. This, on the other hand, just looks cheap. And as for the story, yuck! A sexy duck?! Who thought this was a good idea? It just nauseated me a bit--like when I saw "Howard the Duck" and they showed naked ducks (you have to see it to understand what I mean). To make it worse, they obtained the world's worst impressionist to do a horrible Mae West. Since she also worked for Paramount, why didn't they just get the REAL voice of Miss West? Well, perhaps because even she had her standards. Overall, a terrible little picture that should have been much better.