A Ham in a Role (1949) User Reviews

It stars Mac and Tosh--so it's obviously well worth your time.

[planktonrules · 8/10 · 6 March 2014]

I have always loved Mac and Tosh, the Gopher Twins. They are cute and very wicked little characters from Looney Tunes that never fail to make me laugh--though they don't appear in this film until it is almost half complete.

The cartoon begins with a very snooty, Frasier Crane sort of dog who is tired of slapstick and low humor, so he leaves the Looney Tunes studio for good. His intent is to become a Shakespearian actor but unfortunately, he comes into contact with the gophers--and they make his life miserable. And, being that this dog is so full of himself and sophisticated, it's fun to watch him being taken down a few pegs by the little rodents. Well worth seeing like all the Mac and Tosh films.

Gotta love that dog

[utgard14 · 7/10 · 2 October 2015]

Funny Goofy Gophers short where the duo are upstaged by a dog who also happens to be a Shakespearean actor. The dog is the star of Warner Bros. cartoons where he has to do "low comedy" like taking a pie in the face. Feeling this is beneath his talents, he quits and retreats to his country home to study his Shakespeare. When he arrives at his house, he finds Mac and Tosh there and promptly throws them out. They react to this in the manner you might expect. An enjoyable cartoon for sure but mostly for the hilarious dog. Mac and Tosh are fun but less talky than usual. Since most of their appeal comes from their comically polite dialogue, it's not a great thing to have them speak less. Still, the dog is funny and I get the feeling Robert McKimson (directing the Gophers for the first time) was more interested in him than in the pair.

The dog steals the show

[Rectangular_businessman · 7/10 · 11 November 2023]

As a little kid this was one of my favorite Looney Tunes shorts, even when all the Shakespeare references went over my head.

Rewatching it as an adult, one definately has more sympathy towards the snobbish dog actor who is victimized by the two Goofy Gophers.

He ends stealing the show, and even when he might be a little bit pretentious, I would say he didn't deserve all the pranks he ends receiving, as he didn't seem particularly antagonistic or villainous.

I guess that must be the reason of why he didn't appear in more shorts, as it would have made look the gophers way too sadistic. (And there is also the fact that character was a parody of a real actor, John Barrymore)

At least he got a "happy" ending. Well, sorta.

"I shall not allow gophers to impede my progress."

[slymusic · 2 June 2011]

"A Ham in a Role" is a very clever Warner Bros. cartoon directed by Robert McKimson. A dog grows weary of lowbrow comedy and vows to brush up his Shakespeare, all the while the overly polite Goofy Gophers pull a series of pranks on him that relate to his recitations.

Highlights: In the beginning, after the dog gets "creamed" with a pie, a stagehand pulling a billboard of chorus ladies' torsos makes an ever bigger ass out of the dog, thanks to some expert timing. When the canine dons a suit of medieval armor, the Gophers have fun with some horseshoe magnets. The Gophers drop a glop of Limburger onto the dog's face during his "rose by any other name" speech.

"A Ham in a Role" is indeed very funny, but after awhile, I begin to feel for the dog. After all, he is diligently trying to study something quite worthwhile, but the Goofy Gophers apparently tell him to stick with what he already knows.

torment is such sweet sorrow

[lee_eisenberg · 7/10 · 19 April 2007]

When I saw "Lumber Jerks" a few months ago and then read about the Goofy Gophers in the book "That's All Folks: The Art of Warner Bros. Animation", I was surprised that those guys had their own series of cartoons and yet I'd never heard of them before. So, I've finally seen another one of their cartoons, and I liked it better than the previous one. "A Ham in a Role" has those most effeminate members of the genus Citellus tormenting a snobbish Shakespearean actor dog who left Warner Bros. (they never miss a chance to advertise themselves, do they?) to stick with serious roles. Specifically, they terrorize him based on his lines from the Bard's plays ("A rose by any other name..." becomes an excuse for Limburger cheese).

Yeah, it's just nice, silly entertainment. But I saw it as a special feature on the "My Dream Is Yours" DVD, and this cartoon is easily the best part (it's practically a guarantee that any Doris Day movie totally sucks). So check it out; and if you watch "MDIY", skip to the Bugs Bunny scene, and the movie won't totally suck.

ANONYMOUS was not the first film to poke fun . . .

[oscaralbert · 6/10 · 27 May 2016]

. . . at the pretentious Fat Cats of the Oxfordian Camp, who cannot believe that a blue collar card-carrying UAW (United Avon Writers) Union member like Bill Shakespeare could scribble out the World's Most Famous Plays. Where ANONYMOUS is out for blood, having "The Virgin Queen's" son Oxford watch as their incestuous spawn (son\grandson Oxford, Junior) is beheaded for High Treason, the Warner Bros. animated short A HAM FOR A ROLE simply features a canine named "Dog" getting pied-in-the-face for the 98th and 99th times one afternoon. As this flea-ridden HAMLET wannabe also rehearses JULIUS CAESAR, ROMEO AND JULIET, plus RICHARD III (which is the play that gets heads rolling in ANONYMOUS), two "goofy" gophers try to turn phrases to which Bill Shakespeare would never resort, such as "Let's shall" and "I Shalst." Though HAM preceded ANONYMOUS by about 60 years, it is not only more succinct in Puncturing the Pompous Pontificators who refer to Bill as "The Bard," but it is also more spot-on in making sycophantic quill sniffers such as the Oxfordians (or the dupes who believe that a humorless, senile Tory Traitor named Clement Moore--America's most infamous plagiarist glory grabber--was connected to 'TWAS THE NIGHT BEFORE CHR!STMAS, penned by working class Revolutionary War hero Capt. Henry Livingston!) appear as ludicrous jokes, rather than the tragic figures of ANONYMOUS.

Brush up your Shakespeare canine style

[TheLittleSongbird · 9/10 · 11 May 2013]

If you love The Goofy Gophers, you'll like A Ham in a Role just as much. A Ham in a Role is not quite as good in my view, but it's still thoroughly enjoyable. The animation is beautifully drawn and lusciously coloured, giving the cartoon a cosy and elegant old-fashioned charm. The music has so much character and verve, and I shall always admire how the Looney Tunes cartoons are orchestrated and how the instrumentation blends. The writing is irreverent, done in a way that makes Shakespeare still sound so fresh, and the gags are similarly clever, I can't decide which is my favourite of the horseshoe magnet or Limburger gags. The characters are great fun to watch, the dog's delivery of the Shakespearean lines are priceless while the overly-polite gophers(characters that don't get anywhere near enough credit) are both endearing and funny. Mel Blanc and Stan Freberg provide sterling vocals as expected. Overall, not quite as good as The Goofy Gophers but every bit as entertaining. 9/10 Bethany Cox

I can call gophers from the vasty deep

[boblipton · 9/10 · 23 November 2002]

Topnotch Goofy Gophers cartoon, doing what they do best: pricking the vanity of the inept, in this case, a dog who wishes to give up doing slapstick cartoons for Warner Brothers and do Shakespearian roles instead.

Although this cartoon is credited to McKimson, it shows the hand of Art Davis, the most under-rated of the directors at Termite Terrace -- the hambone hound likes to wear a bow tie. Davis had his own unit, but it was folded into McKimson's in the late 1940s. A pity, as he was a much better director than McKimson. Take a look at this one and see.

Very few of the ladies majoring in Home Economics . . .

[pixrox1 · 8/10 · 24 July 2021]

. . . minored in Shakespeare. However, one does not need to be an Anglophile to understand that A HAM IN A ROLE can easily serve as a Cliff Notes summary of most if not all important lines of dialog from the 40 or so plays churned out by Bill. From HAMLET to ROMEO AND JULIET to RICHARD III, these bon mots are all there. (Maybe the ham actor-dog never says "Out, out, dark spot," but isn't this slogan better left to Mr. Clean, anyway?) Just as Popeye is widely recognized as being "the poor man's Homer," A HAM IN A ROLE should be taken as the street bum's Bard.