Cave Man (1934) User Reviews

Willie Whopper in the stone age

[TheLittleSongbird · 6/10 · 11 May 2018]

Ub Iwerks's Willie Whopper series of cartoons was short-lived, only lasting a year from 1933 to 1934. On the most part the Willie Whopper cartoons are not great or cartoon/animated masterpieces and it is sort of understandable as to why Willie didn't make it bigger. However they are far from terrible ones either and do amuse and charm.

1934's 'Cave Man' is one of the weaker Willie Whopper cartoons to me. It's still pretty entertaining though. And this is coming from somebody who has only just gotten acquainted with the series as a huge animation fan. Just don't expect a masterpiece or too much.

'Cave Man' may be on the formulaic side with conflict that is somewhat predictable, it is not hard to figure out at all how it all ends.

Willie himself is a bit bland and a fairly limited character, while still being likeable, and his material is more repetitive than it usually is.

However, there is a lot of nice background work, smooth drawing, lively black and white (although it was originally meant to be in colour) and inventive little things. The music is energetic and characterful with appealing orchestration. The cartoon goes at a lively pace, has an appealing charm, is amusing and the tale is wonderfully outlandish.

There are a lot of very amusing and sweet little laughs which makes it entertaining. Although slightly bland, Willie avoids being annoying and he avoids being sickly sweet as well, fairly likeable. The supporting characters are a lively bunch, with the dinosaur being the best character in the cartoon and one of the best assets overall. The stone age era is nicely done though it has been handled more inventively elsewhere.

In summary, pretty entertaining but Willie Whopper has done better. 6/10 Bethany Cox

The dinosaur is the best character here

[llltdesq · 6/10 · 12 December 2015]

This is a cartoon in the Willie Whopper series produced by Iwerks studio. There will be spoilers ahead:

This is more like Willie Whopper does Tarzan than Willie Whopper as cave man, for all that he faces a dinosaur. Much of the time he's on screen, Willie is swinging on a vine and his best bits are more Tarzan than anything else.

The plot is simple-Willie is telling Goofy all about the dinosaur he caught. We first see Willie of the jungle and then we see a dinosaur. The dinosaur first eats what looks like a grass hut on a tree, only to have it turn out to be a rather disturbed bird which flies away. After Willie winds up at his place, we see the dinosaur at another tree.

The dinosaur then starts snuggling up to the tree and shaking the house, which just happens to be Mary's house. Mary is wearing a rather unusual outfit. It keeps changing in size and areas of coverage. Anyhow, the dinosaur pushes its way through the door, only to have Mary fight it off (she actually does a better job of this than Willie does).

Only after Mary runs out of stuff to throw at the dinosaur does she call Willie for help, on a telephone, of all things. Willie eventually gets to the phone and heads over to help Mary. By the time he gets there, her house is basically gone. Willie's main contribution is blowing pepper in the dinosaur's nose and the bulk of the remainder of the cartoon is sneezing gags. The dinosaur is defeated and the short ends on a gag which will offend a lot of people.

This short, along with all the other Willie Whopper cartoons, is now available on a Blu-Ray/DVD combo released by Thunderbean. The set is well worth getting.