Eggs Don't Bounce (1944) User Reviews

Half A Good Start

[boblipton · 6/10 · 11 August 2008]

Little Lulu was a series of one-panel, wordless cartoons produced by 'Marge' for many years starring Lulu as a mischievous, imaginative child. This, the first of the cartoon series produced by Famous Studios, the Fleischer successor, gets off to a great start with a fine series song and some good sight gags, but it soon turns into a plot with a story in which Lulu is sent by her Mammy to get a dozen eggs from a store and soon breaks them. The gags following her efforts are not as amusing.

The first half makes for a very good start, as I have said, but then she starts speaking to her dog. Alas, the net result is a good, but not great cartoon.

First and one of the best of an uneven series

[llltdesq · 7/10 · 10 May 2015]

This is the first in a series of animated shorts based on the comic strip character Little Lulu, drawn by Marge. There will be spoilers ahead:

In this short, Little Lulu is playing and trying to be helpful, with mixed results, when Mandy sends her to get some eggs, admonishing her to be careful not to "disintegrate" the eggs (Mandy is a black caricature of the type rather common in animated shorts at the various studios of the 1930 and 1940s and just the first stereotype in this one).

Lulu gets the eggs and safely crosses the street, only to have a rather improbable (and therefore thoroughly perfect for a cartoon) series of events occur to "disintegrate" the eggs all over the sidewalk, at which point Lulu goes into a fantasy, complete with singing eggs and Mandy lecturing her about the broken eggs, which causes her to decide to ask a hen named Henrietta for replacements.

Naturally, Henrietta is disinclined to go along, even refusing a tempting bribe. Lulu and her dog plot to take the eggs out from under Henrietta. The dog then launches a series of distractions, each more fanciful than the previous ones, while Lulu lifts the eggs. Henrietta catches on and paints Lulu's face green. The dog, impersonating Chaplin, comes up as Lulu runs out of the barn and is caught by Henrietta.

Finally, Lulu (in black-face and on top of the dog) comes in the barn with an ax and scares the daylights out of Henrietta, who runs away, leaving the eggs. The ending is cute, so I won't spoil it here.

This cartoon deserves to be more widely known.

The cartoon debut of Little Lulu

[TheLittleSongbird · 6/10 · 10 February 2017]

The 26 Little Lulu cartoons made during 1944-1948 (and the two made in the early 60s) were uneven (individually and the series as a general overview) but watchable.

'Eggs Don't Bounce' is her debuting cartoon, and while it has its interest points and has a good amount right with it that it is a debuting cartoon is very obvious in the execution. The later cartoons generally were more visually refined and there is the feeling sometimes of "still finding its feet".

Little Lulu herself is engaging enough, but more interesting are the chicken Henrietta and Lulu's dog, the latter providing the two best gags. Sammy Tinberg's music is terrific, with a real lushness and energy, complete with an infectious theme song and the music couldn't have shone any more brightly than it did in the fantasy/nightmare sequence.

A few good gags here, the dog trying to catch the eggs in the air and his Charlie Chaplin imitation being the most amusing. The highlight of 'Eggs Don't Bounce' is the fantasy/nightmare sequence, which is eerily nightmarish and has some a great surreal quality. The voice work is good.

Not everything works. While it is very nicely done in the fantasy/nightmare sequence, some of the animation is on the rough side and in need of more colour and smoothness. Really didn't care for the very stereotypical and ugly character design for Mandy, which reminds one uncomfortably of the character designs in the "Censored 11" cartoons, the character herself is also both bland and annoying.

For nearly 9 minutes, it doesn't feel like there is quite enough content, and while there is enough interesting and amusing material Lulu's way of getting the eggs from Henrietta comes over as rather mean-spirited and uncomfortable. Compared to some of the later cartoons, the lack of comedy violence and a lack of a male authority figure to work against makes 'Eggs Don't Bounce' slightly bland.

In conclusion, okay, with some very nice things, if rough-around-the-edges and unsettled debut cartoon for Little Lulu. 6/10 Bethany Cox

Eggs Don't Bounce marks the first time Marge's Little Lulu was animated

[tavm · 5/10 · 31 August 2010]

Just watched this Little Lulu cartoon on YouTube as linked to a site devoted to the Paramount cartoons. Based on the one-panel strips created by Marge, this was the first time her character was animated. There are some funny sight gags like when Lulu's dog jumped up in the air to catch some eggs or when that same dog does a Chaplin imitation. There's also a fantastic nightmarish sequence worth of Max Fleischer (no wonder since the director I. Sparber and many of the animators previously worked for him) though it's marred a bit by the stereotyped caricature of the black maid who also appears in the present day sequences. The fact that Lulu also disguises herself as that maid to scare the chicken also wasn't funny to me. Still, Eggs Don't Bounce is worth a look if you're curious about these old-school cartoons.