Play Ball (1933) User Reviews

Baseball Willie

[TheLittleSongbird · 7/10 · 3 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.

1933's 'Play Ball' is the second cartoon in the Willie Whopper series, doing a nice job with providing as much fun with the subject of baseball. And it is a pretty decent and interesting one again, following on from Willie's debut 'The Air Race' for somebody who has only just gotten acquainted with the series as a huge animation fan. It is amusing and cute providing that one doesn't expect a masterpiece or too much.

'Play Ball' may be on the formulaic side with conflict that is somewhat predictable, it is not hard to figure out at all who wins.

Willie himself is slightly bland, though it is very early days still. The animation sometimes lacks finesse especially in some of the drawings.

However, there is some nice background detail and inventive little things. The music is energetic and characterful with appealing orchestration. The cartoon goes at a lively pace, has an appealing charm and the tale is wonderfully outlandish.

While not hilarious, 'Play Ball' has a lot of very amusing and sweet little laughs which makes it entertaining. The ending especially. Although slightly bland, Willie avoids being annoying and he avoids being sickly sweet as well, fairly likeable. The supporting characters are a lively bunch.

Altogether, decent once again. 7/10 Bethany Cox

One of the better shorts done in the series

[llltdesq · 8/10 · 4 December 2015]

This is an early cartoon in the short-lived Willie Whopper series produced by Iwerks studio. There will be spoilers ahead:

Early on in the Willy Whopper series, the character of Willie was drawn differently than he was in most of the shorts. He was less exaggerated in the first couple of cartoons. As a character, he's limited because he's pretty much one-dimensional. The whole point is for him to tell "whoppers"-grand lies-and build the cartoons from there.

He doesn't really do that in this one. Rather, you see him do things without the framing device of a yarn involved. This one actually has some good gags and the visual look of the cartoon is nice, which was typical of the Iwerks studio's output. The story may be flat, but the cartoons look good. Sometimes, even when the story is good, the execution and plotting are inadequate.

This one is comparatively simple. Willie is impressing his date at a carnival by winning the ball toss easily. The targets happen to be human heads and the gag also trades on a stereotypical caricature which will be offensive to many these days. There's yet another racially-driven caricature later on and the Statue of Liberty is part of an outlandish gag late in the short.

Willie goes over to a ball park, where two boys are arguing over a knot hole in the fence. Willie makes it possible to please everyone by putting a funnel in the hole. Then a caricature of Babe Ruth hits a home run over the fence and Willie manages to catch it and make it look easy. He trades the ball for two tickets to the game.

The game, between the Yankees and Cubs, is lopsided and virtually every cliché about baseball is seen in the game sequences. Willie brags he could pitch better than the Cubs pitcher, so the angry Cubs manager shoves him into the game, where he gets the first two batters out in unusual, unbelievable ways.

Then he faces Ruth, managing to get two strikes before Ruth hits the third pitch and starts the longest sequence of the cartoon. I won't spoil anything in that part, because it's probably the best part of the cartoon.

This cartoon is now available on Blu Ray and DVD from Thunderbean, along with all the Willie Whopper cartoons. It and the disc are recommended.