Frank Tashlin's 'Speaking of the Weather' is another in the series of cartoons in which books come to life. In this case it is magazines which suddenly leap off the page. Although it has an attractive look to it, 'Speaking of the Weather' suffers from a lack of decent gags. Although these cartoons can sometimes rely on outdated references a little too heavily, they often make up for this with sheer energy or by providing enough information for audiences of any era to understand the joke. 'Speaking of the Weather' features a few more celebrity cameos than usual in these type of cartoons and the jokes that are self-explanatory are mostly just not that good. The obvious high point of this loose series is Bob Clampett's classic 'Book Revue' but Tashlin himself would go on to direct the excellent 'Have You Got Any Castles' a year after 'Speaking of the Weather'. That cartoon was both lush and amusing and 'Speaking of the Weather' feels like just a dry run for 'Have You Got Any Castles'. They're certainly stylistically similar but the latter is by far the superior cartoon and renders 'Speaking of the Weather' virtually unnecessary.
Review of Speaking of the Weather
