If you look at the credits for SO YOU WANT TO KEEP YOUR HAIR, 5th of 63 shorts starring George O'Hanlon (the voice of "George Jetson") as sad-sack "Joe McDoakes," you'll find out who played "Leo," presumably Barber #1, as well as the nameless Barbers #2, #3, #5, and #6. But scan as much as you can, and you will NOT find out who played "Barber #4." Does this mean that there WERE only 5 hair trimmers in all, or does it imply that the guy who played the fourth snipper perhaps lost his ONLY chance for movie immortality? This is the sort of question that will drive OCD sufferers like Captain Queeg (think the "missing" quart of strawberries in THE CAINE MUTINY) totally nuts! Speaking of which, SO YOU WANT TO KEEP YOUR HAIR features the craziest restorative shampoos, such as lemon pie, putting me in mind of the weirdest one I've seen in a bathroom: peach shampoo (or "c-h-e-a-p ___ o-o-m-p-a-h-s," anagrammatically speaking). When "SO YOU" film buffs survey the A-to-Z of their field (stated by them as the . . . WANT TO GIVE UP SMOKING to . . . -R WIFE WANTS TO WORK (1942 through 1956), . . . WANT TO KEEP YOUR HAIR seldom makes either the Top 10 OR the Bottom 10. More often than not, HAIR ranks in the middle third (that is, in the 21-41 range). HAIR is only mildly amusing. If its concluding line, "Oh well, hair today; gone tomorrow" puts you in stitches, wait until you have a chance to view all of the 62 other SO YOU's. This time, "Joe" has galoshes in his bathtub. Raw eggs in his hair. His legs strapped to an electric chair. It goes from bad to worse for poor Joe. The narrator, Art Gilmore, intones that Joe's massive hair loss will confront 50% of American men at some point. If true, IT'S NO LAUGHING MATTER!! If not accurate, this short constitutes Alarmism of the worst sort. Couple this with a racist running gag concerning an alleged Native American (who named himself AFTER Buffalo Bill, his ancestors' life-style destroyer?!), lots of words only known to dictionary addicts, and sight gags that are more regurgitation-inducing than comic, and the result is a stew more likely to produce a belly ache than belly laughs.
Review of So You Want to Keep Your Hair
