Springtime in the Rock Age (1940) User Reviews

Gabby cartoons are better than this one.

[llltdesq · 3/10 · 19 July 2015]

This is a cartoon in the Stone Age series produced by the Fleischer studio. There will be spoilers ahead:

The Stone Age series was probably the low point for Fleischer and this short is near the bottom of that series. Apart from referencing both the Marx Brothers and the Three Stooges in gags, there's little else to recommend this.

This opens on an instant growth for trees and flowers as spring arrives. A cave man comes out to water the flowers and a grasshopper larger than he is shows up to eat his garden. A confrontation sees him beaten by the grasshopper, which is a sign of things to come.

Our hero loses his coat to a moth and then sees him first outwitted and then soundly thrashed by a group of belligerent flies. This clod clearly isn't one of natural selection's shining moments.

There, now you don't have to sit through this. You're welcome.

For completeists only.

One deadly dull spring

[TheLittleSongbird · 2/10 · 22 May 2020]

It is not as if all Fleischer Studios cartoons are bad. Actually like to love a vast majority of their 30s output, including the best of Popeye and pre-code Betty Boop and other cartoons not part of famous cartoons series. They were amusing and charming and much of them had a distinctive visual style that showed innovative techniques. The "Stone Age" cartoons were mostly indicative of their major decline in the 40s, though a few were watchable.

'Springtime in the Rock Age' isn't one of them. Actually completely agree that it is one of the worst of a mostly pretty weak series of cartoons where most of them were mediocre at best. Scratch that, it is to me a strong contender for the very worst of the series and one of the studios' nadirs. Do agree that it is worse than all the Gabby cartoons, Gabby may have been mostly annoying and unlikeable, the stories severely wanting and generally lacking in the writing, but at least they were well animated, there were the odd fun supporting characters and moments of amusement. Not the case with a vast majority of the "Stone Age" cartoons.

Almost nothing works in 'Springtime in the Rock Age'. The only saving grace is the music score, which is energetically characterful (the only thing in the cartoon that has any kind of energy and character) and beautifully orchestrated.

Everything else is pretty much disastrous. The animation takes simple too far, and comes over as simplistic, particularly apparent in the unfinished looking backgrounds. Further disadvantaged by the crude drawing, it was clear that this was made in a rush or at least that's how it came across. The story barely exists and you've practically seen before more than once what not enough there is but this time there is no freshness or imagination. There is no energy here too and it doesn't even have any charm to it to make it cute, it actually is pretty irritating.

Namely down to the characters being so dull and unappealing, with very little personality, and too few gags that are not funny or have enough variety or freshness to work. There is such a deja vu feeling to what gags there are and much more inspired elsewhere and anything that happens more than once gets old fast.

In conclusion, very poor. Only the music saves it from being bottom of the barrel. 2/10