Bomb Voyage (1967) User Reviews

Tepid, average at best and not terribly funny short

[llltdesq · 5/10 · 11 July 2014]

This is an Inspector Clouseau short. There will be spoilers ahead:

I generally enjoy the Inspector shorts, even if they are rather limited, because the gags are typically funny. This short, however, is an exception. It has a decent, if tired, premise-aliens come to Earth and kidnap The Commissioner, leaving the Inspector and his "aide", Sergeant Deaux-Deaux to travel by rocket to the aliens home world to rescue him.

When the best part of the short is a rocket ship crewed by monkeys clearly more capable than anyone else in the short, seven+ minutes can seem very long indeed. The aliens aren't even all that interesting. Our "heroes" manage to accidentally find The Commissioner and free him, only to wind up running for their lives from an alien.

The ending of the short is flat and predictable, which is sad, because the end gag isn't funny. It's a decent series, but even the best series has a few duds.

The Inspector shorts are available on two DVS which are worth searching out and watching.

The Inspector in space

[TheLittleSongbird · 5/10 · 10 July 2019]

Between 1964 and 1976, DePatie-Freleng Enterprises did several theatrical original cartoon series with various characters. After the most popular one The Pink Panther, the second most prolific theatrical series of theirs was that of The Inspector. Not every one of the thirty four cartoons in the series was great, or good, but on the most part The Inspector series was one of DePatie-Freleng Enterprises' better theatrical series.

There are far better The Inspector cartoons though than 1967's 'Bomb Voyage', which to me is one of the weaker cartoons in the series. It is not in any way a bomb and a long way from unwatchable (don't class any of the cartoons under that distinction), but it fails to explode in most areas, and unfortunately the most important ones, at the same time. Other The Inspector cartoons are much funnier, are more interesting and have more imagination, and that's even with a different setting for the series.

It's the animation that is the best thing about 'Bomb Voyage'. Fairly simple in terms of drawing but never ugly, while the somewhat abstract backgrounds have nice attention to detail, more so than the Pink Panther cartoons (not a knock at all on the animation of that series), and don't look sparse. But it is the deep and rich colours that stand out in this regard. Liked the jauntiness and jazzy slinkiness of the music, which didn't sound too cheap or repetitive.

Have also always enjoyed The Inspector cartoons for the characters and the interaction between them. Still do, though they are better elsewhere in the series. The Inspector and Deux Deux are strong characters and the contrast between them is nicely done. Pat Harrington Jr does a great job giving the two characters differentiating and individual personalities and Paul Frees shows why he was one of the most sought after voice actors of that time.

Sadly, 'Bomb Voyage's' gags are too few and what there are are not imaginative in the slightest and also not particularly funny. The story lacks energy, which further adds to the tired feel, and makes no attempt to do anything original with a pretty old-hat premise. The supporting characters are just as flat and the ending is easily foreseeable too early.

Would have liked sharper physical comedy and wittier verbal humour (the irony doesn't come out enough and the word play is not as inspired), which is what makes the best The Inspector cartoons work, did think that there were nowhere near enough laughs here.

Overall, average at best. 5/10

The Weakest In The Series

[ccthemovieman-1 · 3/10 · 19 March 2008]

This was the first really weak effort I've seen in this animated series. It's not horrible, but the jokes are not funny, just flat, and the story is too ridiculous to entertain anyone over the age of five.

A little green man from Mars comes by in a spaceship and kidnaps The Commissioner. Moments later, The Inspector and Deux-Deux find a spaceship and head out to save him. The two are parachuted to the planet, discover their boss in some big underground tunnel and try to rescue him.

It's all really juvenile; not the normal fare. Not all of the 17 cartoons I have seen in this series were winners. Some were disappointing, but this probably the weakest effort in the lot.

Some viewers not up on their 20th Century U.S. History . . .

[pixrox1 · 8/10 · 17 August 2023]

. . . may not realize that BOMB VOYAGE is based upon one of this picture's cast or crew member's True Life vacation experience, from back in the days when NASA was funded in part by tourist admissions and gift shop sales at the underground alien storage facility near Roswell, NM. In the largest Main Cavern, large glass specimen jars were shown to visitors. This somewhat morbid exhibit, arranged alphabetically by the galactic home of each deceased space traveler, is faithfully rendered in the depiction of The Commissioner's display case after he's abducted to a distant planet. Unfortunately, Dick Nixon permanently closed this roadside attraction when one particularly gruesome long-nosed other-worldly pilot became commonly known as "Tricky Dick."