Speedy Ghost to Town (1967) User Reviews

The dark era begins...

[wile_E2005 · 4/10 · 11 December 2007]

This was the first cartoon made by Warner Bros. Animation when they reopened in 1967. And unfortunately, like Sander Schwartz's stint at WB Animation president from 2002 to 2007, the studio has never been the same. They mostly hired new staff members and very few veterans, and had Walter Lantz/Hanna-Barbera -director Alex Lovy direct the cartoons. He seemed to take the limited animation influence with him in these cartoons. Daffy is drawn severely off-model and looks very weird, and Speedy doesn't look as good, though at least he isn't drawn as badly as he was in 1968. The writing sounds like a bunch of kids wrote this short, with a highly-predictable ending. And other animation motions seem to resemble Hanna-Barbera or Filmation or UPA, and it comes out looking just plain low-budget. They even had Daffy do the old "bongo feet" thing when running off, just like the H-B characters do, and they also had some of the Hanna-Barbera sound effects used in it, looped over and over and only using a portion of H-B's vast sound FX library (sort of like when the studio would make "What's New Scooby-Doo?" in 2002), and Bill Lava's music sounds cheesy as well. But as I say, don't judge a book by this cover, and not all of the WB cartoons from this period were like this (only the Speedy vs. Daffy shorts). Luckily, they went and created Cool Cat, and that livened things up a bit.

Weak, even for a Daffy/Speedy cartoon

[TheLittleSongbird · 4/10 · 11 February 2011]

First off, I am not a fan of the Daffy/Speedy cartoons. Not all of them are completely awful, but a vast majority look on the cheap side and are not very well-written. I don't think that Speedy Ghost to Town is the worst of them, it is not as almost disposable as See Ya Later Gladiator, but it is still weak.

The cartoon did have a great idea, went at a good pace and the voice work from the amazing Mel Blanc helps to elevate.

However, the animation is not great really. Daffy is very badly drawn, and while Speedy fares a little better he has been modelled better and his actions are annoying and predictable here. Not only that, the backgrounds and colours are very washed out and shoddy. The music by Bill Lava is not only cheesy but annoying. The sight gags are lacklustre on the whole -apart from the telephone gag which was quite funny- likewise with the dialogue and puns and the ending is so predictable and badly done it hurts.

So overall, pretty weak but not unwatchable. 4/10 Bethany Cox

An Average Alex Lovy Short - And A Below Average WB Short

[MartyD82-1 · 5/10 · 22 May 2005]

Speedy takes a mouse friend to a ghost town and shows him a piece of cheese from a local cheese mine. Daffy willingly overhears them, mistaking the cheese for gold. Thus begins yet another Daffy/Speedy chase through an abandoned saloon and into the "Cheese Mine."

Many consider this to be among the worst Daffy/Speedy cartoons. While it isn't bad compared to some of the other Alex Lovy directed shorts (See Ya Later, Gladiator), it's fairly mediocre. A poorly drawn Daffy essentially goes after Speedy for no real reason other than to get the cartoon started, the jokes are worn out and unfunny (save for may be the telephone gag in the middle), and the ending is so predictable you could probably guess what it is just by reading my plot description at the top. The horribly drawn backgrounds and cheesy Bill Lava music don't help matters much, either.

Don't spend nights on end tracking this one down.

Not a good start for the Alex Lovey/ Warner Bros Seven Arts era

[stephen0684 · 4/10 · 16 October 2016]

Aside for a couple of gags this picture is not that good. Daffy overhears Speedy and friend about a mine and somehow concludes that it has gold. So he spends the majority of the picture trying to get the map from the mice but fails. He does however reach the mine and eventually finds out what really is in the mine. But OK so did the mine has gold? If not then what? All I can say is that Dailymotion has the short if you want to see it for yourself. But don't expect it to be a good start for the 67-69 WB era. However, there are a few Alex Lovey WB cartoons that are while not the same as Chuck Jones, Friz Freleng, Tex Avery, Robert McKimson, Frank Tashlin, Arthur Davis, or Bob Clampett this is not one of them. Lovey better WB shorts were with his one shots and Cool Cats. While only maybe a couple of his Daffy and Speedy shorts are at best decent.

Overall, 4 out of 10.