Van Beuren cartoons are extremely variable, especially in the number of gags and whether the absurdist humour shines through enough (sometimes it does, other times it doesn't), but are strangely interesting. Although they are often poorly animated with barely existent stories and less than compelling lead characters, they are also often outstandingly scored, there can be some fun support characters and some are well-timed and amusing.
'The Old Hokum Bucket' is for me among the worst of the 1931 batch and one of the worst Aesop's Fables/Van Beuren cartoons. The title of the cartoon couldn't be more apt and there is very little of the absurdist and surreal humour that can be seen in their best efforts, or at least it's not done right. There are a couple of decent things but they are far overshadowed by everything else that 'The Old Hokum Bucket' does badly wrong.
Best asset about 'The Old Hokum Bucket' is the music score, pretty much the best thing consistently of Van Beuren's output. Sometimes even the only good thing. It is so beautifully and cleverly orchestrated, is great fun to listen to and full of lively energy, doing so well with enhancing the action.
A few neatly synchronised sound effects here and there, though sadly this aspect is mostly creepily bizarre.
Coming onto the numerous criticisms, the animation is not good, in fact it is downright bad most of the time with erratically sloppy character designs in particular while the simplistic background detail and lack of fluidity and crispness are just as difficult to ignore.
Story is very slight to the point of non-existence and suffers from far too erratic pacing a vast majority of the time, something that affects the visuals a lot of the time because most of it is out of sync. It feels aimless and also random and disjointed. It is not as senseless as a lot of the worst of the series, but that still doesn't stop it from being very bland. Likewise with endearing or memorable characters, the characters here are neither, not to mention very poorly animated.
Basically 'The Old Hokum Bucket' is a stringing along of gags structured in a way that's disorganised and random. Generally it is very low on laughs, actually none of it is remotely amusing. Nothing is inventive, never rising above the forgettable and there is not much absurdist about them, timing is really sluggish too. This is a reiteration of a lot of the average and less Aesops Fables/Van Beuren cartoons that have been reviewed by me, but this is due to them having the same strengths and drawbacks.
To conclude, very poor and pure hokum. 2/10 Bethany Cox
