Snooze Reel (1952) User Reviews

Pretty Good Late Screen Song

[boblipton · 6/10 · 14 July 2021]

This entry in Paramount's SCREEN SONG series starts off with a fake news reel, with each item a joke. Then there's a "follow the bouncing ball" version of "I've Got Spurs That Jingle Jangle Jingle" that ends in a round.

While I am not as fond of the Famous Studio revival of the format in the late 1940s as I am of the original Fleischer Brothers version, this is a good one. The jokes, offered in the blackout gag format that cartoon newsreels had been using for twenty years, is pretty good, with the one about the statue unveiling pretty good; and offering a song in round form is very pleasant.

Not a snoozefest

[TheLittleSongbird · 7/10 · 3 June 2022]

While it was an inconsistent series, the Kartunes series from Famous Studios was still worth watching. Some of the cartoons were not great, with the first half generally being better than the second, but the weakest ones still managed to not be misfires (unlike the better known Screen Song cartoons) and the best surprisingly very good, like for example the first 'Vegetable Vaudeville'. So there was a good deal to live up with the second Kartune 'Snooze Reel'.

Like 'Vegetable Vaudeville', 'Snooze Reel' is a series of gags centered around a vaudeville-esque premise but this time instead of vegetables the theme was typical events that were then very current. 'Snooze Reel' did a pretty job with that. While not an exceptional cartoon or with much that blows the mind, it is well worth watching and far from a snoozefest. To me, it is one of the better outings of the Kartunes series and has enough to set it apart from the previous cartoon.

'Snooze Reel' is a long way from perfect. The second half is not as good as the first, it's made up of the singalong and while the song itself is a lot of fun the singalong material wise felt too cutesy and was in serious need of variety.

As to be expected, the plot is non existent and a series of gags of the blackout kind. When it comes to the originality, 'Snooze Reel' is fairly hit and miss, a couple being fairly typical and easy to predict.

However, a lot about the cartoon is good. It is beautifully animated. The colours are vibrant and there is meticulous attention to detail in the backgrounds. If there was one aspect that was consistently good in Famous Studios' 1940s and 1950s output, it was the music scoring. And it is outstanding here. The orchestration has a lot of energy and there are some truly luscious sounds throughout.

Furthermore, enough of the gags are visually inventive, full of energy and don't come over as cutesy. It is on the corny side at times, but the gags are also plentiful and to me they were very amusing on the whole. One of the most inspired ones being the unveiling of the statue. The cartoon also did a good job with its subject, succeeding in making the current events of that time interesting and accessible (even those that will be unfamiliar to some viewers). The characters are not complex but have personality.

Overall, good fun. 7/10.

A Classic Follow The Bouncing Ball Short

[Guitar-8 · 9/10 · 5 February 2010]

This is the first Paramount cartoon to use a new opening for its "Follow The Bouncing Ball" series (Sing A Song of Six Pence).

The cartoon parodies the old news reels that were seen in movie theatres before television became popular. You'll find shorts about sports, the economy & news.

In the location of Trs-La, La; it features a singing cowboy singing a Paramount classic "Jimgle Jangle Jingle". Then he encourages the viewers (audience) to sing along.

It's also the only sing along where it's done in a round. The girls sing first & the guys follow (they both meet at "Though I may have done some foolin, this is why I never tell."), then it becomes a round again.

The cartoon closes with a camera focusing on the viewers and a statement that reads, "The eyes, ears, nose and throat of the world." Too bad all the follow the bouncing ball numbers have been deleted forever on the Harveytoon DVD set. But that's copyright for you.