Chimp & Zee (1968) User Reviews

Not bad at all, in fact one of the better late-60s Merry Melodies cartoons

[TheLittleSongbird · 7/10 · 27 December 2012]

My reaction to the late-60s Merry Melodies cartoons has either been indifference or negativity. So I was surprised at how decent Chimp and Zee was. It is nowhere near as good as the cartoons of the 40s-50s(early 60s weren't so bad either actually), but compared to most of the Speedy vs. Daffy and late Roadrunner vs. Coyote cartoons it is watchable. Admittedly the story is rather thin on the ground and most of the gags are more amusing than they are laugh-a-minute hilarity. Plus the main foible with Chimp and Zee is the quality of the animation, which is not too great, rather limited and flatly coloured for my liking. However, Bill Lava's music is awesome here, easily one of his better and catchier scores. If there is a moment in Chimp and Zee that is very funny, it is with the blow-gun and the elephant. The ape gets top billing and is a fun character, but the show-stealer is the hunter, a character actually that makes one wonder why he wasn't in any more of the Merry Melodies cartoons. Mel Blanc's vocals, mainly the sophisticated English accent for the hunter, are outstanding, not unusual considering that we are talking about one of the greatest voice actors ever here. In conclusion, not a masterpiece but for the period Chimp and Zee is quite good. 7/10 Bethany Cox

A very strange but cool cartoon!

[wile_E2005 · 8/10 · 29 August 2007]

By the 1960s, Warner Bros. Animation was starting to go downhill, and many of their cartoons would never be the same. This was especially true in 1967, after being closed for four years, they re-opened, but with a mostly-new staff of people whom never originally worked for Termite Terrace. Since then, the cartoons have been a mixed bag. Some of them were really good (the Cool Cat cartoons) and some of them were pretty bad (the Daffy vs. Speedy cartoons). This one is a one-shot cartoon that was most likely made to introduce a new series (so the WB staff could try and make a new Bugs Bunny this way). And you know something? This cartoon isn't even recognizable as a Looney Tunes/Merrie Melodies short! It has simple, limited animation, so limited that if it weren't for the occasional classic WB sound effects, it would almost look like this were a Hanna-Barbera cartoon! Carl Stalling was also unavailable to score the cartoons during this period, so they had Bill Lava do them instead. His music is actually quite listenable in this short, and very catchy! Mel Blanc, as always, does an outstanding performance with his voice work in this short, even though the character he mostly voiced was the crazy hunter here. This is actually quite recommended if you want to see a WB short that isn't what you expect it to be, and it's even better than the crappy 2002-2007 WB cartoons Sander Schwartz produced for TV!