Imagination

This Bob Wickersham cartoon was nominated for an Academy Award, which strikes me as strange. Gremlins were infesting Termite Terrace, Lantz was near the peak of his Swing Symphony Series, there were, I would guess, the usual half-dozen identical Tom & Jerry cartoons and Tex Avery turned out RED HOT Cinderella, DUMB-HOUNDED and WHO KILLED WHO? and they needed to eke out the list with this piece of earnest cheese urging children to be imaginative? Yes indeed, it's a cartoon. Let's try not to have fun and we'll let you make the cut before we give the award to Tom and Jerry, like we always do.

There's nothing wrong with this cartoon. It's a perfectly competent Columbia Pictures cartoon turned out during one of their frequent periods when no one quite knew what they were trying to do, especially not the people involved in actually making them. It has good production values, but it is clearly directed by people who are aiming it at children and who have no more idea of what children actually want than the jade plant in my living room does.