Title: “The Dover Boys at Pimento University” or “The Rivals of Roquefort Hall”
Character(s): The Dover Boys
Story by: Tedd Pierce
Animation by: Robert Cannon
Directed by: Chuck Jones
Studio: Warner Bros
I have absolutely no doubt that one of the deans of animation, Chuck Jones, will feature in cartoons in much higher positions than this, but for now, this is his first entry, created - rather surprisingly - at a time when the United States was at war. Interestingly, I read that Warners were so disappointed with the cartoon that they tried to fire Jones, but due to a shortage of animators during the war, they had to keep him on. Jones himself says in the book, “They hated it, and if they hadn’t been block-booking theaters they would have withheld it and thrown me out.” The cartoon is, apparently, a parody of an early twentieth-century boys’ book series,
The Rover Boys, but neither you nor I, I suspect, care about that. As they say, roll the clip!
Like most of the Merry Melodies cartoons even later, there’s a lot of music in this, and it focuses on the rivalry between American universities, with such phrases as “A pox on Yale“ and so on. For absolutely no reason at all, some old guy drifts across the screen, looking like nothing more than a duck with a human head really, and the narrator seems annoyed, clearing his throat after the unexpected interruption and continuing. The scenery, from what I can see, is static, as in, nothing moves and it just seems to be painted, but then, this is 1942 and I imagine that resources were scarce, and this does precede the true start of the Golden Age of American Animation. Chuck Jones is credited as “Charles M. Jones” here.
The animation is, to be fair, crude. Characters appear and vanish, and when the love interest, Dora Standpipe comes into the story, she appears out of the window of her house like a cuckoo in a clock (indeed reinforcing this image by calling “Yoo-hoo! Yoo-hoo!”) and then seems to have no legs or feet and rolls along like a sort of bowling pin on wheels. Shades of far, far later
South Park and how their characters would move. Animation historians point to this being one of the first cartoons to use more exaggerated characterisation - up to now, they say, animators had tried to make their figures more realistic - but this belies the work of, as already written of, Max Fleischer and even Paul Terry, so I’m not sure where that’s coming from. Then again, who am I to argue with animation historians? Those guys can drop a piano or an anvil on you, stretch you to twice your length or concertina you to a few inches, and go home to their loving families without a second thought. Don’t **** with animation historians!
The exaggeration is clearly seen, at any rate, in the way Tom, the lead “hero”, rides his bicycle (sitting on the saddle and tipping back, causing the bike to raise its front wheel up, sort of like he’s popping a wheelie) and in Dick, the middle guy, who is very small (and almost looks like something out of Sherlock Holmes) riding a very big Penny Farthing. None of the three seem to have to touch the handlebars of their bikes, leaning back and looking to me as if the things drive themselves. Nor do the wheels on any of them have spokes. The villain, Dan Backslide, couldn’t look more evil if they had tried: he has green skin, his hair pointed up at the ends to resemble devil’s horns, and his nose is long and thick, perhaps (although maybe I’m being unfair) meant to lend him a Jewish aspect? As he smokes it forms into words, and rather interestingly to me, he uses a phrase we would later hear from Dick Dastardly: “Drat! And double drat!” In another example of animation logic, he takes from under his jacket an absolutely huge locket that could not possibly fit there, and displays it, showing it to be his love, Dora Standpipe.
There’s also a very clear attempt at a moral message as the Dover Boys contemptuously pass the saloon in which Dan Backslide plays pool and drinks; the superior attitude makes me want to puke. But then, I don’t know if these
Rover Boys books preached this message too - probably did - and therefore maybe Pierce, as the writer, is just referring back to that. Anyway, the three, now four with the addition of Dora, go to play a wholesome game of hide and seek, though for some reason she counts to 100 in increments of five - 30, 35, 40, 45 etc - and the very annoying narrator* calls it hide, go and seek. As they look for places to hide (and Dora seems to be counting to 1000) they end up running out of the park they’re in and through the streets of the city, and then, for no real reason, decide to hide in the saloon, where of course they come face to face with dastardly Dan Backside sorry Backslide.
So off he goes and steals a car (which just happens to be the same colour as his suit, purple, and which I assumed was his, but no, he says “A runabout! I’ll steal it! No-one will ever know!”) and kidnaps Dora, tree and all (she’s still ****ing counting and has reached 1200) and off they go, she still facing the tree and apparently unaware that she has been transplanted (sorry) and is now in Backslide’s car. To use the vernacular of the time, Is she one dumb broad or what? Much dumber, of course, are the Dover Boys, who were hiding under the pool table, where Dan Backslide announced, very loudly (who the hell is he talking to anyway?) that he realised Dora must be alone and unprotected, and yet there they stayed. Idiots.
Perhaps realising that he can’t actually drive around with a ****ing tree in his car, our Dan consults a handy book of useful facts, and pries her loose (yes, it contains an entry on
How best to remove a young lady from a tree!) and when she finally reaches the end of her count (1500) she also finally realises she’s been kidnapped. Now, for some reason as they pass the saloon where the Dover Boys are hiding, she screams “Help!” in a very Olive Oyl way, and Dan
****ing reverses back to the saloon, in case the boys didn’t hear! Stupidity is a common theme in this cartoon, I must say! And if I see that ****ing **** of an old-timer going by for absolutely no discernible reason to the poxy tune of “While Strolling Through the Park One Day” or whatever the Christ**** **** it’s called, I’m going to kill someone! What is the ****ing point?
Sorry. Calmed down now. But that’s three times he’s gone by and there has seemed no reason at all for him to be there. I know it’s a cartoon, but come on! At least we now get the familiar chase-along-the-side-of-a-mountain, where the car zooms along precarious mountain roads that perhaps Roadrunner would think twice about traversing, and the Dover Boys go in pursuit. Straining credulity and common sense even more, when Dan throws her into a cottage/hut and locks the doors, she bangs on the door trying to get out, but the
****ing locks are on the inside! Why doesn’t she just try to open them? But no: she’d rather just beat ineffectually on a door which is never going to open to such actions, hoping to attract the attention of the ****ing Dover Boys. I hope Dan ties her to a railroad track, the dumb ****.
Now some boy scout happens to be looking in the window (with a telescope, no less) and then goes to send a telegram which the completely clueless Dover Boys are given, still frozen in the pose they were when Dora and Dan drove by. They haven’t done a ****ing thing. They haven’t even moved. Now for some reason each of their bikes has become a unicycle. Sure why not? Before they enter the cottage though, the Dover Boys have to serenade Dora with the college song. They then find Dan inside, battered - Dora can look after herself it seems, even if she is a whinging wagon - and, in quite an ungentlemanly fashion I would have thought, stand him up so they can use him like a punchbag. He doesn’t even resist. In fact, he’s been so kicked about by Dora that he has called for help from the Dover Boys! Talk about hitting a man while he’s down!
In the end, and again for no reason I can see, Dora ****s off with the annoying old git, and that’s the end.
Comments: I’m not surprised Warners wanted to hand Jones his cards over this. It’s absolutely ****e. I hate it with every fibre of my being. I don’t actually care whether much of the content is based on those books, it’s just total rubbish. The animation is poor, very basic, the narrator pisses me off, Dora pisses me off, the Dover Boys are almost bit-part characters really, and they still piss me off. About the only one who doesn’t piss me off is Dan Backslide. I would say that the face of Tom shows an early version, perhaps, of Fred from
Scooby-Doo, but other than that, I see no reason why this should occupy any place on the list. It does so, apparently, for the usage of something called “limited animation”, where, as you might expect, only certain parts of the cartoon move. Mostly it’s static, as I said, and the movements, while sometimes fluid, are in fact too fluid. People seem to roll, just appear or even fly without crossing the intervening spaces.
My own personal rating: 3/10. Sorry, I just ****ing hate it.