User Reviews

Foster and McManus co-direct this late van Beuren synchronized soundie -- some good animation around the characters' mouths may put it solidly in the talkie era, but the gags are primarily visual. Still, there are nice gags, including making the horse an animated saw horse like something out of Oz. If it falls quickly into the usual tropes of the era, including speakeasies, it doesn't stretch the effort out to an untenable length. This one times in at a bit under five minutes.

If you find the van Beurens of this period much of a muchness -- and I do -- some of the blame can be laid on incredibly tight budgets, backbreaking schedules, worries about adapting to new technology and the erratic finances of RKO. It doesn't make them any better, alas. Still, this is a good one.

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.

'Horse Cops' is neither among the best or worst of the 1931 batch of Aesop's Fables/Van Beuren cartoons, or the series in general. It is somewhere around the middle though and is worth watching once but not a cartoon worth repeat viewings.

Its best asset, as is the case for pretty much all of Van Beuren cartoons, is the music score. It is typically peppy and great fun to listen to. It is so beautifully and cleverly orchestrated and full of lively energy, doing so well with enhancing the action.

The gags also deliver enough. There's enough of them and they're amusing and decently timed, not imaginatively absurdist but not bland or too sweet either. The characters and pace are lively mostly, and it doesn't feel too disjointed or senseless (certainly not as much as a lot of the cartoons in the series). Some neat synchronisation in places too.

On the other hand, as to be expected (seeing as it's rarely been a strong suit even in their best efforts), the animation is far from great, or even good. Most of the time 'Horse Cops' has erratically sloppy character designs in particular while the simplistic background detail and lack of fluidity and crispness are just as difficult to ignore.

Story-wise it may make sense and be less disjointed and aimless as many of Van Beuren cartoons, but things still feel random and paper thin. 'Horse Cops' is also too short by Aesop's Fables/Van Beuren standards, it did need a couple of minutes longer, and while the pace is mostly decent the length does give the cartoon a choppiness at times, especially visually where synchronisation mostly is off.

In summary, far from great but worth a one-time watch. 5/10 Bethany Cox