User Reviews

Sour Puss wants to get some sleep. Gandy Goose turns the radio on low and drifts off to a radio show telling the tale of the Princess and the Frog in this average Terrytoon.

This is an underwritten episode in the usually excellent series of cartoons starring Gandy and Sourpuss. Several of them had the two drifting off to sleep. Sometimes they had adventures together and sometimes singly. In this one it's Gandy who does the adventuring, but it's an underwritten one, with not much in the way of gags.

The visuals are up to standard, though. This period offered the most elaborately realized offerings from Paul Terry's studio, and they tended towards the Candybox style of background work. Following the War, budgets would shrink quickly, if not in nominal dollars; inflation would take the budgets, and the box office would peak in 1946.

But not yet. Enjoy the pretty pictures.

In terms of quality, Terrytoons' output was inconsistent. Ranging mostly between mediocre and decent. None irredeemably awful, but few great. Always loved the music and the animation advanced a lot from the mid-30s. The story was never a strong suit though, always was one of and even the weakest asset(s) of the Terrytoons cartoons, and content and characterisation varied quite wildly, sometimes not bad at all but at other times they could be pretty bland.

1944's Terrytoons cartoons had all the above. Consider 'The Frog and the Princess' one of the weaker ones. Just for the record, do not consider any of the Gandy and Sourpuss cartoons terrible or unwatchable and 'The Frog and the Princess' is far from being either of those from personal opinion. Also found that Gandy improved a lot as a character and that he fared better partnered with contrasting characters rather than on his own. While there is worse in the Gandy and Sourpuss series, all after this, 'The Frog and the Princess' veers towards the weaker cartoons in the series. Very lacklustre but just about watchable, if only just the once and if wanting to see as many available Terrytoons cartoons as possible.

'The Frog and the Princess' is a good looking cartoon, indicative of how much the studio had come on on this front. Which was not a surprise as this aspect had come on enormously by this point with Terrytoons. It is nicely detailed, lively and colourful without being garish, visually it is one of the most visually imaginative 1944 Terrytoons. Again, the music, the thing that was the most consistently good thing from the very beginning with Terrytoons, is a big strength. It is beautifully and cleverly orchestrated and arranged, is terrific fun to listen to and the lively energy is present throughout, doing so well with adding to the action.

A few mildly amusing and charming moments here and there and the cartoon starts reasonably promisingly.

Once the dreaming kicks in though, 'The Frog and the Princess' goes downhill instead of building on its promise. Sourpuss has far too little to do here when he is usually the more interesting character out of him and Gandy. With Gandy, this is a reminder somewhat of when he was the lead character and when his personality was somewhat too bland to work as a lead. Their chemistry fails to shine or gel here, namely because there isn't anywhere enough of it. The story is very thin and standard formula, there are no surprises or imagination really and it just felt like Terrytoons running out of ideas and recycling old ones with no real variation which made it feel very fatigued.

Pacing really does lack lustre, while there are nowhere near enough gags and none of the few there are are good enough to be mildly amusing and are very over-familiar. It can be very corny as well. The rest of the characters have little to them too.

Summing up, mediocre but with moments. 4/10