User Reviews

Gandy Goose and Sour Puss area couple of prospectors looking for a place to stay overnight. When a ghostly vulture eats their horse, they hole up in Ghost Town, named for its occupants, in this funny and scary Halloween cartoon.

This cartoon was released on September 22, just in time to kick off the Halloween season for 1944. Scary cartoons were a regular thing for most cartoon studios, like cartoons about Pilgrims for Thanksgiving, about Santa Claus for Christmas and even the occasional patriotic cartoon for the Fourth of July. By this time, however, the tradition was in decline. Now they had to be funny as well as spooky, and this one qualifies, with its jovial spectral cast singing and guzzling ghostly beer. This is a fine little cartoon from the tail end of Terrytoon's peak period -- Mighty Mouse was already on the scene, alas.

Terrytoons' output, overall and individual years, is inconsistent but is also very interesting for anybody wanting to see something different from the more famous studios, something that is older and lower in budget. The Gandy and Sourpuss cartoons were generally formulaic and not what one would call great, some are (much) better than others, but the two characters are fun together, their series is generally one of Terrytoons' better theatrical series and Gandy did grow as a character over-time.

1944, like all of Terrytoons' previous and succeeding years, had a mix of hits, in betweens and misses (mostly in between for this year). None were great and most ranged from average to pretty good, with only as far as the previous 1944 Terrytoons cartoons go 'Eliza on the Ice' and 'The Two Barbers' being misses. 'The Ghost Town' for me is one of their better cartoons from that year and one of the good ones. Consider it one of the better Gandy and Sourpuss cartoons and in the top half of Terrytoons' overall output too.

'The Ghost Town' is typically a slight cartoon with a premise that is a pretty familiar one in animation and one that has been funnier, scarier and more inventive elsewhere (not a knock to this cartoon's quality, am just saying in comparison).

Generally Gandy had really grown as a character by this point, he had a stronger personality compared to his blandness in his solo cartoons and he was funnier and easier to like, his chemistry with Sourpuss enjoyable. Found him fairly bland though here and mainly because the ghost characters were so strong as characters and because the rest of the characters had stronger material.

However, 'The Ghost Town' has a lot to it that makes it one of the better Gandy and Sourpuss cartoons. The premise may not be a fresh one particularly, but by Gandy and Sourpuss standards this is one of their most interesting and most different cartoons. Being very different from their army cartoons and the dream/nightmare cartoons. Sourpuss is amusing and one can really root for him when he is afraid with a great job done with his gestures and expressions. The ghost characters are both spooky and entertaining, leading to a lot of, more so than usual, amusing and well timed gags (making 'The Ghost Town' also one of the funnier Gandy and Sourpuss cartoons). The vulture is every bit as creepy and the ending is a heart-stopper. Gandy and Sourpuss have nice chemistry together.

In 'The Ghost Town' there are two elements that are especially good. One is the animation, the studio's most improved component. The ambitious, elaborate detail in the backgrounds is on display, the colours are a mix of vibrant and atmospheric and fluidity of drawing and movement has improved such a lot for the studio. The ghost town setting has a real eeriness to it. Even better is the music, it is beautifully and cleverly orchestrated and arranged, is terrific fun to listen to (both jaunty and spooky) and the lively energy is present throughout, doing so well with adding to the action.

Summing up, pretty good. 7/10