User Reviews

The Terrytoons are oddly interesting, mainly for anybody wanting to see (generally) older cartoons made by lesser known and lower-budget studios. They are a mixed bag in quality, with some better than others, often with outstanding music and with some mild amusement and charm and variable in animation, characterisation and content.

1941, like all the other years for Terrytoons, saw a hit and miss batch, though more consistent than previous years. Of which 'The Frozen North' is one of the lower middling ones ranking it in correlation with the rest of the Terrytoons and one of the weaker 1941 cartoons. It is an unexceptional, nothing exactly special cartoon, being generally a little below average, and has the same amount of problems as it has the amount of strengths. 'The Frozen North' is watchable but lacklustre, completest sake is the main reason to see it.

Best asset is the music, which predictably is incredible. It is so beautifully and cleverly orchestrated and arranged, is great fun to listen to and full of lively energy, doing so well with enhancing the action. The animation from the mid-late-30s onwards for the studio had come on leaps and bounds from when they first started, the more ambitious, elaborate detail in the backgrounds is still great to see, as is the comparatively improved fluidity of drawing and movement, and some synchronisation in movement and sound is neat.

There is some zest and natural charm and a few amusing moments, and parts of it and the basic set up are nicely done.

A few transitions are not always polished however.

Likewise, the story is paper thin (completely plotless, basically stringing along a series of blackout travelogue gags with not much connection to each other) doing little with a premise that's hardly new. Gags aren't enough, and what little there is is only sporadically amusing. There is definitely a sense of the studio having run out of ideas and just re-treading old premises and material. A lot of it is pretty predictable and lacks variety. Some choppiness too and the cartoon feels very old fashioned and basic. The characters are appealing but bland and it is all cuteness and not an awful lot in the way of conflict.

Summing up, cute but lacklustre. 4/10 Bethany Cox

This seems to be the first blackout cartoon from Terrytoons, a series of gags on a common subject without anything in the way of a story. Like many of the blackout cartoons of the era, it masquerades as a newsreel or travelogue. In this case, it's a travelogue that pretends to show you the sights around the North Pole: Northern Lights, Eskimos eating walruses, walruses eating Eskimos, and so forth.

The gags are well placed and illustrated and the advantage of the form is its rapid-fire nature. If you don't laugh at this joke, another will be along in a couple of seconds that may amuse you more. In the meantime, the communal nature of a comedy in a theater will keep you laughing.

Although some of the jokes are repetitive or so old-hat by now that they won't be amusing, they are all well performed and the result is a funny cartoon.