User Reviews

Everyone hides when the stork comes lying over to deliver a new-born infant. He finally drops the bundle in the home of a rabbit. It contains a skunk. For some reason, this is particularly unwelcome in this mediocre Terrytoon.

This is one of the Terrytoon stories that appeared in earlier versions and by now it was getting very tired. The infant skunk is given a cute appearance and an innocent child's voice, as if we are not supposed to know or care why people don't want to be around skunks. Of course, it will all end for the best, we can be confident, when the skunk turns out to be useful for some reason. That's the way these things always end. The moral is "Be useful and they'll put up with anything. Don't be useful, and you'd best be on your way now. It's a fine, thoughtless lesson for Paul Terry's studio to offer its audience of small children.

Well, they weren't the only ones to ignore the clear message. It's every Casper the Friendly Ghost cartoon ever made.

It can be said that the Terrytoons are interesting for anybody wanting to see old(er) low budget animation. That being said, the studio's cartoons are very hit and miss. Common merits being outstanding music, some mild amusement and charm and with animation that improved actually over time from very inconsistent to being quite good. Where they varied was the characterisation (with fun villains and bland leads) and content, originality was not much in even some of their best cartoons and there was an increase in recycled ideas.

1942's output for the studio was not unexpectedly an inconsistent one, with it being the same the previous years. Most ranged between average to decent, none great, although with a few weak ones, 'The Stork's Mistake' being one of those weak ones. Seen as part of my want to see as many of the available Terrytoons cartoons as possible, 'The Stork's Mistake' is one of the worst 1942 Terrytoons and among their weaker ones overall perhaps.

One doesn't expect the music in a Terrytoons cartoon to be any less than good. As always, it is outstanding and one of 'The Stork's Mistake' two main redeeming merits. 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.

Also impressive the animation, which at this point of Terrytoons' output had come on a long way since the studio first started and that is obvious in 'The Stork's Mistake'. The ambitious, elaborate detail in the backgrounds is on display, and fluidity of drawing and movement continues to improve, and it's neatly synchronised.

Not much else works here. The story is practically nowhere in sight, complete with a pace that never really comes to life and a forced and perhaps even preachy moral and it's not much of a positive one. At this point, as has been said in other reviews of mine for their output, there was the sense that Terrytoons were running out of ideas and were increasingly recycling old ones. One gets that here, because there are no surprises here at all and not much that properly engages.

Furthermore, there is nothing funny here, or much interesting, the gags are far too few and that's being generous because one can be forgiven thinking there weren't any. 'The Stork's Mistake' tries too hard to be cute and lays it far too thick with the sugar and sweetness that it feels saccharine. None of the characters engage that much, all of them with little personality so warming to them let alone rooting for me was hard. For a titular character, the stork has little to do and the far too cute skunk is the character one forgets the least. It's very corny and any voice work is too cutesy.

Summarising, mediocre at best and actually quite weak. 3/10 Bethany Cox