User Reviews

There are lots of odd goings-on in a laundry run by Chinese cats in this Terrytoon.

The modern audience may be annoyed by the racist implications of this cartoon, in which the cats look and act like stereotyped Chinese, down to the pigtails they wear and poses they take. I'm more impressed by the variety of gags, many of which involve clothes that wash themselves and flirt with each other, according to whether they are men's or women's clothing.

The backgrounds have grown very elaborate since the beginning of the sound era. Here they are decorated with junk and lumber, giving the air of a downtown slum.

One of Terrytoons' shorts from the early '30s features a laundromat run by cats who look like stereotyped Chinese people. "The Tale of a Shirt" has some neat scenes of clothes behaving like people, but mostly it shows why Terrytoons never gained the renown that the Warner Bros cartoons did. Maybe it's just that they didn't have a chance to develop their own clever characters, but these cartoons are no classics. Probably will only be of interest to the people who want to watch every available cartoon.

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.

1933 was again a hit and miss year for Terrytoons. 'The Tale of a Shirt' is still a watchable cartoon, but is neither among the best or the worst of that year's batch. Instead it is somewhere in the firm middle. 'The Tale of a Shirt' is worth a one-time watch, mainly for Terrytoons completests, but there is not much special here.

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. Some of the backgrounds are detailed and ambitious enough and it's a little more elaborate looking than the previous 1932 cartoons. Synchronisation is pretty neat.

There are some amusing gags, inventive moments with the clothes and there is an unforced natural charm.

However, the animation is still, outside of the backgrounds, primitive at best with a fair bit of crudeness, over-simplicity and choppiness.

Story is not much of time at all and doesn't really go anywhere with a lot of predictability (the story is an old and done before one and with nothing new to it) and a disjointed feel. It's another example of a Terrytoon to feel too short, needed a couple more minutes, and felt choppy and rushed as a result. Not much memorable about the characters and not all the gags are particularly well timed or funny. Not to mention the poorly drawn and not-for-the-easily-offended stereotypes.

On the whole, watchable but unexceptional. 5/10 Bethany Cox