Farm Frolics
About Farm Frolics
An animator's hand sketches a farm, the drawing colors itself, and a narrator starts the tour. A show horse trots and gallops on command, then, asked to canter, turns into an Eddie Cantor caricature and sings. A porch dog fetches the paper and reads the Dick Tracy strip himself. A weasel sneaks into a henhouse; the eggs hatch at once and the chicks yell, and the weasel bolts.
Cast & crew
More about Farm Frolics
Bob Clampett directed this Merrie Melodies short. Warren Foster wrote the story. Leon Schlesinger produced it for Warner Bros. John Carey and Izzy Ellis animated. Released May 10, 1941, in Technicolor. The original runs 8 minutes 2 seconds.
Themes
Making
The opening titles and the cut grasshopper scene turned up again on a Library of Congress nitrate. Jerico Dvorak scanned that material; a 2022 upload put the missing opening back with the cartoon.
Technique
The short opens by showing the animator's hand and then lets the drawing fill itself with color.
Music
Carl W. Stalling scored it. The horse sings Harry Warren and Johnny Mercer's "I'm Happy About the Whole Thing" in a Cantor impression.
Preservation
The Blue Ribbon version is the one long in circulation. An original-title print, with the deleted grasshopper scene, is at the Library of Congress.
Notes
- A Blue Ribbon reissue dated October 15, 1949, runs 7 minutes 21 seconds and drops the original titles plus a grasshopper scene.
- Robert C. Bruce narrates. Mel Blanc, Sara Berner, Cliff Nazarro, and Kent Rogers supply voices.
- The dog's Dick Tracy line was reused by Clampett in The Great Piggy Bank Robbery.
- United Artists did not renew the copyright, and the short went into the public domain in 1970.
Scenes
- Asked to canter, the horse becomes Eddie Cantor and sings.
- The dog sits on the porch and reads Dick Tracy.
- The chicks shout and the weasel's heart pounds.
Also available
- Looney Tunes Golden Collection: Volume 5 (2007), disc 3
