The Dover Boys at Pimento University or The Rivals of Roquefort Hall
About The Dover Boys at Pimento University or The Rivals of Roquefort Hall
Tom, Dick, and Larry Dover of Pimento University are all engaged to Dainty Dora Standpipe. Dan Backslide, late of Roquefort Hall, wants her for her father’s money. During hide-and-seek he steals an empty runabout, takes her to a mountain hunting lodge, and is beaten up by Dora while she still plays the faint. A telegram brings the brothers. They punch the half-conscious Backslide, then punch one another out and land in a pile on him. A grey-bearded man in a nineteenth-century bathing suit and a sailor cap keeps shuffling across the frame to “While Strolling Through the Park One Day.”
Cast & crew
More about The Dover Boys at Pimento University or The Rivals of Roquefort Hall
Chuck Jones directed this Merrie Melodies short. Tedd Pierce wrote it. Leon Schlesinger produced. Carl W. Stalling scored it. Treg Brown edited. Warner released it on 10 September 1942. Another date on file is 19 September. It runs 8 minutes 56 seconds. Mel Blanc is Dan Backslide and the telegram boy. John McLeish narrates. Tedd Pierce voices Tom Dover. Marjorie Tarlton is Dora. The Sportsmen Quartet, from Jack Benny’s radio show, sing. Layouts are by John McGrew. Backgrounds are by Gene Fleury and Bernyce Polifka. It spoofs the Rover Boys books. Jones holds poses and uses dry-brush smears instead of full in-betweens.
Themes
Making
Jones treats the Rover Boys rescue as a pose chart. Dora has already finished Backslide before the brothers arrive to knock themselves out.
Reviews
Animation historian Michael Barrier asked whether The Dover Boys was the first modern cartoon, and wrote that Jones’s stylization anticipated UPA.
Technique
Held drawings and dry-brush smears carry the runs and the punches, a limited-animation method Jones uses through the whole reel.
Music
Carl W. Stalling’s score includes Ed Haley’s “While Strolling Through the Park One Day” under the bearded man’s crossings. The Sportsmen Quartet supply the vocal harmonies.
Preservation
Public domain in the United States since 1970. A print of about nine minutes survives.
Notes
- United Artists, which then held the short, did not renew the copyright. It entered the public domain in 1970.
- In 1994 a poll of animation people placed it 49th on a list of 50 greatest cartoons.
- Michael Barrier wrote that the stylization anticipated what UPA would do a decade later, and asked whether this was the first modern cartoon.
- Sara Berner is on the catalog cast. The voiced Dora in the filmography is Marjorie Tarlton.
- A Commons file is labeled 1080p.
Scenes
- Backslide drives off with Dora in a runabout nobody was using.
- She thrashes him in the lodge while sounding distressed.
- The brothers knock each other cold and fall on top of him.
- The bearded bather crosses the screen again.
Influenced by
- The Rover Boys
Also available
- Wikimedia Commons (The Dover Boys at Pimento University 1080p.webm)
