The thing I enjoy most about the early sound Terrytoons is the next unexpected amusement aspect of them. By the late 30s and into the 40s, a huge aspect of that quality wasn’t present in Terrytoons, and those are the films I think we’re all more familiar with since there’s a lot of Castle films prints of later titles. So, if you don’t go into an early sound Terrytoon with an expectation of what it will or won’t be, you’re in much better shape to be delighted by some aspect of the film.

I like almost everything about Club Sandwich. The cartoon seems to be set in France – but why, I have no idea. The opening starts with a song (in English) sung in a low voice by a mouse doing much more dancing than the soundtrack, revealing we’re in a mouse nightclub in Farmer Alfalfa’s wall. The farmer’s cat, who sleeps next to him, decides to break up the party, with pretty good results, save one muse who stands up to him. The cat knocks him out, leading to a tirade by his very vocal french girlfriend mouse. He socks her repeatedly, leading the boy mouse to report to the mouse French scout that “He hit a women he did!”. This leads to an all out mouse-war on Farmer Alfalfa and his cat. While I don’t think they exactly deserve the devastation rained upon them, it’s a pretty entertaining beating.

Our own Devon Baxter posted some breakdown sheets from this cartoon some years back. It’s fun to see who animated what on this little short”

While this isn’t a top cartoon in music, story or animation, it’s a pretty enjoyable little outing, especially if you like 30s cartoons with extravagant fights at the end. If I was asking anyone to reevaluate the early 30s cartoons from this studio, I’d maybe start with this one, and continue on to several others from 32 and 33. What ones would you pick?

Have a good week all!