Booby Hatched (1944)

Pretty Good

At first rather annoying in its heavy emphasis on reenactments, this movie ultimately proves fascinating, simply because the complicated, highly dramatic tale it tells still almost defies belief.

Story: It's very simple but honestly that is fine.

Exactly the movie you think it is, but not the movie you want it to be.

Frank Tashlin was wrapping up his 2nd stint at Schlesinger's in 1944 (supposedly). He had directed a string of mini-masterpieces during this time frame, including this one.A mother duck hatches her eggs, except one. Robespierre, partially hatched, is in search of a warm spot to hatch, but encounters peril along the way.A little known fact, in between his two stints at Schlesinger's, Tashlin worked on storyboards for Peter And The Wolf when he was at the Disney studio. This would have been done around 1940 and the film was released in 1946. There are some striking similarities in the staging of the snowstorm scenes. Some historians have stated that Tashlin utilized some of the ideas he conceived for Disney in his 1940's WB cartoons. Like Tashlin's other short released in late 1944 THE STUPID CUPID, I got the feeling that this film has some long lost footage, based on a conspicuous jump cut. While it hasn't been really discussed as much as THE STUPID CUPID, I wonder if Tashlin's eventual departure had something to do with the poor edits or if the Hay's Office objected to the adult gags that were prevalent in Tashlin's cartoons from this time frame.Warren Foster reworked this premise for McKimson a few years later as THE SHELL SHOCKED EGG (1948), which was more dialog driven. Both are excellent shorts.

Frank Tashlin's 'Booby Hatched' is a splendid cartoon full to bursting with all sorts of different types of gag. A mother duck tries desperately to keep her eggs warm in subzero temperatures (and this set up alone spawns five or six great jokes in only a couple of minutes). All but one finally hatch out and the unhatched egg sets out on a journey to find warmth. 'Booby Hatched' seems to pack a ridiculous amount of plot into its seven minutes, incorporating the mother duck's attempts to hatch the eggs, the introduction of the unhatched protagonist, his attempts to find a source of heat, the discovery of his disappearance, the very late introduction of the main villain, a frantic chase, an unexpected twist and finally the punch line. That's without even mentioning the cameo appearance of a hibernating bear who steals the cartoon with just two lines! Tashlin's direction here is as magnificent as ever with some great executions of some tricky concepts (the egg x-ray sequence that opens the cartoon is particularly beautiful) and 'Booby Hatched' emerges as something of an undiscovered masterpiece, a tremendously satisfying classic which has happily reached a wider audience through its much deserved distribution on the Looney Tunes Golden Collection Volume 4 DVD.

"Booby Hatched" is a very silly Warner Bros. cartoon directed by Frank Tashlin. It's basically about an overprotective mother duck and one of her unhatched little offspring who somehow manages to separate himself from his siblings and get himself lost. No need for me to reveal more than that.Here are, in my opinion, the funniest moments from "Booby Hatched". As the mother duck prepares to rest her boiling hot fanny on her chilly blue eggs, they all suddenly hatch, with all the little ducklings shouting, "Don't do it! We'll come out." The one unhatched duckling (voiced by Mel Blanc) is hilarious as he makes his first appearance, saying, "Hey, where is everybody? Who turned off the heat?" and later, "I've just gotta find someone to sit on me, someone with a nice, warm DISPOSITION." As the poor little duckling trudges through a violent blizzard, the musical accompaniment suddenly stops and the snow suddenly freezes in midair as he comments, "This is the saddest part of the picture, folks." To conclude, how dare I write about a Warner Bros. cartoon without mentioning the genius of composer/orchestrator Carl W. Stalling. At the opening of "Booby Hatched", depicting an excruciatingly chilly day on the farm, we hear "Old MacDonald" cleverly written in a minor key! The mother duck checks on her icy blue eggs to the accompaniment of "Am I Blue?" And "A Cup of Coffee, a Sandwich, and You" accompanies the wolf attempting to cook the unhatched duckling in a large pot.

This is an incredibly funny cartoon, but a minor character steals the show. There is a hibernating bear who has two lines and the second is one of the funniest bits in the whole short. Other things to watch for are the roll call of the baby ducks' names after they hatch and Robspierre's closing line at the very end. Well worth looking for. Recommended.