As we enter the decade that quickly heralded the fall of the Fleischers, “all’s well,” as Gabby might say. Except for the little matter of the Stone Age series bombing critically. And the other little matter of Gulliver’s Travels being neither fish nor fowl at the box office, but still enough of mess to put Max and Dave in the hot seat with Paramount (budgets were blown to make a Christmas ’39 release). But enough about that. Take a look at some art highlighting the positives: a long run in London and a hopping good opening in Australia! Not to mention a kinky photo of new sensation [sic], Twinkletoes.
January-April 1940 (click to enlarge)
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Since Gabby is taking over these spots in the Paramount Sales News I’d be remiss not to include a Gabby solo cartoon in this post. The Gabby shorts were released later in the year – as part of the 1940-1941 season – providing another nail in the Fleischer Studio coffin.
Below: All’s Well (released January 17th 1941)
Here are a few quality samples of what the Paramount salesmen were putting in theaters at the time the promotional pieces above appeared in print.
Popeye in Stealin’ Ain’t Honest (released March 22nd 1940).
Ants In The Pantry (A Color Classic) released March 15th 1940.
THAD KOMOROWSKI is a writer, journalist, film restorationist and author of the acclaimed (and recently revised) Sick Little Monkeys: The Unauthorized Ren & Stimpy Story. He blogs at 
Awesome!
The shorts starring Gabby and other “Gulliver” characters lasted only a single season, didn’t they?
Even Leslie Cabarga didn’t have kind things to say about the “Gabby” shorts.
Interesting that the promo drawings of Gabby have the standard cartoon 4 fingers rather than the 5 fingers (which always looked weird to me) in the cartoons. He was an unappealing character but he looks slightly less freakish.
It’s interesting they wouldn’t draw him and the other Lilliputians that way on purpose in the film as an interesting contrast to the anatomically-correct Gulliver.
I like the way the music in the Gabby short takes the “All’s Well” song and turns it to a minor key, sinister version as things get worse.