I’ll have some Thunderbean updates soon, on releases, special discs and other big news too!
Van Beuren cartoons, and especially Cubby Bear ones, are always a good way to cheer myself a little, at least for a little while— and I really need some cheering up! If you do too, I hope a little Van Beuren escapism at least helps to make you smile.
The series of 20 ‘Cubby Bear’ cartoons (well, really 19 if you don’t include the one that wasn’t released) are really all part of the long running Aesop’s Fables series. They’ve been some of my favorite cartoons since I first saw Robin Hood Rides Again (Originally titled “Good Knight”) from 1934, while in high school. While the Van Beuren cartoons from this period are not always too slick, they’re all pretty really enjoyable if you aren’t too much of a Disney or Fleischer purist. The first Cubbys, including this one, are ambitious and adventurous little cartoons, with good inking, fun musical soundtracks and plenty of personality gags. The studio’s attempts at improving in this period are very apparent in many aspects of these productions.
Bubbles and Troubles (1933) starts with Cubby visiting Honey Bear at her lighthouse home. Cubby decides to blow some soap bubbles from Honey’s laundry barrel, and ingests a pretty buoyant one. He floats away, attracting a ship full of cat pirates, who shoot him down, then send a boat out to capture Honey. Cubby then jumps into a bubble to float onto the seas, beats up a cat pirate in the crow’s nest of the ship, then ‘disguises’ himself to work his way onto the main deck. This disguise even fools Honey until he lifts the scarf off his head, announcing “Shhhh! I’m Cubby!”. They then take on the whole ship somehow and win by using bubbles.
I really enjoy the freewheeling nature of the Cubbys in this little period. The soundtrack, featuring “I’m forever blowing bubbles’ throughout as well as the sailor’s hornpipe, is breezy and enjoyable. The Van Beuren cat design is always fun, and the background designs through this period are dynamic with some nice rendering. I especially like Cubby’s little victory dance near the end of the picture. You can see the shadow of the ‘Rufle Baton’ throughout the film to the left. I’ve always debated cropping some of these in a little more because of that.
This is from the out of print Thunderbean ‘Cubby Bear’ Blu-ray. We hope to have it in print again soon. Mark Kausler was kind enough to lend his lovely print.
Wishing everyone the best week possible, and stay tooned everyone…
Steve Stanchfield is an animator, educator and film archivist. He runs Thunderbean Animation, an animation studio in Ann Arbor, Michigan and has compiled over a dozen archival animation DVD collections devoted to such subjects at Private Snafu, The Little King and the infamous Cubby Bear. Steve is also a professor at the College for Creative Studies in Detroit.
There are some good things that can be said about “Bubbles and Troubles”. Gene Rodemich, as always, does a creditable job of developing his thematic material into very effective mood music. The main problem, as in so many Van Beuren cartoons, is the story. Incident follows incident without ever cohering into a solid narrative. Early on, a nail in the roadway sprouts legs and comes to life, puncturing a tire on Cubby’s bicycle; then it subsequently vanishes from the cartoon, never returning to puncture anything else — in a cartoon, mind you, that’s about BUBBLES! And why did the pirate captain walk off, leaving Honey guarded by a single cat? Maybe he had to use the “seat of ease”, as it was called during the Age of Sail.
At least “Bubbles and Troubles” served as something of a trial run for a similar, yet far superior, cartoon that Mannie Davis would later direct at Terrytoons: “Mighty Mouse and the Pirates”.