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The Noveltoons of the late 1940’s and early 1950’s continued to please audiences, steady as she goes. The cartoons were reasonably pleasant time fillers in Paramount\u2019s program. Among changes in the cast of reappearing characters were the arrivals of Baby Huey and Katnip, both voiced by Sid Raymond, who would graduate from his former role as Wolfie to become a mainstay of the voice staff. Buzzy the funny crow would make more regular appearances, aided and abetted by Katnip, who would perform double-duty between the Buzzy and Herman series. Casper would not remain with the Noveltoons, but would receive his own series banner. About this time, the characters also began making appearances in St. John\u2019s comics, which were considerably scarcer than the plethora of publications which were to follow when Harvey comics acquired the Paramount rights. <\/p>\n
We begin with one I overlooked from a previous article, The Bored Cuckoo<\/strong> (4\/9\/48). A wooden cuckoo has bachelor quarters inside a wall clock, but every hour gets an alarm, and is forced to step outside on a perch and \u201ccuckoo\u201d. Thus, he doesn\u2019t get a good night\u2019s sleep, and also becomes quite bored with his existence. Die to some accident, he winds up outside of his clock, and finds opportunity to explore the real world. He is rejected by the real birds, and finds himself much disappointed – until he hears the song of a female show-bird, who spends most of her time in a gilded cage, and sings a torch song about what she would do \u201cIf I were free.\u201d He does not realize this is part of her stage act, and, romance striking him, tries to play hero to free her. Romance is interrupted by her manager, who boots him out of the night club – then further disrupted by the call for all the flock to go south for the winter. Being made of wood, the cuckoo is unable to join the migration, and dejectedly heads back to his home in the clock. But a surprise awaits him, as he hears the girl\u2019s melodic voice inside the clock, tidying up his apartment – she has stayed behind just to join him. The final scene finds the happy couple settling down to domestic life, with an alteration of the cuckoo\u2019s living arrangements. Now, when the alarm sounds, the cuckoo can comfortably relax in his easy chair without takig his stand on the perch. Instead, the \u201ccuckoos\u201d are handled by three hatchlings, who pop out of eggshells on every hour to take care of the timekeeping. Songs:<\/strong> two original numbers, \u201cAll I Ever Do Is Cuckoo\u201d, and \u201cIf I Were Free\u201d (no recordings of either are known). \u201cHome Sweet Home\u201d also slips in.<\/p>\n