BoardChiri
Bad Acting and worse Bad Screenplay
Sammy-Jo Cervantes
There are moments that feel comical, some horrific, and some downright inspiring but the tonal shifts hardly matter as the end results come to a film that's perfect for this time.
Deanna
There are moments in this movie where the great movie it could've been peek out... They're fleeting, here, but they're worth savoring, and they happen often enough to make it worth your while.
JoeytheBrit
This was the first Merrie Melodie cartoon apparently, and thankfully the series came a long way after this inauspicious - and frankly quite bizarre - debut. The series was originally intended to promote music produced by Warners music companies, which maybe limited the options of the animators when it came to the storyline, but this effort seems to have been drawn by someone on the verge of coming down from some mind-bending drug.The lead character - the long-forgotten Foxy - looks like he might be Mickey Mouse moonlighting for another studio, and the style of animation is quite close to Disney's - probably because the animators used to work there. The plot has Foxy visiting a tavern where an assembly of strange creatures are all happily drinking themselves into a stupor. Not only does Foxy join in, but his horse manages to untangle his neck from around the cactus outside which Foxy has tied it to in order to also partake. Sadly, he drinks poison by mistake and explodes...
didi-5
Not your typical Looney Tune or Merrie Melodie, this cartoon is plain weird. Trying to find a new character to replace Bosko, Foxy was created (Mickey Mouse with bigger ears and a bushy tail) to try and build a new brand ... but after three or four appearances, he disappeared into history, and was promptly forgotten.Now, two DVDs include this cartoon and give you a chance to see for yourself. 'Lady ..' is an extra on 'Little Caesar', and also appears on Disc 3 of the 'Looney Tunes Golden Collection, volume 1' (within a documentary about lost cartoons). Watching it now it really does give me the creeps, the animation, the characters, the voices, are all extremely strange, and proof positive that the series was not always, if ever, aimed at children.'Lady ...' uses its limited time to present a look at the sins of drink in a time of prohibition, and uses primitive and obvious gags, as well as horrible singing creatures of indeterminate species, to sing the songs.
Lee Eisenberg
The first Merrie Melody cartoon becomes funny once you realize the historical context. "Lady, Play Your Mandolin!" was released during prohibition, but features a bunch of characters drinking themselves stupid (those cartoons loved inebriation, didn't they?). Otherwise, you can see that the Termite Terrace crowd was only getting started, so you can forgive them for creating something that looks too much like a Disney cartoon; they got really good when they deliberately tried to be the anti-Disney. There's a reason that Foxy didn't get as well known as Bugs, Daffy, Porky, Elmer, etc. But at least the existence of this cartoon paved the way for the Looney Tunes.
boblipton
The first credited Merrie Melody is a poor effort. The animation is repetitive, the gags poor -- one involves a character's dentures coming out on an armature and acting like a castanet -- and the songs -- "Lady, Play Your Mandolin" and "I Am A Gay Caballero" are sung in annoying cartoon voices.
