TheLittleSongbird
Was very fond of Woody Woodpecker and his cartoons as a child. Still get much enjoyment out of them now as a young adult, even if there are more interesting in personality cartoon characters and better overall cartoons.That is in no way knocking Woody, because many of his cartoons are a lot of fun to watch and more and also still like him a lot as a character. This is going to be a reiteration of a lot of my reviews for the later Woody Woodpecker cartoons, but mainly because the later Paul J. Smith-directed cartoons have pretty much the same strengths and faults. Not all Smith's efforts are average or less, 'Niagara Fools' is one of the not many very good and more Woody Woodpecker cartoons of his (excellent in that cartoon's case despite the lacking animation).Smith has certainly done worse than 'Seal on the Loose', compared to most from this late period it's watchable, but there is not much that is special or memorable about it.If there was a best asset, it would have to be the music score. It is bouncy, energetic and very lushly orchestrated, not only synchronising and fitting with the action very well but enhancing it. There is the occasional bout of energy, occasional amusing moments and the seal is absolutely adorable.Voice acting is solid. Grace Stafford continues to prove why she was the best voice actor for the character and the one that understood him the most.However, Mrs Meany is neither formidable (for her character name she could have been meaner actually) or entertaining enough to be a good foil for Woody and the conflict between them was too repetitive and under-characterised to work properly. Woody's personality once again is dulled down and nothing like when he was in his prime in the 40s all the way through to the mid-50s, his material isn't fun enough being too derivative and he doesn't even have enough to him to be a pest let alone manic.The energy doesn't come consistently and laughs are too far and between and what there is is mostly not very funny or well timed. Very little is done to give freshness to a very formulaic (and recycled having a similar premise to a previous Woody and Mrs Meany cartoon except that one had a dog) story heavy in repetition and it's all derivative of better stuff.Just as problematic is the animation quality. Time and budget constraints shows in a lot of the animation, which is very rushed looking in the drawing and detail wise it's on the simplistic and careless side like many of Woody's cartoons from this period continuing through to the 60s.Overall, watchable but average at best. 5/10 Bethany Cox
