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. After being underwhelmed by his 1963 Woody Woodpecker cartoons, it seemed that Sid Marcus was steadily making improvement in quality with 'Skin Folks' and particularly 'Three Little Woodpeckers' being surprisingly good before 'Birds of a Feather' saw a return to average at best territory. The downward spiral continues with 'Sioux Me', which to me is one of his worst and one of the worst Woody Woodpecker cartoons in general.It does prove to me that Woody at this point was well past his glory days and that Walter Lantz Studios had run out of ideas long before, evidenced in tired and repetitive situations, toning Woody's personality down, animation limitations, very variable opponents and even more hit and miss humour. The music and voice work were pretty much the only things that were near-consistently good.Starting with the good things, the music is bouncy, energetic and very lushly orchestrated, not only synchronising and fitting with the action very well but enhancing it.Voice acting is solid. Grace Stafford in particular continues to prove why she was the best voice actor for the character and the one that understood him the most. It is occasionally mildly amusing and it does pick up a little at the end (though it does feel that it is too little too late).However, Woody compared to his original manic personality is just too subdued, even in formidable opponent mode, and his material is too obvious and safe, one misses the manic energy and the risk taking. The supporting characters fare worse, Fink Fox is more annoying than funny or endearing and the Indian tribe fail as adversaries and comic relief.Other than a couple of decent gags, most of them in 'Sioux Me' are not funny and lack freshness or sharp comic timing, more witless and flabby than anything else. The pace is dull and the story completely lacks freshness, is heavy in repetition and has a who cares vibe that makes it impossible to root for anybody here, including Woody.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. The ending is a rather strange one and didn't gel with the rest of the cartoon.In summary, another weak effort. 3/10 Bethany Cox
