Yesterday Ken Weaver tweeted out he was watching Buddy’s Beer Garden. An inveterate animation lover, I wanted to see it, too. Buddy’s Beer Garden is part of the Looney Tunes series from Warner Brothers, and features Buddy, in the second of the 23 cartoons he starred in.
Buddy’s Beer Garden’s is a fun cartoon celebrating the end of Prohibition in 1933. The humor is typical of animation of the time, with lots of sight gags and animated transitions (a common technique in the 1930s). In this one, “Buddy dons a variety of costumes and hawks his ‘beer that brings good cheer.'”
“Watch what you’re doin’ ya mug! “Don’t call me a mug, you mug!”
I’m sure this would drive the prohibitionists today into a mad rage. “But what about the kiddies,” they’d cry (as they always do). But this was made in 1933, when cartoons, believe it or not, were made for adults, and were shown, along with a newsreel, before feature films at a movie theatre. That’s why there’s so much adult humor. It’s also why the hold up so well today, because they don’t pander or talk down to the audience. They’re not trying to be educational, kid-friendly or have a moral. Even when I was a kid, when they were heavily edited for television, they were still better than most cartoons made for TV.
See for yourself, here’s the cartoon, Buddy’s Beer Garden, below:
Buddy Buddie's Beer Garden 1933 Looney… by andythebeagle
Great find Jay. Some things to notice:
1) When the bartender pours from the line of chrome taps, he pours fast in a small glass and sends it off, no attempt made to level the head or ensure a full glass. This was a serving style of the day and probably pre-Pro and McSorley in New York still does it exactly like that.
2) The making of sausages is combined with a gag where they are made in a circle shape and stacked on a dachshund’s tail. In the public memory, a dachshund was still associated with the origin of hot dogs. See here: http://www.hot-dog.org/culture/hot-dog-history
3) The “free lunch” signs are a throw-back to the still fresh memories that many saloons offered these, and a tongue sandwich would be typical homely fare.
4) The barrels shown are called “Old Lager”. Why old…? Perhaps long-aged, perhaps a hallowed brand, perhaps showing confusion with good whiskey.
Gary