Rifftrax Year: 2011
Riffers: Michael J. Nelson, Kevin Murphy, Bill Corbett
This early 1930's cartoon came at a point where synchronized sound cartoons were still going, yet transitioning to having actual voices being featured. This particular one is a part of the early cartoon series Aesop's Fables (at this point Aesop's Sound Fables, to advertise that this cartoon wasn't silent), a series of films based on the moralistic stories of Aesop, such as The Tortoise and the Hare, The Ant and the Grasshopper, and The Boy Who Cried Wolf. This particular story is an adaptation of the Aesop's legendary tale of Frozen Frolics, where a bunch of animals run around in the arctic and bob up and down.
The moral of the story is: Always make sure that your comrade is dead before you loot him. And don't piss off a bear.
Okay, so this has little to nothing to do with Aesop, and really isn't a story in general. A lot of cartoons from the synchronized sound era rarely were, as they abandoned the pantomime expressions of the silent era and with their new sound tools mostly just created a bunch of cartoons where the characters danced around to the music and noises that were accompanying them. It wasn't a very prosperous time for storytelling in this medium, as most stories just had to do with dodging something and running away, that's if there were a story at all. When cartoons like these started using voice acting, it would continue for a bit as a song and dance number with funny visuals, but would eventually evolve into something more creative and fun.
Frozen Frolics is probably fairly standard, but there is nothing remotely interesting about it. Here we have a film that is a part of an Aesop film series that has nothing to do with Aesop, but more or less is just a silly image generator of animals doing wacky things. It's not the first to do this, nor would it be the last. It can be argued that it doesn't do it particularly well either, as some of these visual jokes play a bit trite. Some of the dark humor touches are a tad interesting, but since Frozen Frolics doesn't really go anywhere and seems to be torturing its characters for no reason, it can come off a bit mean spirited.
This cartoon was originally riffed in front of an audience at the Reefer Madness Live show, where it played like gangbusters. As usual, a studio riff without the audience is a bit of a step back, but the humor is still funny. Since there is no real story to speak of, the riffs present themselves mostly as captions, as they quip against surreal imagery. It makes one wish they riffed animation more, because there is a lot to comment on, such as the anthropomorphic animals vs. traditional animals idea. Early on Kevin notes that the animals pulling the sleigh and riding it were one and the same, claiming the short to take place in a world of slavery.
Some of the funniest quips come at the expense of the "main" (I guess) story featuring two cat/dog people (I'll be damned if I know which) who are trapped in the arctic, which takes some strange and dark turns. The riffing stays in stride with how dark it is and plays it up, leaving the audience to laugh at just how bizarre cartoons like this were. They breathe new life into this forgotten toon, and give it more laughs than it was probably worth.
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