Hittin’ the Trail for Hallelujah Land (1931)
Article 5862 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 10-17-2020
Directed by Rudolf Ising
Featuring the voice of Rudolf Ising
Country: USA
What it is: Early Merrie Melody

Piggy and Fluffy take a ride on a riverboat.

Though they would eventually emerge as one of the great theatrical cartoon companies, the early Warner Brothers cartoons were extremely forgettable. This one is mostly song and dance, followed by an unexpected horror sequence and then finishing up with a bare smidgen of plot. The horror sequence has a character named Uncle Tom ending up in a graveyard and being frightened by ambulatory skeletons, who are, of course, ready to do their own singing and dancing. I don’t know if Piggy and Fluffy were regular characters for the series (their big star at that time was Bosko), but they serve here as little more than ersatz Mickey and Minnie. Routine.