I Like Mountain Music (1933)
Article 5881 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 11-4-2020
Directed by Rudolf Ising
Featuring the voices of Sara Berner, Pinto Colvig, Jack Mercer
Country: USA
What it is: Early Warner Brothers cartoon

In a drugstore, characters in magazines come to life and have a party.

One of the odder cartoon templates that has popped up several times over the years was that of characters in books coming to life in a bookstore, with BOOK REVUE perhaps the finest of these. This appears to be the earliest template of this idea I’ve encountered; sure, they’re magazines in a drugstore rather than books in a bookstore, but those are mere details. Like those later cartoons, there are musical numbers performed, a variety of celebrity caricatures show up (including ones of Edward G. Robinson, Will Rogers and Ed Wynn), and there’s a late-cartoon plot development; in this case, a gang of criminals tries to break into the cash register. To add to the fantastic content, we even have a parody of King Kong (called Ping Pong) show up. No, it’s not up to the level of some of those later cartoons, but it’s entertaining enough in its own way and may be one of Warner’s better cartoons from the times before Porky Pig or Bugs Bunny.