Gandy Goose - Somewhere in Egypt

Finally getting back to watching films

So the one for this time is Gandy Goose: Somewhere in Egypt.

Now, I had never heard of Gandy Goose before. He was a Terrytoon like Mighty Mouse and Heckel and Jeckel, but some how Gandy Goose cartoons didn’t have the staying power. For the life of me I don’t know why.

This one, at least is a surreal trip. Gandy and his partner, the cat Sourpuss, are as you can guess, Somewhere in Egypt. Gandy plays a flute sending Sourpuss of to a Egypt inspired dream land. There they fly in to the Sphinx, where they are greeted by dancing hieroglyphics. Around a few corners, and they release some mummy  skeleton fire fighters. And Gandy winds up with a skull on his head. I am always fascinated when cartoons make jokes with what are essentially human remains.

The next few sections, we see a bevy of sexy cats, and Gandy is quickly discarded. Now it is sourpuss chasing and flirting with various Harem looking female cats, but they do keep disappearing at inopportune times. Then, the dream becomes a nightmare and Sourpuss is chased by Giant Egyptian guards out of the sphinx. 

Sourpuss is woken  up, but then asks Gandy to play his flute again, and off he goes, back into dream land.

Like I said, I’d never seen Gandy Goose before but I did enjoy this cartoon. What little research I’ve done, it looks like it’s pretty common for the Gandy Goose cartoons to get a little trippy.

One thing was the interstitials were rhyming lines. Having not seen the original cartoons, I’m left to wonder, was there narration and this was copied verbatim, or if this was added by the 8mm company. I can’t think of too many cartoons of this era which had running narration. 

And as a interesting note, the first gag of the cartoon is a Nazi joke. A sign reads “Rommel slept here”. Just a reference to a Nazi, for laughs.

I’ve had this film for a while and had seen it before, but I have another Gandy Goose that I haven’t watched yet. I’m anxious to see if I like that one as much.