Farm Frolics (1941)

Farm Frolics is a 1941 Warner Bros. cartoon in the Merrie Melodies series. It was directed by Bob Clampett, animation by Rob Scribner, and musical direction by Carl Stalling. The vocal group heard at the beginning is the Sportsmen Quartet, who often harmonized in Warner Bros. cartoons of the period, later becoming the resident singing group on Jack Benny s radio and TV shows. The cartoon starts with the arm of an animator drawing a farm scene. The farm scene then colors itself, and the camera zooms in just as the plot follows: A realisticlooking horse is seen, whinnying (courtesy of Mel Blanc), and a comic triple plays out: The narrator asks the horse to do a trot; the horse obliges. The narrator asks for a gallop; the horse again obliges. The narrator then asks the horse to do a canter. The horse turns from realistic to a cartoon horse, with the bugged eyes of, and singing I m Happy About the Whole Thing (by Harry Warren and Johnny Mercer) in the style of, the vaudeville star Eddie Cantor, vocally im