School Daze (1942) User Reviews

Introducing Nancy

[boblipton · 6/10 · 5 March 2013]

In 1942, Paul Terry produced a couple of cartoons based on Ernie Bushmiller's cartoon strip, "Nancy". By the time I knew the strip in the early 1960s, it consisted of Nancy and Sluggo, with occasional appearances by Aunt Fritzi, the original flapper subject of the strip, in one-strip gags. Here there's an entire town and an "Our Gang" style bunch of supporting kids.

The cartoon is presented as three blackout sequences, each introduced by a classroom of pupils singing the praises of the Nancy comics. The sequences involve Nancy getting involved in civic-minded projects with typical comical effects.

It's a watchable cartoon, mostly because it doesn't stretch itself. If you're a fan of the old Nancy strip you might take some particular pleasure in it. Otherwise, it's just another cartoon series that never got off the ground.

first of a failed attempt to translate a comic strip to animation

[llltdesq · 5/10 · 5 July 2015]

This is the first of two shorts trying to adapt the comic strip Nancy for the medium of animation. There will be spoilers ahead:

Terrytoons tried to convert the comic strip Nancy in an attempt to develop a series of shorts. It was unsuccessful, as most such attempts were. For every success like Popeye, there were failures like Nancy and The Captain and the Kids. What makes something funny and entertaining in a static drawing on paper is different from what's funny in motion on a screen. Nancy didn't translate well.

Here, a sort of framing device is employed-school children in class are singing about how bored they are with their lessons. The teacher asks them how to make them more interesting and they chant for Nancy. There follow three interludes, each introduced by singing children (singing a trite and grating song) showing Nancy dealing with civic pride, noise control and national defense.

The scenes with Nancy (two with Sluggo) are dull and lifeless, which isn't what they were after. At just under six minutes, it drags. The end gags to the stories are obvious and unfunny.

For completeists and maybe Nancy fans.

Education via comics

[TheLittleSongbird · 4/10 · 26 January 2019]

Have mainly found the Terrytoons interesting to view, and they are from personal stance to be seen mainly for anybody wanting to see (generally) older cartoons made by lesser known and lower-budget studios. Their quality is wildly variable, with a mix of good (very few great), decent, average, lacklustre and weak, often with outstanding music and with some mild amusement and charm and variable in animation, characterisation and content.

1942's batch was hit and miss like the previous years (later too). Found 'School Daze', the first of two cartoons part of a laudable but failed attempt at a comic strip translation series, to be one of the lower middle ones ranking it in correlation with the rest of the Terrytoons and one of the weaker 1942 cartoons. It is a fairly mediocre, though semi-watchable, cartoon and has the same amount of problems as it has the amount of strengths. Completest sake is the main reason to see 'School Daze', certainly was my main reason for watching as a Terrytoons completest, but it's not the only reason.

Once again, the best asset is the music, which is the one consistent asset that has been hard to find fault with in the Terrytoons cartoons even in the lesser ones. It is here outstanding, so beautifully and cleverly orchestrated and arranged, is great fun to listen to and full of lively energy, doing so well with enhancing the action. The animation has come on leaps and bounds since Terrytoons first started, the ambitious, elaborate detail in the backgrounds is still great to see, as is the comparatively improved fluidity of drawing and movement, and the synchronisation is neat.

A few marginally amusing and charming moments here and there.

However, 'School Daze' never really came to life for me, the pace tended to be pedestrian, the latter parts dragging badly, and there just wasn't enough to the story to make one properly engaged. Basically, a cartoon with hardly any plot and what there is feeling over-stretched and very predictable (for Terrytoons it is not exactly an original one and there is nothing new here). The gags are far too few and those present are marginally amusing at best if even that. There is not much to be educated by, don't think many younger viewers are going to find themselves learning an awful lot from this cartoon and older ones may find themselves squirming.

None of the characters are particularly interesting in personality and don't really engage and the whole cartoon is far too cute that it gets nauseating.

Concluding, mediocre. 4/10 Bethany Cox