Toyland Premiere - 1934

Toyland Premiere (1934) unites favorite studio theme of a gathered cast of caricatured movie stars – with Santa Claus.  Oswald the Lucky Rabbit is the host for this holiday party, more about gags and mischief than seasonal joy or, heaven forbid, peace on earth.

We discussed several cartoons that featured caricatures of Hollywood stars in this previous post.  This escapade in Toyland Premiere brings us cartoon images of Tarzan, Shirley Temple, Frankenstein’s Monster (this is a Universal cartoon, if you haven’t figured it out by now), and Bing Crosby, who croons a brief hello.  Shirley sounds more like Betty Boop.  There are others in tow, but highlighted are Laurel and Hardy, whom we visited last week in Babes in Toyland (1934).

Santa arrives at the party, after a slow start in his workshop when he discovers his famous red suit has been eaten by moths. Helpful elves spray paint his blue coveralls red and slap some popcorn strings on him to simulate the white fur trim – hey, it’s the Depression.  We have to make do.

Oswald gets Santa to make an appearance at a large downtown department store, and a parade of giant balloons, not unlike the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade, greets him. On the toy department floor is where the party and the Hollywood stars await him.  

It turns into a bit of a melee when Laurel and Hardy are prevented from eating cake by the Frankenstein Monster, who growls at them and warns them off.  They get stuck in a dragon suit and are attacked by toy soldiers, not unlike the ones in Babes in Toyland, made the same year (see this previous post from last week) which is probably the inspiration for this scene.  A little cross-publicity never hurts.

Santa laughs at all this and the cartoon ends suddenly and without any explicable conclusion.  I suppose most Christmas parties are like that.  Except for the Frankenstein Monster part, but I’ve never met your friends, so I don’t know with whom you associate.

We’ll revisit Hollywood stars’ representation in Christmas cartoons in a few weeks when we conclude our annual Christmas series of posts, but for the next two weeks, we’re going to take a detour to other parts of the globe.  Next week, Bush Christmas (1947) will take us to Australia.

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GIFTS FOR THE CLASSIC FILM FAN!!!!!!!

Christmas in Classic Films provides a roster of old movies with scenes to conjure Christmas of days gone by.  Makes a nice gift, if you know an old movie buff, or if you just like to give presents to yourself.  

The paperback is available at Amazon, but also here at Barnes & Noble.

The hardcover, so far, is available only at Amazon.

Here are a few other classic movie books I've written for your gift-giving pleasure:

Ann Blyth: Actress. Singer. Star. - for sale in paperback and hardcover at Amazon,

And in paperback and hardcover here at Ingram,

And in paperback and hardcover here at Barnes & Noble.

And in paperback here at Walmart.

Hollywood Fights Fascism -  here in paperback at Amazon.

Movies in Our Time - here in paperback at Amazon.

And all of these books are available as well at my page on Bookshop.org, which helps support independent bookstores.