Thanks for the memories!

A Major Disappointment

The film makes a home in your brain and the only cure is to see it again.

Your blood may run cold, but you now find yourself pinioned to the story.

HAVING FOLLOWED THE format of a sort of cartoon short operetta, GYPSY LIFE conformed to the style set long prior to this time for the cartoon's star, MIGHTY MOUSE. This highly stylized way of doing an eight to ten minutes of cartoon story took a finely tuned coordination between writers, voice actors, animators and the music department.ADDED TO THE usual trappings of a MIGHTY MOUSE vehicle, which always had sympathetic anthropomorphic rodents (with very 'attractive' female mice), a crisis situation and some monster-type, blood-thirsty cats; was the element of being "Gypsy." Colorful, baggy clothes, gaudy color matching, scarves, bandannas, violins and tambourines were all the order of the day.WE CAN RECALL seeing in this cartoon a 'gypsy' dog, marching along in perfect time to the main song "Gypsy Life"; all the while maintaining perfect rhythm by beating the tambourine against his sides while holding it with his tail! Well, you had to see it, Schultz! IT HAS BEEN said that cartoons from the production company, Paul Terry's Terrytoons, had the dubious distinction of looking so much alike; be they either made in the 1930's or 1950's. HECKLE & JECKLE, DINKY DUCK, GANDY GOOSE as well as latter day FARMER AL FALFA cartoons all seem to support this hypothesis.BUT THOSE OPERETTA like MIGHTY MOUSE cartoons are the obvious exception to this rule. And none is a finer example than GYPSY LIFE.

At the risk of sounding heretical, I've always found the character of Mighty Mouse rather bland and, wel, boring. This short is actually rather creative and one of the better entries in the series. It was nominated for an Academy Award and has fairly good music and the production values may just be a hair better than typical Paul Terry standards. Check it out if you can find it anywhere. Worth watching.