Little Audrey

From Qualitipedia
Jump to navigation Jump to search
Little Audrey
Oh, Little Audrey Says, save for a rainy day...
Genre: Comedy

Slapstick Surreal humor Urban fantasy Physical comedy

Running Time: 5–6 minutes
Country: United States
Release Date: July 16, 1948 –

December 12, 1958

Created by: Seymour Kneitel

Bill Tytla

Distributed by: Paramount Pictures (former)

NBCUniversal (current)

Starring: Mae Questel
Episodes: 16
Next show: Harvey Girls Forever!


Little Audrey is a classic series of cartoon short films. From 1947 to 1958, Famous Studios produced 16 shorts for Noveltoons by Paramount Pictures, featuring the exciting adventures of the very cute and tomboyish five-year-old New Yorker, Little Audrey.

Shorts

  1. Santa's Surprise (Kneitel; December 5, 1947)
  2. Butterscotch and Soda (Kneitel; July 16, 1948)
  3. The Lost Dream (Tytla; March 18, 1949)
  4. Song Of The Birds (Tytla; November 18, 1949)
  5. Tarts and Flowers (Tytla; May 26, 1950)
  6. Goofy Goofy Gander (Tytla; August 18, 1950)
  7. Hold The Lion Please (Sparber; August 27, 1951)
  8. Audrey The Rainmaker (Sparber; October 26, 1951)
  9. Law and Audrey (Sparber; May 23, 1952)
  10. The Case of the Cockeyed Canary (Kneitel; December 19, 1952)
  11. Surf Bored (Sparber; July 17, 1953)
  12. The Seapreme Court (Kneitel; January 29, 1954)
  13. Dizzy Dishes (Sparber; January 4, 1955)
  14. Little Audrey Riding Hood (Kneitel; October 14, 1955; first short to feature the updated Noveltoons title design and opening fanfare)
  15. Fishing Tackler (Sparber; March 29, 1957)
  16. Dawg Gawn (Kneitel; December 12, 1958)

Why It's So Cute

  1. Paramount animation in its purest form.
  2. The cute and playful five-year-old tomboy from New York City, Little Audrey stole the show and was the most adorable character.
  3. Rich, bright and colorful Disneyesque animation, for the micro-budget standards.
  4. Little Audrey's character design is very cute, along with her most iconic 1930s tomboy-esque outfit.
    • Including a little blue dress with puffed sleeves, white ankle socks, and of course, the most famous footwear for every all-American tomboy: a pair of very shiny black Mary Jane shoes.
    • Even Little Audrey's iconic 1930s outfit, was pure adorable, like Olive Oyl's cutesy 1950s outfit.
  5. Since the Little Audrey cartoons became successful on the silver screen, most of the Little Audrey cartoons was aired on TV in the first-run syndication, and became more successful in television history.
  6. It follows the immersive Chuck Jones-esque slapstick and Bob Clampett-style humor.
  7. Tex Avery-style gags and jokes are impressive.
  8. Since she stole the show in her debut cartoon, "Santa's Surprise" (a Christmas-themed cartoon), Little Audrey quickly became famous among the all-American men.
  9. Splendid writing.
  10. Like Bugs Bunny of Warner Bros., Mickey Mouse of Disney, Heckle and Jeckle of Terrytoons and Walter Lantz's Woody Woodpecker of Universal, Little Audrey was Paramount's biggest megastar of slapstick comedy cartoons.
  11. It blended slapstick, physical comedy, urban fantasy, surreal humor and the very wacky cartoon fun.
  12. Like the Casper the Friendly Ghost series, it had some cutesy heartwarming moments, including Audrey adorably feeding the zoo animals with the water fountain in "Law and Audrey". Cue the audiences: Awwwwwwwwwwww...
  13. Very meticulous and beautifully drawn backgrounds.
  14. "Little Audrey Says" was a very cute, jazzy theme song.
    • In "Goofy Goofy Gander", it revealed that Little Audrey was so good at playing jazz and swing music, rather she's playing her trumpet.
  15. The 1930s-style gags, jokes and slapstick comedy moments are brilliantly set for the '30s standards.
  16. The Little Audrey series was perfectly made, for the shoestring budget.
  17. Clever use of Squash & Stretch to make the zany-type animation more credible.
  18. Most exciting scenes, including Little Audrey magically shrinks herself by using her magical imagination, in "Goofy Goofy Gander".
  19. Paramount's got the right tool of the very zany, cartoony slapstick comedy.
  20. Like Looney Tunes and Tom and Jerry, the slapstick comedy here is at its best.
  21. With the success of the Little Audrey franchise, it quickly gained toys, comic books, musical feature films and television programs. However, the very first television program in the Little Audrey franchise, was actually a sequel to the Little Audrey franchise for Netflix, called Harvey Girls Forever!, which was originally entitled Harvey Street Kids.
  22. It is more entertaining and slapsticky than most of the Paramount slapstick comedy shorts.
  23. Beautiful orchestration soundtrack.
    • The orchestral instrumental version of the adorable, jazzy Little Audrey theme song, was stunning.
  24. Like most of these American films of the 1930s and '40s, this series was set in the 1930s New York City. This is why Little Audrey lived in her apartment building (except for few of these cartoons).
  25. Great voice acting, with Mae Questel sounding so cute as Little Audrey.
    • Even Little Audrey's high-pitched, squeaky voice sounds much cuter, using her very thick New York City accent.
  26. Little Audrey's trademark laugh sounds so adorable and pure heartwarming.
  27. Hilarious comedy references.
  28. This show, along with Popeye and the Moe Hare and Tommy Tortoise cartoons, were impacted the least when Paramount Cartoon Studios started to decline in the late-1950s in terms of budget-cuts on the animation since this show still managed to maintain its good episodes.

Bad Qualities

  1. Too much gross-out humor.
  2. Some of these scenes from this cartoon series are disturbing, including the Tummy Ache Blues song and the infamous scene where Audrey scream in "Butterscotch and Soda".
  3. "Hold the Lion Please", "The Seapreme Court" and "Fishing Tackler" are often considered to be the worst entries of the series; as Audrey was rather unlikable and out of character in the former short; while in the latter, Audrey is just simply tortured in her dream to the point where it gets rather too brutal and not very funny at all.
  4. A few racist stereotypes such as Audrey's maid Petunia as being an African-American stereotype (kinda similar to Mammy Two-Shoes from Tom and Jerry).
  5. Due to budget cuts, the last two shorts has more limited animation than the others.

Reception

Little Audrey is one of the cutest animated franchises in the world and is still widely popular today.

It received best ratings and positive reviews, calling "Little Audrey was America's cutest tomboy, with three pigtails, a cute 1930s-style tomboyish outfit, white ankle socks and her adorable pair of the very polished black Mary Jane shoes".

Trivia

  • Since Santa's Surprise was released, the character of Little Audrey became extremely famous and very popular among the all-American men.
  • The entire series, along with its 2018 sequel series, are yet to be released on NBCUniversal's Peacock streaming service.
  • Little Audrey was made after Famous Studios decided to drop its rights to Little Lulu.
  • "Song Of The Birds" is a remake of the Color Classics short of the same name.
  • The shorts released between 1947-1950 are currently in the public domain. The rest are still under copyright.
  • Much like Famous Studios' version of Little Lulu, Little Audrey's character drew inspiration from animator Bill Tytla's daughter Tammy Tytla.

Videos

Load video
YouTube

Comments

Loading comments...
Retrieved from "https://newqualitipedia.telepedia.net/index.php?title=Little_Audrey&oldid=170118"