During much of the 1930s, Looney Tunes had a hard time establishing a personality for their cartoons. All the great characters we love weren't yet created and so many of the early shorts just seem random....as if the studio was trying to find its way. "Goopy Geer" is a good example of this...with a character you'd see only three times.
Like many of the Harmon-Ising directed Looney Tunes shorts, this one features music very prominently...something you'd almost never see in the following decades. The short is set at a nightclub for various animals and Goopy Geer the dog plays the piano to entertain patrons. Most of the cartoon consists of various gags involving the audience and staff of the establishment.
So is it any good? Well, the animation if pretty much what you'd expect. Like nearly all shorts of the era (aside from Disney, which had an exclusive contract with Technicolor), it's in black & white and the animation quality is very nice...a huge improvement over the studio's early output (such as their Bosco films). In fact, it's backgrounds an animation are nearly as good as the output from the Fleischers....and that's high praise indeed for 1932.
As for the story and plot, it's decent and a bit better than average for Looney Tunes of 1932. My score of 7 is relative to other cartoons of 1932 and should NOT be taken to mean it's as good or even close to being as good as Looney Tunes' classic output from the 1940s and early 50s.
By the way, I have HBOMax was was surprised that hidden within the app for it is a section on Looney Tunes cartoons. I assumed it would be their later stuff, but many very early cartoons are posted there...and in absolutely pristine condition, like "Goopy Geer".
