Yankee Dood It

A completely bizarre short apparently meant to tap into the struggling small businessman market that was watching cartoons at the time and convince them mass production was the solution to all their financial difficulties. It's basically a warped take on the Shoemaker & the Elves story, with Elmer as the king of the elves who sends one of his underlings to find out why the shoemaker is still using elf labor in the 20th Century. He needs to be using human slave labor, not elves! There's also an equally strange subplot about the shoemaker's cat, Sylvester, tricking the elves into saying "Jehoshaphat" because that turns them into mice. The animation is nice and colorful. The music is cheery and upbeat. Good voice work from Mel Blanc, Arthur Q. Bryan, and Daws Butler. It's never funny (intentionally, at least) but there's something weirdly fascinating about it. An interesting curio for sure.