Rudolf Ising | Smile, Darn Ya, Smile! / 1931[animated cartoon]

the annoying trolley song

by Douglas Messerli

 

Isadore Freleng, Max Maxwell, Bob Clampett, and Larry Martin (animation based on a story by Bob Clampett), Rudolf Ising (director) Smile, Darn Ya, Smile! / 1931[animated cartoon]

 

This rather irritating Merrie Melodies’ remake of Trolley Troubles, a Disney short staring Oswald the Lucky Rabbit, is one of only three cartoons featuring Foxy. Foxy is the driver of a trolley that has several problems, including the predilection of the wheels to outrace the detachable car, forcing Foxy, at times, to have to race after them.

      Foxy also faces a dilemma with a fat female hippo who attempts to fit into the trolley car. Pushing and pulling don’t work, and the only solution seems to be to deflate her with a pin, which brings her down to size, but so angers her that she races off, her dress in hand.

      Finally, Roxy, also a fox, joins him, and both are overjoyed. But the trolley is soon stopped again. This time by a cow who refuses to move, blocking the track.

      All along chorus after chorus of the title song, composed by Max Rich with lyrics by Charles O'flynn and Jack Meskill, has frustratingly demanded that people keep smiling despite the troubles they encounter. At the cow stop, a chorus of hobos take over the song, the biggest of them suddenly belting out a chorus, “You should get behind and try to shove her,” in an annoyingly high, female voice while he gestures and preens himself like a “pansy.” 

      The commentator for the Instagram QueerAnimation site comments: “While the character is not visually depicted in the way other Pansy characters were during this period, the hand gestures, swishing movements, high voice, and (I'd argue) double entendre lyric, point to how the character at minimum was to be read as effeminate by the audience.”

      Finally, Foxy runs the car underneath the cow, but as it begins a descent it runs out of control, momentarily throwing Foxy out of his driver’s seat. Even when he races to catch up with and save his female friend, however, the brakes no longer function and it runs madly out of control, stopping only when Foxy is thrown out of bed, forcing him to realize it has all been a bad dream. When his bedside radio begins the same song, “Smile, Darn Ya, Smile!” the annoyed fox throws a piece of furniture at it, finally halting its endlessly positive admonition.

 

Los Angeles, November 13, 2023

Reprinted from World Cinema Review (November 2023).