She Was an Acrobat's Daughter

Watching "She Was an Acrobat's Daughter", I quickly figured out that it was going to spoof a famous movie of its era (in this case, "The Petrified Forest", which I've never seen). In a movie theater, the audience plays an over-the-top version of musical chairs, a fat hippo irks some people by getting out of and into his seat, and some other silly things abound before the newsreel replete with puns tells of events in the world. Maestro Stickoutski (they loved playing with people's names, didn't they?) has the audience sing the title song along with some slides, even when the wrong slide gets entered. But when a baby duck starts pissing some people off, that's when the action really gets going! True, we in the 21st century will probably have few if any clues what they're talking about. But if we can imagine ourselves watching the cartoon when it first debuted in 1937, getting every one of the jokes, it's very easy to enjoy the cartoon. Of course, it's a hoot even if you don't know what it spoofs. One can see how the guys behind these cartoons liked to come up with the most twisted things possible. Worth seeing.

"Bacall to Arms" portrayed a similar series of events.