User reviews

In this Leon Schlesinger/Looney Tunes cartoon short, Buddy and his dog Bozo are sailing to the Lost World, you know, that world inhabited by cavemen and dinosaurs as first depicted by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle in his novel of the same name. The animation is good and the cartoon moves at a brisk pace though after a while, nothing makes real sense and Buddy's bland personality isn't enough for this animated short's charm. Still, if you're a Warner Bros. cartoon completist, Buddy's Lost World is worth seeing at least once. By the way, the studio would go back to prehistoric times when Chuck Jones made Daffy Duck and the Dinosaur, which featured a caricatured Jack Benny, some four years later.

Now a fairly obscure character, Buddy was the second Warner Brothers Looney Tunes character, after Bosko and followed by Beans the Cat. Buddy didn't last long, being retired in 1935 after 23 cartoons starting in 1933.

The Buddy cartoons are intriguing to see how very early Looney Tunes characters, before the iconic ones with far more interesting and funnier personalities were introduced, fared. His filmography is very much variable, most ranging between mediocre and decent though 'Buddy's Adventures' is one of the rare very good Buddy cartoons. 'Buddy's Lost World' is one of the above average cartoons, better than 'Buddy's Show Boat', 'Buddy's Bearcats' and 'Buddy of the Legion'.

'Buddy's Lost World' does a good deal right. The animation is nicely drawn and detailed with the black and white looking crisp. Even better is the very energetic and cleverly orchestrated music score. Music played a big part in the Buddy cartoons and it was essential for it to work.

Some of the gags are amusing and there is a fair bit of energy without being rushed. The prehistoric setting is fun, Bozo and the rest of the supporting characters are fun and the voice acting is good.

However, the story is thin and formulaic and could have done a little more with the setting. There are amusing moments, but others could have been crisper timed and there's not much exceptional here.

For a lead character, Buddy is part of the problem too, like in all his lesser-just straining average cartoons he just isn't a particularly interesting or compelling in personality character, pretty bland actually, and his comic timing is barely there.

All in all, above average if never great. 6/10 Bethany Cox

Buddy's Lost World (1935)

** 1/2 (out of 4)

This is an interesting short from Leon Schlesinger and Looney Tunes as Buddy and his dog Bozo go to the "Lost World" where they encounter a group of cavemen who take them hostage but thankfully there's a dinosaur that grows a crush on Buddy. This Warner short is interesting on a number of levels with the obvious one being the fact that this is a pretty clever homage to 1925's THE LOST WORLD. I thought for the most part that the animation was extremely good and the director kept everything going at such a fast pace that you really didn't have any time to grow bored. One of the best moments in the film happens towards the end when the dinosaur comes to the rescue and chases one of the cavemen through a door and then we see him and the dino's head coming out of another. Another interesting aspect is that there are three cavemen who are clearly spoofing The Three Stooges. Trying to spoof the Stooges probably wasn't the best idea since the Stooges themselves are pretty much a spoof but fans of them will be mildly entertained by how they're shown here. One more thing that works in this short is a very funny bit where Bozo finds a "caveman" acting like a dog and taking off with a bone, which Bozo then tries to dig one up but gets more than he can chew.

Before Robert McKimson, Chuck Jones, and Bob Clampett ever got their hands dirty with making cartoons with dinosaurs in it, Jack King did it first. In this film that pays homage to the 1925 silent classic, THE LOST WORLD. I guess this was made when Jack King decided to spoof this movie, not because the film was ten years old back then, but I guess it has something to do with the popularity of the original KING KONG, and since that movie got spoofed in other cartoon studios in Hollywood parodied it (not to mention the Warner Bros. cartoon I LIKE MOUNTAIN MUSIC spoofed KING KONG), he decided to spoof THE LOST WORLD. The cartoon nowadays is politically incorrect, apart from a harmless reference to The Three Stooges, there is are scenes that make fun of gay people. (Why did I write this? It is Jurassic June and this month is LGBTQ month. In fact, why did i choose it? Oh my gosh! I have been writing all those dinosaur movies earlier, did I? I got to end this.) The animation is good and so are the voices. Later, Warner Bros. would make cartoons that would take place in prehistoric times like Chuck Jones' DAFFY DUCK AND THE DINOSAUR (1939), PREHISTORIC PORKY (1940), CAVEMAN INKI (1949), PREHYSTERICAL HARE (1958) and WILD WILD WORD (1960). Give it a watch, I recommend this movie as a short subject to play in a screening party when you are going to show the original 1925 classic THE LOST WORLD. Give it a watch. Not rated, but a G would work.

Doyle's 'The Lost World' had been popular almost since it came out. Very much so in the '20s and ''30. So much so that films recreated Doyle's tale. So did the newly created animated shorts studios.

In this 'Looney Tunes' version, Buddy, the character they hoped to have as their version of Mickey Mouse, was winding down his run of some 23 animated shorts. The story is much as Doyle's. Except with a lot of fun.

This is the earliest the 'Looney Tunes' explored the world of dinosaurs and cavemen, as they've been known (An aside: Of course, as known so far in the scientific world, human-types and dinosaurs never shared the same stage on this planet. :) The cartoon world ignored the growing evidence at the time among so much else scientific. Never get in the way of a good gag! :) ) This is also one of the earliest and few times in film history dinosaurs are portrayed as friendly and fun.

In this a lot of inventive playing in the foreground and background as the animators work their best to create 3-D out of 2-D. This is only 5 years out from starting the series and the efforts at innovation are amazing.

Even the story is nicely shaped, following Doyle's story and stretching beyond it for the fun.

Great work!

Bottom line: I recommend this cartoon. 10 out of ten points.