Menu---The Burp of a Nation---8/10.
This little ditty shows up occasionally on TCM, so you might be lucky, as I was, to accidentally run across it in the ending minutes of a Tivo recording of a classic movie. The running time states that it is 10 minutes in length, but it seems much shorter than that.
The short centers on a housewife and her feeble attempts at cooking. Her kitchen is in a shambles; everything she touches produces a sound effect and a wise crack from an omnipotent narrator (Pete Smith). Away from home, the husband sits in his office worrying about what his wife will be concocting in the kitchen for his consumption when he gets home. Meanwhile, at the office, his belly is aching, so he is never far from his bicarbonate of soda, which he keeps in his jacket pocket.
The narrator keeps everything moving along very nicely as he throws in one liners, puns and wry observations of the hapless couple. The narrator also punctuates the proceedings by not only dropping in many appropriate sound effects, but also by bringing to life a chef to manage the wife's dinner arrangements. In a puff of smoke the chef enters into the kitchen and proceeds to teach the wife how to stuff a duck and bake some apples.
When the husband comes home, the chef has disappeared and so has the husband's bicarbonate. The husband has a meal fit for a king, but he'll only be king for a day, I don't think this wife could make a bowl of cereal.
After watching this short, I thought it was made sometime during the 1940's, but was completely shocked to see (while on IMDb) a release date of 1933. I didn't know they used color as early as that.
Very short, very tasty and easily digestible. 8/10.
Clark Richards
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