Smile, Darn Ya, Smile! (1931) User Reviews (14)

who framed Foxy

[lee_eisenberg · 7/10 · 13 November 2008]

If the title sounds familiar, it's because you probably heard it in "Who Framed Roger Rabbit": the citizens of Toontown sing it. Obviously, the cartoon "Smile, Darn Ya Smile!" came out over half a century before "WFRR".

Despite the limited plot, this relic of the early days of Warner Bros. animation contains something that would occur several times in WB cartons over the next fifteen years: inanimate objects come to life. Some advertisements on the side of the train driven by Foxy perform some small skits. Inanimate objects also came to life in "Little Dutch Plate", "Speaking of the Weather", "You're an Education", "Have You Got Any Castles?" and "Book Revue" (after which they didn't portray it again).

Worth seeing.

Come along and smile

[TheLittleSongbird · 7/10 · 27 February 2017]

The second Foxy cartoon after 'Lady, Play Your Mandolin!', 'Smile, Darn Ya Smile' may not be a great cartoon but of the two cartoons it is the better-faring one.

Again, the story is thin, sometimes senseless and agreed derivative of other cartoons. While the animation is better this time round, there are still a few crude moments especially in the character designs. The very end is pretty corny and feels like a cop-out.

However, much of the animation is crisply shaded and very nicely detailed with flexible movements. Standing out especially is some interesting perspective visuals as Foxy loses control of the trolley. The music is suitably peppy, with an irresistibly infectious title song (which people will recognise as the ToonTown theme from 'Who Framed Roger Rabbit?').

'Smile, Darn Ya Smile' boasts a few good gags that are quite funny, especially the hippo being deflated. Foxy, even with a still derivative character design, is a more compelling leading character this time round and more expressive.

On the whole, decent cartoon and hard not to smile along to regardless of its imperfections. 7/10 Bethany Cox

Pretty typical of cartoons in 1931.

[planktonrules · 5/10 · 19 May 2018]

Apart from some shorts from Disney, the average cartoon of 1931 was rather dreadful compared to cartoons of the 40s and 50s. Instead of focusing on humor, too often cartoons focused on cutesy characters and singing....and "Smile, Darn Ya, Smile!" is a good example of that sort of thing. The cartoon stars a fox-like character who is essentially a Mickey Mouse knockoff and he is the conductor of an odd, cartoony street car. There's lots of singing and the song by the same title is used throughout the short film.

Is it any good? Well, for 1931 it's a bit better than average and compared to later ones it's pretty sad and dull. I think an overall score of 5 is reasonable.

By the way, the reason I saw this cartoon is that an amazing young Italian guy, 'bellino-angelo2014, Facebook friended me some time back and we talk movies. He recognized this song as being the same one from the end of "Who Framed Roger Rabbit?" and suggested I give it a look....and for that reason alone it's well worth seeing.

These cartoons taught people to smile!

[slymusic · 28 March 2011]

"Smile, Darn Ya, Smile!" is the perfect song/cartoon title for downtrodden Americans during the Great Depression. The USA needed a fair amount of cheering up in the early 1930s, and Warner Bros. cartoons came to the rescue! In this film, the character Foxy is a trolley car operator who instigates some amusing adventures.

My two favorite moments from this cartoon: An advertisement for Sniff Brothers Cough Drops shows two bearded dogs who are quite funny, and a quartet of hobos sings the title song.

"Smile, Darn Ya, Smile!" is a cartoon that bursts with energy and great musical accompaniment, like so many other cartoons of the time. The voice acting in this cartoon is not so great, but I can overlook that; it wouldn't be too long before our friend Mel Blanc would come into the fold.

derivative of other cartoon shorts but zippy song

[didi-5 · 5/10 · 1 May 2007]

I think this was the final cartoon to feature the character of Foxy (who was Mickey Mouse with pointed ears and a bushy tail), and like the others, it is purely a cartoon built around a song from the Warner Bros. back catalogue, in this case 'Smile, Darn Ya, Smile'.

The animation is fine but some situations had been used the year before with Bosko and Honey in 'Sinkin in the Bathtub' (the runaway train was a car before, and they were both stopped by a supercilious cow). It isn't that original and is relentlessly cheerful as many 1930s cartoons were.

Still, these animations are always of historical interest and are good to see, and this isn't at all bad, if you like that sort of thing.

Foxy's swan song, memorable mainly for the title song and little else

[llltdesq · 6/10 · 8 May 2002]

This is the third of the three Foxy cartoons, an obnoxiously, relentlessly cheerful short that probably hastened the retirement of the lead character. Notable for the title tune and for Friz Freleng serving as an animator, this is a curio more than anything else. A few cute bits, but not terribly special or memorable in and of itself. Worth watching and recommended if you really like old black and white animation.

Sinister misogyny insults morbidly obese females

[charlytully · 6/10 · 29 June 2009]

In a move that's surely warmed the heart cockles of woman-haters for decades, Foxy--the male hero of this cartoon--deals with the morbidly obese woman anthropomorphically suggested by a female hippo, and diminishes her to a quarter of her original size by impaling her with an humongous pin (which miraculously releases the "hot air" with which the animators believe such women are filled, in lieu of "sugar and spice and everything nice").

From the very beginning, it is obvious Foxy is not interested in having THIS particular customer as a passenger on his trolley. Later on, we see he has been reserving his public conveyance for a private tryst with his regular lover, who could be mistaken for Minnie Mouse. After her literal deflation, the greatly diminished hippo lady has no recourse, other than to walk away, muttering about not even having access to the BACK of the bus!

In a telling sidelight, the hippo femme deposits her furled parasol down her cleavage prior to her trolley-boarding attempt. It quickly drops to distend the bottom of her bloomers suggestively, but then disappears. The only moral to be drawn is she has failed to stack up as a female OR MALE-LIKE THREAT for Foxy, which is why he feels no compunction in erasing her from his world.

Warner Bros. was no friend of Big Lingerie . . .

[oscaralbert · 6/10 · 6 October 2016]

. . . as documented by this early 1930s animated short, SMILE, DARN YA, SMILE! Until the Great Depression, surveys indicate that the plurality of American Women traipsing around in Public "Commando Style" ranged North of 60%. However, when Domestic Manufacturing crashed along with the Stock Market a couple years before SMILE came out, Business Bigwigs got the bright idea that they could get their Gravy Train of Profits back on track by Brainwashing U.S. females to provide themselves with extra covers for their "sideways smiles." As one Big Lingerie ad asked, "Why buy your family a soup bone that's Gonna Be Gone Tomorrow, when Playform Panties are Forever?" With SMILES, Warner tries to warn Americans that there's nothing wrong with an occasional wee little wink (think Sharon Stone in BASIC INSTINCT) by slapping the sort of frilly fancy pants then in vogue (according to Madison Avenue) on rodents, cows, hippos, birds, and all manner of ludicrous wearers to highlight the absurdity of expending scant family resources on an extraneous effort to Gussie up God-Given Pudendums. At one point Roxy flaunts her panties at Foxy as if to say "Don't you think that these are really stupid?" At another juncture, Foxy "pops" his would-be female hippo passenger to show her that her elaborate lingerie is holding up the line. As Warner commands U.S. fashion leaders such as Lindsay Lohan and Miley Cyrus, SMILE, DARN YA, SMILE!

Quite nice

[rbverhoef · 8/10 · 15 November 2004]

This Merrie Melodies cartoon from 1931 is actually pretty nice. The character are a lot like Mickey & Minnie Mouse, although his voice is much lower. He is a conductor on a train, she is a passenger. On the road they have trouble with a cow on the rails and the breaks that stop working. The whole time we hear the characters sing the title song.

I liked 'Smile, Darn Ya, Smile!' because its simplicity, I guess. They do not try very hard to make it special. The animation and the music fit perfectly, enough to make it very enjoyable. The part where the breaks are not working anymore gives us some good animation combined with nice laughs. If you like the old cartoons, this one will not disappoint.

Very Popular Song In Its Day

[Hitchcoc · 6/10 · 29 March 2019]

I guess if there is a point to this is that no matter what happens, keep smiling. And that's why there is no real conventional plot here. The main character (who is sort of mouse-like) just goes about his business, flirting with his girlfriend, driving his train/trolley, meeting obstacles along the way. But the song really takes over everything. Quite a typical 1931 cartoon where sound had transcended animation.

The Film and the Character. Some Lesser-known Info.

[roocadillac85 · 10/10 · 18 November 2011]

Smile Darn Ya Smile is a cartoon that has some plot similarities with Trolley Troubles, a 1927 Oswald film Harman-Ising worked on along with Disney. Both cartoons involve a cow blocking the track but both trolley operators were able to get pass. The only difference is this one has more improved graphics and makes clever use of the music.

One notable gag in the film involves Foxy using a pin to deflate a hippo, making her fit in the trolley. This gag has been branded by critics of the character as a so-called "Disney Swipe." I don't think Harman-Ising can be blamed for applying that, considering a similar one also appears in Spooks, a 1930 Oswald cartoon. Plus, it's probably not possible to patent a gag the way it's possible to copyright a film.

Due to Foxy's appearance resembling Mickey who is much more famous, a number of film fans are so quick to criticize the fox as a cheap copy of the latter. However, a document from a book called The Hand Behind the Mouse gives a much different story. In it, Hugh Harman drew pictures of mice on a portrait of Disney in 1925. A few years later, Disney and Iwerks used this idea as their basis for creating Mickey. Therefore, I guess it is true to say Harman and Ising were never imitating Disney or anyone in particular.

Why Foxy was short-lived in the Merrie Melodies series? As logical of a reason I can suggest, it's possible that he was only created as an experimental character, along with Piggy and Goopy Geer. In other words, they were intended to be just curtain raisers for Harman-Ising's main character Bosko. Bosko was a character whose popularity once rivaled Mickey until some flawed redesigning cause that guy to end up in the scrap.

Smile, Darn Ya, Smile! is another Foxy Merrie Melodies cartoon

[tavm · 8/10 · 4 June 2007]

Smile, Darn Ya, Smile! is a Merrie Melodies cartoon starring Foxy from Hugh Harmon-Rudolf Ising Productions in association with Leon Schlesinger and distributed by Warner Bros. In this one, Foxy is a train conductor who needs passengers. A lady hippo comes on board but being heavy makes the train lean over. Foxy solves this by getting a pin and literally deflating her to small size! Offended, she backwards insults him and goes on her way. Foxy later picks his girlfriend up as they sing the theme song (I must tell you here that except for the bushy tails and ears, they both resemble Mickey and Minnie Mouse. No surprise here since Harmon and Ising once worked for Walt Disney). They later encounter some friendly hobos who also sing the title song and a stubborn cow who won't move from the tracks. If you want to know what happens after that watch the animated short on YouTube. Certainly worth a look for any animation fan of Warner Bros.

Half Musical, Half Cartoon

[ccthemovieman-1 · 8/10 · 9 February 2007]

Whew, does this animated short look dated. Well, maybe because it was one of the first of the talkie cartoons. It looks it, and sounds it, but that's what also makes this different and charming, in a way.

Actually, this is as much a "musical" as it is a cartoon. The title song is song several times during the seven minutes, by two different Mickey & Minnie Mouse-type characters, and by a bunch of hobos. It's a catchy song with good lyrics, too.

This is not really all that funny, but it entertains throughout. Like early 1930s movies, it has a certain look to it that was long gone by the end of the decade. I liked this, because it was different than most cartoons we've seen over the years.

No, It's Not Mickey

[Michael_Elliott · 10 June 2016]

Smile, Darn Ya, Smile! (1931)

** 1/2 (out of 4)

Foxy is running a train when he cheerfully agrees to take on a hippo who happens to be too large for his riding space. This event leads Foxy on a ride range of action. SMILE, DARN YA, SMILE! is an okay entry for the series. When the film started I'm sure many might mistake Foxy for Mickey Mouse because they share a lot of similarities and I think it's safe to say Merrie Melodies was ripping off Walt Disney with this character. For the most part this film is innocent enough, although there's certainly nothing here that really stands out or turns the film into a classic. The animation is a little crude but it works just fine to bring out the charm of Foxy.