Way Back When a Nag Was Only a Horse (1940) User Reviews

A low-rent precursor to The Flintstones, but without the charm

[llltdesq · 4/10 · 11 July 2015]

This is a short in the Stone Age series produced by Fleischer studio. There will be minor spoilers ahead:

There isn't a whole lot to say about this one. The Stone Age series wasn't one of the Fleischer studio's shining achievements even at their best and this one isn't even close to the "best" in the series. The jokes are stale, though part of that may be due to the fact that a number of them were done to much better effect by the television series, The Flintstones.

The shorts show the lives of Stone Age men and women. When the running gag is the old saw about hitting a cave woman over the head with a club, you know you're in for a rather dull six minutes or so indeed.

The premise here is that a wife sees an ad for a sale in the paper and insists her husband is going shopping with her, which makes him less than happy, as he has to hit her with a club and drag her to the store (I can't really imagine that getting very many laughs even in 1940).

The gags in the store are old and worn out, mainly having to do with animals which serve some basic function. The best of these are two animals modeling furs and a turtle as a waffle iron. Frankly, I was as bored as the husband. There's a halfway decent bit about sheet music being chiseled on tablets, but it really doesn't manage to go anyplace all that entertaining. This has "contractual obligation" written all over it.

For completeists only.

Selling ads in the stone age

[TheLittleSongbird · 3/10 · 14 August 2019]

It is not as if there is any bias against Fleischer Studios. Far from it. Actually like to love quite a lot of their work, being very fond of Koko, Betty Boop and Popeye, and some of their "Color Classics". By 1940 or so the studio was in decline, their quality decreased quite drastically and their output came nowhere near close to their earlier work. This was obvious in most (not all) of the Gabby cartoons and the "Stone Age" and "Animated Antics" series.

'Way Back When a Nag Was Only a Horse' is the second "Stone Age" cartoon, but the first 'Way Back When a Triangle Had Its Points' doesn't seeem to be available so it's going to be the first one under review. As indicated already, the "Stone Age" cartoons were not a good representation of Fleischer and instead is a representation of how the studio had declined. Something made all too clear in 'Way Back When a Nag Was Only a Horse'. Just to say, the idea for the series was not a bad one, it was the execution where most of its cartoons was bad in.

The best thing about 'Way Back When a Nag Was Only a Horse' is the music score. Not one that will stick in the head for days, but it is suitably merry and lush and dynamic with what's going on.

Also thought that the voice actors did the best they did with their meagre material, with no signs of phoning in. Did like the turtle iron and sheet music chiselled on tablets touches.

Nothing else in 'Way Back When a Nag Was Only a Horse' works. The two primary problems being that it is very dull and it is also pretty unfunny. The cartoon really lacks energy and the non-existent plot feels stretched out. The gags agreed are very tired and completely lack imagination and the running gag, not an interesting one at all to begin with, gets repetitive fast. If the narration was meant to entertain and teach, it failed at both, found it very corny.

On top of that, the characters have very little personality and were quite unappealing. Even the animation, which actually was usually a strength in Fleischer's cartoons, wasn't great, tending to be quite crude and very basic.

Summing up, very weak. 3/10

Boooooooring!!!!!

[Hitchcoc · 3/10 · 3 January 2019]

Apparently, there were a series of these cave man things. Here, the wife goes shopping with her husband at Rock's Fifth Avenue. It's a little bit like the Flintstone but with no humor. The cave people in question are like modern people, except everything is made out of rocks or depends on prehistoric animals.