Land of the Midnight Fun
| Land of the Midnight Fun | |
|---|---|
| Merrie Melodies series | |
| Directed by | Tex Avery |
| Produced by |
Leon Schlesinger Henry Binder |
| Story by | Melvin Millar |
| Voices by |
Mel Blanc Robert C. Bruce Sara Berner Tex Avery |
| Music by | Carl Stalling, Milt Franklyn |
| Animation by |
Charles McKimson Virgil Ross |
| Distributed by |
Warner Bros. The Vitaphone Corporation |
| Release date(s) | 1939 |
| Color process | Technicolor |
| Language | English |
Land of the Midnight Fun is a Merrie Melodies cartoon directed in 1939 by Tex Avery. Robert C. Bruce narrates this cartoon and Melvin Millar wrote the story. It is one of a series of cartoons which poke fun at the travelogue shorts used during this era to highlight nature and travels the ordinary citizen might not be able to enjoy.
Plot
A cruise to Nome, Alaska, starts with various cruise ship jokes: the ship pulls out of the harbor like a car, raising anchor also raises the front of the boat, the ship follows the coast by curving around it. On arrival, we see some local scenes: A penguin eats two fish, then is eaten by the third; the dogs of a dog sled stop (behind an iceberg) at a telephone pole; a timber wolf goes around shouting "Timber!" (even the wolf admits, "Gee, this is silly!"); two Eskimos rub noses: in preparation, the woman applies lipstick to her nose. Finally, an Eskimo nightclub (after all, the nights are six months long) features a rotoscoped ice skater. The ship leaves, and gets caught in the fog near New York; when the fog clears, we see the ship is perched atop the World's Fair Trylon.