Window Pains (1967)

I think this is a new genre that they're all sort of working their way through it and haven't got all the kinks worked out yet but it's a genre that works for me.

The Age of Commercialism

Terrible acting, screenplay and direction.

It is not deep, but it is fun to watch. It does have a bit more of an edge to it than other similar films.

The more that is seen of the "Beary Family" cartoons, where a few are decent (especially the first two cartoons directed by Jack Hannah) but even more of them are horrible, the more my initial statement of saying in my reviews for the first two cartoons that they weren't bad for the Lantz studio's final series (based on memory admittedly) becomes less true.'Window Pains' is down there as among the series' worst to me. It is not quite as bad as 'Charlie's Mother-in-Law', but like the worst "Beary Family" cartoons it is indicative of when the studio and Paul J. Smith were at their worst the cartoons were very weak at best, coming from a big lifelong animation fan who tries to be quite lenient when watching and reviewing it. Even the weakest Chilly Willy and Woody Woodpecker cartoons were as bad as the worst cartoons from this series, and some of the later Woody Woodpecker cartoons in particular were not good.Saving graces are only a couple but they are there. One is the music, which is energetic and lushly orchestrated, succeeding in single-handedly giving the little energy the cartoon has. The other is Paul Frees' voice work, much more subtle here and he shows his ability to create a likable character with good comic timing, despite his lacking material and less than inspired situations there's something about Charlie that makes him easy to like and relate to when the series makes an effort to.However, the animation is not good. Time and budget constraints shows in a lot of the animation, which is very rushed looking in the drawing and detail wise it's on the simplistic and careless side with colours that lack vibrancy and a fair share of goofs. The story is not much of one at all and what there is is sloppily timed and without anything surprising or imaginative, predictability is non-stop and the cartoon's use of the pool is overused and annoyingly heavy in repetition. None of the rest of the characters engage.Again 'Window Pains' is not funny, unlike the first two cartoons in the series directed by Jack Hannah and the series' other watchable efforts. There are a lot of gags, but here they are far too noisy, clumsily and lazily timed and chaotic, irritating for the sake of it, and are memorable for their lack of taste than their wit. Hannah's efforts had none of those faults when it came to the humour. Charlie's dialogue has been funnier elsewhere.On the whole, pretty painful. 2/10 Bethany Cox

Though I remember watching some Beary Family Album "cartunes" on the "Woody Woodpecker and Friends" show in Jacksonvile, Fla., this is the first time, courtesy of YouTube as linked from the Saturday Morning Blog, that I actually watched one in its entirety. And I wished I hadn't! Made during the '60s when almost any cartoon made during this time would suffer from low budgets and almost no comic timing, Window Pains has the male father bear decide to wash the windows himself after calculating the total cost of having a professional clean all 22 of those things. Big mistake especially when he asks his skateboarding teenage son to help. Like I inferred, despite the disasters that come, nothing funny happens because of the clumsy slapstick that just is too predictable and stupid to even be amused by. What a waste of the voice talents of Paul Frees and Grace Stafford who happens to be producer Walter Lantz' wife! I think I've said enough so on that note, I do not recommend Window Pains.