Boyhood Daze (1957)

This is How Movies Should Be Made

While it doesn't offer any answers, it both thrills and makes you think.

It is neither dumb nor smart enough to be fun, and spends way too much time with its boring human characters.

There are moments in this movie where the great movie it could've been peek out... They're fleeting, here, but they're worth savoring, and they happen often enough to make it worth your while.

. . . that title reference character Ralph Phillips is generally confined to his family's DISAPPOINTMENTS ROOM. Has he been bitten by a Zika Mosquito, and come down with Microencephaly? No. Has Lon Chaney tried to cast him as Lon Chaney III by bathing his face in acid? No. Was Mrs. Phillips knocked up by a Pachyderm, turning Ralphie into a budding ELEPHANT MAN? No again. Young Ralph is doomed to inhabit a metal cell in a turret because he cannot stop thinking like a Looney Tuner, envisioning the 21st Century Calamities, Cataclysms, Catastrophes and General Apocalypti in store for America. First, BOYHOOD DAZE features an ISIS Guerilla Gang trying to serve up American Tourists as Cannibalistic Hors D'Oeuvres. Then our Chinese nemesis attacks the U.S. with aircraft so advanced that they must be depicted as UFOs for 1950s theater audiences. Finally, an adult Ralph is thrown into a Maximum Security Federal Pen (after he's implausibly outgrown his DISAPPOINTMENTS ROOM). Wouldn't you want to chop down a few of the Trojan Horse-like Pearl Harbor cherry trees if all of this happened to YOU?

Chuck Jones brings back his wonderful Ralphie Phillips character (voiced by Dick Beals) in this funny short. Ralphie previously in the classic From A to Z-Z-Z-Z, where he daydreamed in class about various heroic adventures. This time he breaks a window and is sent to his room, where his imagination once again takes over. A fun cartoon from one of the masters. Everything about this clicks. The writing is smart and funny, with a protagonist anyone who was ever a kid can relate to (sadly that doesn't cover everyone; some people were born old and miserable). The music accompanies the action perfectly. The voice work is flawless. The animation is crisp, colorful, and creative. Jones would use Ralphie again in the Adventures of Road Runner TV pilot. This is a beautiful classic, from both artistic and entertainment perspectives. Chuck Jones is my favorite of the Golden Age animation greats and cartoons like this are why.

Semi-sequel to Chuck Jones's earlier "From A to Z-z-z-z", about young daydreamer Ralph Phillips. This time, he accidentally breaks a window, gets sent to his room and has a series of fantasies.While Ralph Phillips only appeared in these two cartoons (plus an educational cartoon in which he enlists in the army), his wild imagination shows childhood at its most innocent. Who didn't, as a child, imagine himself/herself having all sorts of neat adventures? In my opinion, the fine troika of fictional daydreaming characters is Ralph Phillips, Walter Mitty and Calvin (of "Calvin and Hobbes"). I certainly never would have thought up "Martians who got straight A's in arithmetic". I recommend "Boyhood Daze".

Here we have yet another rarely-seen and under-appreciated cartoon classic by Chuck Jones. Ralph Phillips' three fantasies after he gets sent to his room for breaking a window are exactly the the sort of thing that any imaginative nine-year-old would think of, and the script is chock full of screwy lines like "My insurance will pay for the the window and use whatever is left over to buy yourself a catcher's mitt" and "You are being pursued by Martians who all got "A"s in Arithmetic" -- just the sort of vengeful daymares that every child who is regularly laughed at by his classmates would dream. It was so good that Jones managed one and a half sequels. Keep an eye out for this one.