Captains Christmas" with The Captain and the Kids (1938)

The Captain is playing Santa for the Kids, while his old nemesis Long John and his henchmen plan to rob him up and take all the presents for the boys.   But the band of would be robbers make a mess of the whole scheme.

When John does get in the house by accident he is dazed from a fall down the chimney and quickly reverts to being a big kid, playing with the toys he had intended to steal. While playing with the toys  things get out of hand and he winds up breaking them all, leaving the kids in tears.

Confronted by the heartbroken boys; as well as his conscience; he sets out to replace the gifts by singing Christmas Carols with his gang. They sing so poorly at first that people throw things at them to stop. But with a little effort they wind up singing beautifully and the people wind up throwing presents at them instead.

Gathering the gifts up in the sleigh the band of pirates then return to the scene of the “crime” in the true Christmas spirit, delighting the boys and assuaging John’s guilt. In the end all works out well and Christmas is saved.

There were only 15 Captain and the Kids cartoons made. This one was released in theaters on December 17, 1938.

"Petunia Natural Park" - Captain and the Kids (1939)

Continuing on with another of the Captain and the Kid’s cartoons, in this one we find the entire Katzenjammer family on an outing in Petunia Natural Park. Lots of sight gags and double entendre stuff to laugh at. At one point, when Mama takes a picture of a bear, she ends up on the other end of the camera and then goes on to run afoul of the law when she picks a flower.

  

Meantime the Captain falls victim to an undercover ranger while feeding a bear. And the boys have their own experiences with the natural geysers when they use it for the car radiator; causing an unexpected reaction; and also give some to the Captain to drink!

This is one of the few color cartoons of the Captain and the Kids series. The artwork is excellent and the story is funny enough to hold the interest of even the most uninterested adult. And, to top it off the humor is timeless.

"Mama's New Hat" with Captain & the Kids (1939)

When the boys buy a new hat for Mother’s Day they don’t expect the problems they are about to have. As they exit the store they trip and the hat ends up in a mud puddle; ruined. Spying a nearby horse they decide to swap the ruined hat with the one on the horse’s head. (This is a cartoon so there is no reason for the horse NOT to be wearing a hat.)

Sensing an opportunity, the boys quickly exchange the muddy hat for the one the horse is wearing. When the horse figures out she has been swindled she gallops after them, only to lose the trail. She is left searching the streets for the scent of the boys, and her hat.

Meantime, back at home, the boys have presented Mama with her Mother’s Day gift. She promptly goes for a stroll to show it off. And then she comes face to face with the horse, who immediately begins to chase her in order to get her hat back. A very frightened Mama leads the horse back to the house, and the horse actually gets inside to search room by room for what is rightfully hers.

The boys; knowing that they caused this whole mess in the first place; decide to do something. So, they sit the horse down and attempt to mollify her by having her try on every piece of headgear in the house; football helmet and lamp shade included. When the horse becomes dizzy with all the hats and mirrors the boys push her into the bathroom, where she finds herself in the tub with a very surprised, and angry Captain.

The chase that begins in the bathroom reaches epic proportions in relation to the size of the hat at stake. At one point; through the magic of cartoon reality; the horse becomes an airplane with the aid of an electric fan and a dining room table. When they snag the electric line they take most of the town’s power lines along with them before crashing onto a laundry “tree” in someone’s backyard with the contested headpiece landing just out of reach.

At this point the fan; which is still stuck to the horse’s ass; turns the laundry “tree” into a merry go round, with the prized hat becoming the “golden ring.”  The Captain and the Kids cartoons grew out of the comic strip of the same name; which grew out of the Katzenjammer Kids series. For a really good article about the history of that series; with links to the Captain and the Kids strip; use this link;

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Katzenjammer_Kids