Meatless Flyday (1944) User Reviews

Warner Bros.' prognosticating "Boys of Termite Terrace" . . .

[oscaralbert · 6/10 · 8 September 2017]

. . . (aka, The Looney Tuners) were a fearless bunch, always willing to let the chips fall where they may, even if it turned out to be in-house. MEATLESS FLYDAY is sort of like a futuristic "inside joke," as it predicts the Decline and Fall of credited producer Leon Schlesinger a few months later for swindling U.S. taxpayers by padding his "Private SNAFU" series expense account and prolonging World War Two in skimming off some of the funds then in short supply that were ear-marked for Boot Camp/Basic Training cartoon briefs. The "extras" included on many of today's Warner Bros. DVD Looney Tunes collections feature archival footage of the devious Mr. Schlesinger, who was a dead ringer for MEATLESS FLYDAY's guffawing spider. The fact that MEATLESS FLYDAY ends with the humiliated spider scuttling to Washington, DC, in a vain attempt to reclaim his lost reputation is an uncannily spot-on testament to the accuracy of Warner's Animated Shorts Seers division. Their Cassandra-like penchant for churning out clarion cries of alarm falling upon "deaf ears" is seldom shown more clearly than in the fact that Mr. Schlesinger ignored this warning shot from his own underlings, and just kept blithely cheating We the People as a Fat Cat Plunderer until he got the just desserts of his own doom!

Brilliant, a masterpiece of animation.

[varsania · 10/10 · 25 April 2001]

I have had the rare opportunity to view this classic cartoon on the Cartoon Network 6 years ago. It is a real gem. Simple storyline of a big bad spider trying to catch a fly. The spider is a wonderfully fresh, unique character. Brilliant voice, expressions, attire. The fly is a mute. Animation is perfect, music splendid. All in all one of the finest cartoons ever made. One of my favourite lines was "and how does my little man relish the goodies the big bad spider has left for him hmmm?" after coating the metal pellets with kandy kolor. Other great lines were "Look at him, heckling me. A poor mans Bugs Bunny." and "Cheeky little cuss. He kills me! I know, I'll kill him!".