Max Fleischer's Gabby (Plus Bonus Cartoons) - [DVD]

<p>After making their first big-budget feature-length movie Gulliver's Travels (1939) animation pioneers Max and Dave Fleischer looked for ways to maximize the film's potential. Perhaps inspired by how Dopey from Disney's Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937) had become a merchandising phenomenon, they decided to spin off Gabby, the Lilliputian town crier from Gulliver, into his own theatrical cartoon shorts. Beginning with October 1940's King for a Day, the series followed the nosy Gabby as he tirelessly irritated the king, mayor, and even firefighters of Lilliput. As in Gulliver, he was played by animator/voice actor Pinto Colvig, most famous as the voice of Disney's Goofy. The outbreak of WWII meant that the Fleischers were unable to claim Gulliver's overseas profits, putting them in the red. They went bankrupt and were bought out by Paramount, who turned the remains of their animation company into "Famous Studios." Though they continued many of the Fleischers' popular series like Popeye, Betty Boop, and Superman, Famous Studios never made a single Gabby cartoon, letting the character fall into obscurity.</p>