Pagan Moon
| Pagan Moon | |
|---|---|
| Merrie Melodies series | |
| Directed by | Rudolf Ising |
| Produced by | Hugh Harman & Rudolf Ising, Leon Schlesinger |
| Music by | Frank Marsales |
| Animation by | Rollin Hamilton, Norm Blackburn (credited as "Drawn by") |
| Studio | Harman-Ising Studios |
| Distributed by | Warner Bros., The Vitaphone Corporation |
| Release date(s) | January 31, 1932 (U.S.A.) |
| Color process | Black-and-white |
| Running time | 7 min. |
| Language | English |
| Preceded by | Bosko at the Zoo (1932) |
| Followed by | Freddy the Freshman (1932) |
Pagan Moon is an American animated short film. It is a Merrie Melody cartoon, possibly released on January 31, 1932, although one source gives January 23 as the date of release and another only lists it under the years 1931-1932. Like most Merrie Melodies of the time, it was directed by Rudolf Ising and is named after a song prominently featured in the short. Frank Marsales was its musical director.
The iris opens to two Polynesian natives, a boy and a girl, on a beach at dusk; the boy sings the title song and accompanies himself on a ukulele before switching to scatting; occasionally, the camera cuts to two older ukulelists. The island joins in the musical number: a monkey perched atop a palm tree plays cocoanuts, his drumsticks bones; a larger primate, angry at being disturbed by the percussion, emerges, but his scolding is cut short when the monkey knocks the reprehending ape out with one of the bones; another palm tree dances excitedly to the tune; on the branch of another tree, three little birds and their parent dance.
The boy, again at his ukulele, ends the number after jumping onto what he believes to be a safe stretch of land but is, in fact, a crocodile; astonished, the boy leaps up and away, dropping his instrument, which falls into the great reptile's maw. Unable at first for fear to attempt the beast's mouth, the clever boy offers a sturdy stick, which the animal is all too willing to swallow: the little hero places the stick upright in the crocodile's dilated jaws and, in the resulting reprieve, reaches down his throat and fetches the lute; this done, the boy taunts his foe with a few carefree plucks of the strings.
He then dances across some pond rocks, ending upon the shell-back of an unamused turtle, who carries the boy to land and curtly drops him off. The boy then skips over some more rocks to meet his sweetheart, who sits in a small boat; he fools around with his ukulele and drops it into the water. He dives down to rescue it, avoiding a rather menacing-looking fish, swimming past some smaller fish flopping melodically upon a submerged piano, and using the same instrument to entertain a disgruntled octopus, all without rising for breath!
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