BCDB: Cartoon Reviews: A Car-Tune Portrait

The Fleischers give it a go with their pioneering treatment of Liszt's "Hungarian Rhapsody #2." They make a nice job of it overall, though they'd be easily surpassed just a few years later by Warner's "Rhapsody In Rivets" & "Rhapsody Rabbit," and by MGM's "Cat Concerto" (which itself was strictly second-hand goods).
Greatly entertaining.

The cartoon being with a hand sketching a cartoon of a majectic looking lion in a tuxedo to the tuen, "Please Keep Me in Your Dreams." This technique was Max Fleisher's animation signature going back to his silent OUT OF THE INKWELL series, and is the only time it was done in color. The artistic hand also paints a stage background, and as we see the lion walk across the stage, we come to understand that he is the conductor or an orchestra. With great poise and dignity, and directed enuniation, the lion proposes to present the inhabitants of the cartoon world as having a serious and culture side, and he proposes to present a high brow concert of THE HUNGARIAN RHAPSODY by Franz List. But true to cartoon form, the dignified air is soon punctured, and the entire performance turns into a comical free-for-all. Many of the elements in this short such as the tuxedoed host, and dissolvling colored lights and silhouttes of the orchestra seem quite similar to those used in FANTASIA three years later. Even the eventual lampooning of the music might suggest the comedic DANCE OF THE HOURS sequence. This is well worth seeing from a truly historical perspective.