The conventions of children’s animal stories are odd. I suppose they go back to folklore, but there are certain aspects of them that we never quite question. The idea, for example, that both predator and prey species speak the same language—and in this case, go to one another’s birthday parties, though I suppose there’s not much pure prey at this party. There are, though, a handful of nondescript Just Sort of Animals running around, and certainly more than a few of the predator species we see are not averse to eating monkeys, given the opportunity.
Elmer Elephant (who has no lines) is attending the birthday party of Tillie Tiger (Bernice Hansen). He obviously has a crush on her. She runs up to her little loft thingie for, you know, reasons, and the other animals make fun of his appearance, shaming him away from the party. Then I guess the candles from the birthday cake, which no one has been able to blow out, light her house on fire? Anyway, there is fire, and Elmer, with the help of an elderly giraffe (Pinto Colvig) and a trio of Durante-impersonating pelicans, go off to the rescue.
Why do all these parties lack adult supervision? Sure, I believe that Tillie might’ve told Joey Hippo (Clarence Nash) to knock it off, if she hadn’t gone off to do a thing, but yeah. Her parents aren’t there to do it; children’s parties in things like this are a bit, well, law-of-the-jungle. The children can spent the entire party putting together elaborate get-ups to insult one another’s physical appearance because there’s no adult to tell them not to. Which may go a way toward explaining why Tillie’s house catches fire.
Even as a child, I tended to wonder where these animals got off insulting other animals’ appearance anyway. This is a common thing in children’s stories; see also The Saggy Baggy Elephant. It was easy to see a cartoon in which the deep-voiced and portly Joey Hippo was the one being teased. Or the bears with Mickey’s ears. Really, in any cartoon with multiple species hanging out together, you can see any given animal as a prospective target of ridicule, if that’s the way the story chose to go. Presumably the monkeys would band together, but as for the rest? Yeah, they’re all potential targets.
Also, you know, this is your standard Children’s Cartoon Jungle. Inasmuch as we have a wide array of animals, few of whom are natural jungle dwellers, all living in the same area despite being native to at least two and likely three continents. (I’m pretty sure those monkeys are using prehensile tails, an exclusive trait of New World monkeys.) Maybe even four, depending on where those bears are from. I’m supposed to be teaching my daughter, who’s a little over a year and a half, about animals as part of the way we’re encouraging her to talk. But I feel as though we’re kind of showing her that all animals are the same size and live in the same place, and that’s weird to me.
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