I Wanna Be a Sailor Review

I Wanna Be a Sailor is a 1937 animated short film from the Merry Melodies series. It is a childhood favorite.

Yes, this film proved to be a highly nostalgic experience for me as it is one of the rare Merry Melodies from this period which I vividly remember seeing as a kid. I loved it then and I still really like it and it is actually one of the better entries so far. So it is about a young parrot who wants to be a sailor just like his dad was, but the mother objects to that as she holds a grudge toward her no-good husband.

The film is not as great in its second half as it is in the first half as it relies so strongly on the mother parrot. Certainly the kid is fine and that duck friend of his is very memorable with his brutal line “Sissy!” being absolutely hilarious. But this is the mother’s show as she has some great one-liners here and the highlight was the scene in which she comes to her son’s mother and stops running for a moment in order to sing. That was hilarious. I liked the score and the character design, but the animation was not particularly smooth.

I Wanna Be a Sailor is a nostalgic film for me which isn’t perfect, but is good enough with memorable characters and excellent humor.