Joe Glow, the Firefly Review

Joe Glow, the Firefly a 1941 animated short film from the Merry Melodies series. It is such a well animated short.

Yes, the animation is the major and mostly sole reason to see this short as it looks beautiful and highly artistic. The backgrounds are great, the main character is so well designed and the man is particularly great, polished and with such a wonderful portrait-like, still approach to his design. All that led to what is possibly the best looking of all black-and-white Warner Bros. shorts.

Joe Glow himself is pretty likable and memorable and the film has its terrific moments, especially the exploration of the man’s face and the table scenes with pepper scene being the best one. However, the overall premise is highly familiar by now, the film lacks strong action and is almost devoid of gags as it favors mood over humor to mixed results.

Joe Glow, the Firefly lacks in terms of the substance, but in terms of the style it succeeds thoroughly as it’s very artistically animated.