Greetings Bait Review

Greetings Bait is a 1943 animated short film from the Merry Melodies series. It is a weaker short.

The story is hard to explain but it involves a worm, a fisherman and a crab. First and foremost, this short is actually rather inspired in a couple of its scenes. The fight near the end and the overall ending is a lot of fun. The point of view shared with the split-screen was pretty inventive and the overall look of the movie is excellent.

However, the entire emphasis on pop-culture references of its time hurt the movie from becoming timeless. Instead, it’s rather dated nowadays. Also, the characters are underutilized and the film is awfully paced and structured leading to a highly uneven sounding and structured movie which is very different in most of its segments.

Greetings Bait has its standout moments and it looks interesting, but the structure, pacing and characterization needed more work.