The Isle of Pingo Pongo Review

The Isle of Pingo Pongo is a 1938 animated short film from the Merry Melodies series. It is a surprisingly solid entry.

This one belongs in the Censored Eleven and is actually one of the best cartoons from that particular list. Certainly the narration is overwhelming at times, the animation is particularly weak and unappealing here and the natives’ designs are ridiculously racist and just awful. But everything else is pretty solid.

By everything else I mean Egghead who is very funny here with his constant interruptions and asking his boss if he should do it. And then he finally does shoot the sun at the end and makes it sink down after the boss failed to make it set down. That was a hilarious, perfectly executed gag for a great finale. And the rest of the cartoon is pretty funny at times and I enjoyed its travelogue approach a lot.

The Isle of Pingo Pongo is racist and weakly animated, but frequently funny and absolutely brilliant in its final gag.