MovieChat Forums > Cricket in Times Square Discussion > Thoughts on This Film

Thoughts on This Film

posted 6 months ago by CoriSCapnSkip (2775)
9 replies | jump to latest

Tonight I watched The Cricket in Times Square, a 1973 cartoon by Chuck Jones which is a fairly faithful adaptation of the book by George Selden. The only copy I could find was on the Internet Archive. It is in terrible shape, with the music badly out of tune, and it was lucky there were captions as some of the sound is missing. The picture also kept going from light to dark and back, but it was watchable. The two-dollar bill incident, which dates the story to when two-dollar bills were available, was left out of the movie. The trip to Chinatown and the character of Sai Fong were left out, and Mario appeared at the end rather than sleeping through the actions of Tucker Mouse and Harry Cat. Pretty good but not up to the level of a classic.

[–] chilidoggg (14614) 6 months ago

Riki Tiki Tavi was the money movie. Those cobras were nasty.

[–] CoriSCapnSkip (2775) 6 months ago

Chuck Jones did make more popular movies than The Cricket in Times Square which has been forgotten. Also I am afraid much of the story has become dated so there may never be a remake unless it is set in the 1960s or 1970s.

[–] chilidoggg (14614) 6 months ago

Also "Yankee Doodle Cricket" (1975) which I see is also called "A Chosen Cricket." I got these DVDs for my kids long long ago - one of them really didn't like the part where Ben Franklin stole the mouse's idea for flying the kite with the key in the lightning storm. She was so upset.

[–] Kowalski (79177) 6 months ago

LOVE THAT ONE

[–] FilmBuff (7438) 6 months ago

My son read the book in 1st grade and became enamored of it. His entire class did. They even had a Cricket in Times Square party to close out the year, where each of them got a little bit of liverwurst because that is the cricket's favorite food. To this day (he's in 3rd grade now) he still loves liverwurst sandwiches.

I bought him the sequel, where the cat and mouse visit the cricket in Connecticut, and read it to him, and he loved that one too. We drove through Connecticut earlier this year and he and his younger brother were pointing out all the stumps along the way that might be Chester's home.

The cartoon is pretty good, though it glosses over some of the story. I should show that to the boys some time. I'm sure they'll enjoy it.

[–] CoriSCapnSkip (2775) 6 months ago

The way I watched the cartoon was to find it on Internet Archive and then pull it up on my smart phone and mirror the phone to my smart TV. I have no idea whether the cartoon is available on physical media. It is not streaming anywhere.

I remember hearing pretty recently about a Cricket in Times Square event at a school with a personal visit from the cricket so it's still popular.

[–] FilmBuff (7438) 6 months ago

Internet Archive can be hit or miss. I've seen some things there at good quality, but then other times I've found old magazines that are unreadable due to how badly they were scanned.

How did it look and sound streamed from a web page on your phone to your TV?

I do see that it's available on a DVD.

https://www.amazon.com/Chuck-Jones-White-Seal-DVD/dp/B0006FO9HY

[–] CoriSCapnSkip (2775) 6 months ago

I don't know what source it was taken from, probably an old filmstrip, as it looked and sounded terrible. The music was badly out of tune and would drive any musically inclined person up a wall. It also took away most or all of the point of the story of Chester's music being beautiful. At some point someone had mercifully captioned it because chunks of sound are gone so you can't hear everything that is said. As for the picture, it would go so dark you could hardly see Chester and then go back to normal. Other than that it was watchable.

[–] FilmBuff (7438) 6 months ago

Other than that it was watchable. lol

I may spring for the DVD and see what my kids think of the cartoon version of a book they love.