Watch The Dover Boys at Pimento University or The Rivals of Roquefort Hall For Free

the audience applauded

Pretty good movie overall. First half was nothing special but it got better as it went along.

It’s not bad or unwatchable but despite the amplitude of the spectacle, the end result is underwhelming.

Great example of an old-fashioned, pure-at-heart escapist event movie that doesn't pretend to be anything that it's not and has boat loads of fun being its own ludicrous self.

Dover Boys at Pimento University or The Rivals of Roquefort Hall, The (1942) ** (out of 4) At one time Chuck Jones said Warner almost fired him because of this cartoon and it's very easy to see why. This here is without question one of the strangest shorts I've seen from the studio. Three brothers, Larry, Tom and Dick, are taking their fiancé out when a rival kidnaps her. I'm really not sure what to say about this film but I guess the best way to put it is that this is either a great masterpiece of originality or one of the worst films ever made. I'll let you decide but I thought the film was pretty bad but at the same time I couldn't help but admire how different it was. The characters are strange, the color scheme is strange and pretty much everything else is strange including the humor. I'm really not sure what this thing is trying to do or if it's trying to spoof something but this here is one you'll have to see for yourself.

Cartoon humorists loved that first gag in this film: "Good 'ole P.U." (in this case, Pimento University)The story concerns the three Dover boys at this hallowed college campus: "Tom (the fun- loving member of the trio); Dick (a serious lad of 18 summers plus a winter in Florida); and Larry (the youngest of the three jerks.... er, ....brothers.). A gay outing in the park has been planned by the merry trio and they are off to fetch their fiancée, Dainty Dora Standpipe...."As you can read, the humor is quite corny, but, first, the cartoon was made back in the early '40s, second, and this also was some obvious parody - of what, exactly, I don't honestly know, but some serial-type story from the 1890s.What really caught my eye were the colors and fantastic overall artwork in this nine-minute cartoon. Scene after scene was beautifully drawn, from the Victorian houses to the old- fashioned bicycles, the clothing of the day, etc. The vocabulary of this cartoon (i.e., "Hark!", "Drat!," "Confound them!" etc.) also was extremely entertaining as the writers poked fun at the pulp novels of the day and the good-verses-evil descriptions from the "Gay '90s."In other words, the visuals and the corny dialog make this a unique and entertaining (except for Mel Blanc's screaming "Dan Backslide" character) - Looney Tunes feature, not something were accustomed to seeing. It's different. The way some of the characters were drawn reminded me of the Beatles' animated feature "Yellow Submarine."This is original, good material and part of the Looney Tunes Golden Collection Volume Two.

I'm of two minds about this cartoon. It is nearly perfect (a bit long, that's all) by itself, but should it have been the first of a series or just been a single example? Hard for me to really say.Reminding me of another great single cartoon (ONE FROGGY DAY) wherein Michigan J. Frog sings all these turn of the century vaudeville tunes, it is set in 1890. The spoof is about "the Rover Boys" who were popular fictional heroes from college (like "Frank Merriwell") in that period. Every action they do in the cartoon is an exaggeration of what the clean cut heroes of that period were supposed to do.The Dover Boys attend good old "Pimento University", "Good old Pimento U." "Good old P.U." We even see some of the "Gay '90s" students singing the university song, before they introduce the three brothers, Tom, Dick, and Harry. They are all courting Dora Sweetpipe, who is a very surprising demure woman of that period too. They are taking her to a picnic, and in the process they have a weird game of hide and seek. In their idiotic search for perfect hiding spots they end up in the local saloon/pool hall that their evil foe Dan Backslide is usually frequenting. Backslide loves Dora too - for her father's money. He decides to take advantage of Dora not being in the company of the Dover Boys to kidnap her, using a stolen runabout (hence the best line in the cartoon - in the Summary line above). However, Dan finds that to kidnap Dora is not such a wonderful idea after awhile - she throws people about like a wrestler! The conventions of 1890s good v. evil are maintained in the entire cartoon, puncturing it constantly by exaggeration. Also of assistance is a silent, fat man with sailor's hat and sideburns who keeps popping up walking through the scenes to the tune "While strolling through the park one day." In the end, this anonymous figure turns out to be far luckier than one would imagine.

I consider The Dover Boys to be Chuck Jones' first classic cartoon at Warner Bros. Before this cartoon Jones bored his audiences with weak imitations of cute Disney cartoons. Some of these earlier efforts had no humor in them at all, and the animation and timing were slow and plodding. He made a radical departure with The Dover Boys. Since it was a parody of gay nineties melodrama Jones has the characters strike very exaggerated poses. Because the poses were so strong they were easier for the eye to "read," and required less animation in between them. This also led to quicker timing of the action. Jones also invented a new way to animate speed. Up until this point in animation history speed was indicated by "drybrushing" streaks of paint following a fast moving character. Here, though, as the character moves from one extreme pose to the next he stretches like taffy (or "smears") for a few inbetween drawings. This created a more believable illusion of speed. (One has to watch these scenes frame by frame to appreciate it.) Besides all this inventiveness, the cartoon is incredible funny, too. Jones forsook Disney "realism" and has the characters move in humorous ways (Dora Standpipe never walks but glides across the floor). Mel Blank provides one of the funniest voices in his career for villain Dan Backslide. Jones got into some trouble for this experiment and it would be some time before he would use the lessons he learned from this cartoon again (mainly in the late forties). A real gem, highly recommended