It was the first of five cartoons directed by Earl Duvall, here credited as "Duval", at Warner Bros. Cartoons, and one of only three Buddy shorts directed by him. Musical direction was by Norman Spencer.[4]
Tashlin who used the pseudonym Tish-Tash on the cartoon, first used that pen name in the 1933 film Hook and Ladder Hokum. It was around this time that he met Leon Schlesinger, who offered him a job as an animator in California. Tashlin, who was only twenty years old at the time left for Los Angeles, and started his career with the cartoon studio at Warner Bros..[5]
Summary
We enter Buddy's beer garden, where are gathered many merry patrons, singing "Oh du lieber Augustin", mugs in hand. The happy opening scene fades to one of an equally merry Buddy, who balances a tray and sings of the good cheer his beer brings (to the tune of "Auf Wiederseh'n (We'll Meet Again)"), as he fixes a tablecloth and sets down two glasses of his ware, while a black dog, pretzels on its tail, behind him barks in tune. A German oom-pah band creates an ambience (and, as the band reappears four times throughout the cartoon, each time they are seen, as a gag, a small member of the group will come out of the largest member's brass instrument, playing, in succession, a trumpet, maracas, a piano, and a bass drum). Beer flows on tap, and Buddy ensures that each mug has plenty of foam. Cookie neatly prepares several pretzels, which then are salted by the same little dachshund, and carried thence away. The tongue sandwiches offered as part of the bar's free lunch sing and lap up mustard; an impatient patron (presumably the same brute who serves as the villain in later shorts, such as Buddy's Show Boat and Buddy's Garage) demands his beer, which he instantly gulps down upon its arrival.
All present take part in "It's Time to Sing 'Sweet Adeline' Again": some sing, one patron plays his spaghetti as though the noodles were strings on a harp, Buddy makes an instrument out of his steins, and Cookie comes around, offering cigars and cigarettes to the patrons, one of whom, the same impatient brute as before, accepts, but not before freshly stroking the girl's chin. Cookie performs an exotic dance for the entire beer garden, and is joined by the selfsame patron, and a formerly stationery piano. The film goes on: Buddy whistles "Hi Lee Hi Lo", tossing beer from one mug to another, preparing sandwiches, clearing tables.
As a final treat for his customers, Our Hero introduces a lady singer (who bears a striking resemblance to Mae West), who reveals herself only after Buddy's departure and a brief musical interlude. The grand dame attracts the attention of the very same recurring patron, who drunkenly stumbles over to her with the intention of receiving a kiss: as the song ("I Love my Big Time, Slow Time Baseball Man") ends, he makes his request, but a horned goat, part of a poster advertising "Bock Beer", but nonetheless quite alive, with its horns stabs the patron's backside, sending him flying. The patron, on his airborne journey, causes the lady singer to catch her dress on an overhanging tree; the dress tears, and the throaty performer, now grounded, is revealed to be a cross-dressed Buddy. Pleasantly embarrassed, Buddy stalks away, waving blithely to all present; in the final shot, we see that the bird cage strapped to Buddy's posterior (there to replicate the voluptuousness of his singing person), in fact houses an exotic bird, which shows itself to have a voice and nose like those of Jimmy Durante, as well as a saying: "Am I mortified!"
Critical analysis and reception
In his analysis of the cartoon, professor of film studies Ethan de Seife wrote in his book, Tashlinesque: The Hollywood Comedies of Frank Tashlin:
Buddy's Beer Garden' ... is another archetypal cartoon: it is a perfect example of the style of the early 1930s Merrie Melodies. The film is an especially plain attempt to cash in on Disney's highly successful 'Silly Symphonies' formula. This plotless film's characters lack personalities but are aggressively cute, and everyone sings and bobs in time to the constant light-swing score — a technique known as 'Mickey Mousing'. It is a workmanlike cartoon; the only hints of Tashlinian humor are the appearances of an impossibly voluptuous Mae West figure and a wisecracking parrot that morphs into Jimmy Durante. The film offers no major insight into Tashlin's style; it is more interesting as evidence of Warners early, carbon-copy strategy of coping with the Disney monolith.[6]
Beck and Friedwald wrote that "Buddy is not only Warner's greatest pre-Bugs Bunny authority on cross-dressing, in this particular film he's the closest thing the '30s have to Pee-Wee Herman.[2]The Motion Picture Herald said "this is a very interesting short; good music and lots of laughs."[7]
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