Far from Perfect, Far from Terrible

Brilliant and touching

It’s an especially fun movie from a director and cast who are clearly having a good time allowing themselves to let loose.

The tone of this movie is interesting -- the stakes are both dramatic and high, but it's balanced with a lot of fun, tongue and cheek dialogue.

If this isn't the very best of all the Tex Avery cartoons, it's certainly near the top of the list. There isn't a second to spare in this constantly inventive cartoon. Everyone seeks out the hair-in-the-projector gag but there are so many more. It's true that some of the jokes haven't fared too well and have managed to offend some viewers these days. Anything that is not praise is somehow bad. The solution to this, I suppose, would be that no humor aimed at any group of people should be allowed, or better yet, no humor aimed at any individual. That's certainly the safe course. No one would be able to take offense at anyone, ever! Thank goodness this was made at a time when people could look at themselves and find humor...and even laugh on occasion. We could ban Elmer Fudd because he stutters or Daffy Duck because he has a lisp. The list is endless. Just imagine - Pepe Le Pew taken out of circulation because he's a skunk with a French accent! How utterly insulting to an entire country and anyone in the world with a drop of French blood...Curtis Stotlar

This has been one of my favorites since I was a kid. The machinations that Mysto the Magician goes through to upstage Poochini are hilarious. Notice the hair on the film gag? My favorite change is the one near the end where Poochini's a Polynesian (?) dancer and the two rabbits are beside him! One word of warning though - On Cartoon Network, they have cut three of the changes (Chinese, both Blackface) so it's not as good as the uncut version.

Tex Avery did for writing cartoons what Mel Blanc did for voicing them. Magical Maestro is yet another of his brilliant concepts. As in almost all of his cartoons, the jokes are non-stop and damn funny, the re-occuring theme of one person making anothers miserable is in full bloom here. Lets hope that an Avery collection is released soon on DVD.

Let me first state that I think that Tex Avery is to the animated short what Walt Disney was to the feature-length animated film. So many of the conventions of animated shorts were either started by Avery or so effectively used by him that he gave us the cartoon format that we know and, hopefully, love. And Magical Maestro is vintage Tex Avery-gags fired at the viewer one right after another, most of them hilarious. This is excellent work from a master of a highly under-rated art form. Bravo! Encore!