Hunky and Spunky (1938)
In the Old West, a prospector tries to press a stubborn young burro into service as his pack animal, and the foal's mother steps in to protect her son.
Hunky and Spunky introduces the mother-and-son burro duo and was nominated for the 1938 Academy Award for Best Short Subject (Cartoons), shot in three-strip Technicolor at a time when that was still a rarity for a Fleischer series.
Background
Directed by Dave Fleischer, Hunky and Spunky introduced the mother-and-son burro duo who would carry a seven-cartoon Technicolor series for Fleischer Studios and Paramount through 1941. Set in the Old West, the short follows a prospector trying to break the stubborn young burro Spunky into service as a pack animal, only for Spunky’s mother, Hunky, to intervene and protect him. Shot in three-strip Technicolor, still an unusual and costly process for a Fleischer short at the time, the film was nominated for the 1938 Academy Award for Best Short Subject (Cartoons), losing to Disney’s Ferdinand the Bull.
What to watch for
The series’ gentler, cast-against-type register stands out: Fleischer was best known in this period for the more frantic, urban energy of Popeye and Betty Boop, and Hunky and Spunky’s rural, mother-protects-child story is a notably softer mode for the studio. The three-strip Technicolor photography is also worth watching for its own sake — it gave the series a painterly richness that Fleischer’s black-and-white and two-strip work lacked, and the studio returned to Hunky and Spunky for six further shorts through 1941 on the strength of this first entry’s reception.
