Ub Iwerks's Flip the Frog series of cartoons was short lived, only lasting from 1930 to 1933. On the most part the Flip the Frog cartoons are not great or cartoon/animated masterpieces and it is sort of understandable as to why Flip didn't make it bigger. However they are far from terrible ones either and do hold some interest, enough of them even being good. Despite not being historically significant like 'Fiddlesticks', which other than that was actually to me a lesser Flip the Frog cartoon, was, 'Coo Coo the Magician' is still pretty good. Not one of the best of the series, but far from one of the worst. It is not perfect but there are things here that improve quite a bit and done much better than many other Flip the Frog cartoons.A lot of good things in 'Coo Coo the Magician'. The animation is very good, with beautifully detailed backgrounds, nice shading and characters that aren't drawn too crudely. There is some nice character animation here. The music makes even more of an impact, it is lushly and cleverly orchestrated, full of lively energy and not only adds brilliantly to the action it enhances it. Definitely the best thing about 'Coo Coo the Magician'.There are plentiful sight gags in a gag-rich cartoon, and they are mostly beautifully timed, though there are a few sloppy ones, and very amusing, even when unoriginal. Maybe not always hilarious but they hardly fall flat. There is a nice natural charm and a good deal of zest.Characters are lively, particularly the magician. There is a lot of mischievous fun. The pacing is generally secure and the exotic setting helps hugely and used to full advantage.Flip however is still quite bland, although there were laudable attempts of making him interesting his personality generally wasn't compelling enough. Even more so is his love interest, an archetypes seen many times before. 'Coo Coo the Magician' is a fairly unoriginal cartoon too, with too much of it being derivative of similar cartoons made not long before (i.e. 'Mickey in Arabia'). The servants are stereotypical characters that are going to go either way.On the whole, definitely worth a look and somewhere in the middle ranking it with the rest of the series. 7/10 Bethany Cox

Coo Coo the Magician (1933) ** 1/2 (out of 4)Flip the Frog and his girlfriend (a Betty Boop look-a-like) are out for a walk when a magician begins to do a few tricks for him. Soon the magician oversteps his line and a fight breaks out.COO COO THE MAGICIAN is another entry in the long-running Flip series from Ub Iwerks. This entry certainly isn't among the best of the series but there are still enough good moments here to recommend it to fans of that frog. Once again the best thing about the film is the animation with Iwerks bring a creative imagination to Flip's adventure, which takes him through various fights as the Betty Boop wannabe sits back and watches. The magician character really isn't as interesting as one would hope but if you're a fan you'll still want to check it out.

Flip The Frog goes head-to-head with a swami-type magician, both trying to top each other (with some funny results). This all happens after the latter pulls a disappearing act with Flip's girlfriend. You can't blame a frog for trying to get his girl back.Flip goes inside the big tent where the magician went to present this girl - a small version of Betty Boop - to his king.I guess it was an offering of some kind. The king likes her, pays the magician cash, and the girl tries to escape but there are guards everywhere. When Flip arrives, we get more of these crazy magic stunts and he tries to get his girl back and the opposing magician tries to prevent that from happening.As with most of these UB Iwerks' Flip short subjects, it's a nonstop adventure filled with what seems like a hundred sight gags packed into seven or eight minutes. So....is it entertaining and worth a look? Sure!

This is Flip at his sleepwalking best. For all of Ub Iwerks' obvious technical expertise, his studio, in a bare five years was the birthplace of two of the most tedious, uninteresting continuing characters ever to grace the screen (up until Pauly Shore and "Dice" Clay came along) in Flip the Frog and Willie Whopper. All the entertainment value here lies with ABF (Anything But Flip). There are some truly excellent and very creepy scenes that are worth the price of admission and the technical aspects are first-rate, including the music, but that's almost a given. This one nearly sinks under the frog's sophorific performance.A side note: the history of animation is filled with little things which led to big things, like Tex Avery's quarrel with Leon Schlesinger that ended up with Avery at MGM and fantastic things coming about as a result. Iwerks left Disney to start his studio and Carl Stallings left with him. After Iwerks studio folded, Stallings went on to Warner Brothers and the rest is history. Although it could be argued that Stallings might have gone there anyway, it most certainly wouldn't have been under the same timing and circumstances and he would have had different experiences. Stallings may well have not left Disney in the 1930s and Warner Brothers cartoons would never have been the same. Make Flip and Willie worthwhile just for that. Not a bad cartoon, but it could have been better. Glad it saw print. Recommended for Stallings fans.