I'd Climb the Highest Mountain (1931) *** (out of 4)The Fleischer Studio produced a number of these animated short films where the "bouncing ball" would have audience members singing together. Our story starts off with a man literally willing to climb the highest mountain for his woman. This includes having to carry and drag her up it. This here is certainly one of the more entertaining shorts that I've seen from the series because the characters are rather funny, the story is nice and it leads to a good song. The animation is certainly the highlight here and especially the various gags that are added to the start of the picture as this poor man has to go through a lot of trouble to get the woman up the mountain.

The Fleischer Brothers actually produced their first screen song in 1924 and began semi-regular production in 1926. By the time this one came out they had a standard format: a series of blackout gags, followed by a rendition of the song, with the now-classic bouncing ball.This one begins with Bimbo trying to shlep a fat woman up a mountain in competition with three mice -- everyone used cartoon mice until Disney began to sue his competitors. The gags are good ones, with the era's "rubber tube" style of animation, in which shapes were easily mutable and inanimate objects could show a mouth and begin singing along. It's a typically excellent example of the series in this period covering the sentimental song.