Horst in Translation (filmreviews@web.de)
"Goo Goo Goliath" is a 7-minute cartoon from over 60 years ago that is certainly nowhere near Warner Bros' most known works. But with such a gigantic quantity, you cannot find quality everywhere and this is unfortunately true here. Freleng, Foster, Blanc and Benederet usually stand for quality, but not even they can make this one work. It is especially the background animation that looks lackluster here and very much inferior to what Warner Bros did during that time, or even a decade ago. One reason why this cartoon is not known today anymore is probably because it does not feature any of their most known characters. And in the middle section, it almost feels as if they were trying to channel Disney's "how to" videos starring Goofy, in this case "how to be a dad". "Goo Goo Goliath" is rarely funny or creative, I give it a thumbs down.
phantom_tollbooth
Friz Freleng's domestic comedy 'Goo Goo Goliath' takes as its starting point the idea of babies delivered to the wrong parents. Although this idea had been touched on before in cartoons such as Bob Clampett's 'Baby Bottleneck', 'Goo Goo Goliath' adds the amusing touch that the mix up is due to the drunkenness of a stork who is perpetually toasted by new parents. This concept is the best thing about this rather weak cartoon and Freleng would reprise it in the Bugs Bunny cartoon 'Apes of Wrath'. 'Goo Goo Goliath' is also similar to Chuck Jones's equally odd and misfiring 'Rocket-Bye Baby' which emerged two years after 'Goo Goo Goliath'. The idea of a giant baby delivered to a normal sized couple has very limited comic potential and 'Goo Goo Goliath' struggles to make the concept work. It's not helped by the unattractive, angular style in which the cartoon is presented. Ultimately, the jokes run dry almost immediately and there is little to recommend this unusual but unappealing cartoon.
Lee Eisenberg
I've always wondered what's up with the image of the drunken stork. Whatever it is, the besotted wading bird of the family Ciconiidae delivers a giant baby to a normal-sized couple, and...well, whatever your problems raising a baby are, they can't be this bad! I'm sure that "Goo Goo Goliath" was mostly a place holder (every director got to direct one or two miscellaneous cartoons each year). While not what I consider hilarious, it's easily enjoyable. Of course, you gotta pity storks. The mythical deliverers of new babies get depicted in cartoons as irresponsible alcoholics.Anyway, worth seeing.
CatTales
While the drunken stork is an amusing thread running through this story of baby-swapping, there are many other memorable moments: the giant baby playing with life-size trucks, or the satire of those 1950's cautionary films with the scene of an empty yard and the narrator saying "a gatedoor carelessly left ajar, and an innocent baby wanders away..." (obviously a closed gate wouldn't have impeded the giant baby), or the giant father using a jeweler's eyepiece to see as he changes the diapers on his extremely tiny baby. Perhaps not as inventive as the classic Mars/Earth baby-swap, "Rocket-bye Baby" but still worthy.
AD
