The Cricket in Times Square Reviews

Between 1973 and 1975, Chuck Jones produced three specials based upon The Cricket in Times Square by George Selden. This first entry plays the story straight, complete with an ending that feels somehow rushed upon given the leisurely pace of the rest of the piece.

There’s a quietness and gentle spirit at work here, something you just don’t find any longer in children’s entertainment. The story is a simple urban fairy tale, a family’s newsstand in the subway near Times Square is having trouble generating business, and a cricket from the countryside accidentally gets transplanted there. The cricket befriends the young son of the family, along with a streetwise mouse and urbane cat, and the three critters plot to help the family’s fortunes. The cricket it revealed to have a wonderful gift for music, and this proves the key to changing the family’s financial woes.

That’s it, that’s the entirety of the story, no cynicism, no snark, just heartfelt lessons about how music can be a bridge between different people and helping others. The art is more sophisticated here than your typical Jones work up to this point, which human figures looking more realistic, and animals appearing more grounded than the elongated shapes and loose limbs of his more famous work. Jones also made the choice to hold back on showing the human character’s faces until late in the running time, using their wide-eyed wonder and expressions of joy primarily in the climax, which finds the cricket performing his final concert and all of Times Square pausing to take in the beauty of the music. It’s a wonderful bit of flourish in this urban fairy tale.

Shame then that right after this ebullient moment the story quickly winds down with the next scene being one in which the father takes the cricket on the train to Connecticut to release him back into the wild. This thread, of the cricket yearning to go back home, is introduced early, then quickly brushed aside in favor of Mel Blanc’s Tucker the Mouse cracking jokes alongside Les Tremayne’s haughty purrs. It’s not a fatal flaw, as everything that came before it is strong, but it’s just a weird bit of pacing. Still, of the three Cricket specials, this is the strongest and most satisfying.