'Flying South' is only the fifth official Heckle and Jeckle cartoon, and already the two are well established and very entertaining characters. Plus the tone, on the whole very anarchic and darkly funny (though there are instances where some may find some of the antics throughout the series on the too cruel side), of the series (which lasted twenty years with 52 cartoons) was very quickly found. Rather than an example of a series where it took a while to find its feet.
1947 was when the series started getting prolific, after only being introduced the previous year, and of the two theatrical series that dominated that year's batch (the other being Mighty Mouse) Heckle and Jeckle proved to be the better and more consistent. 'Flying South' is a good example of this. It is not one of the best Heckle and Jeckle cartoons, and did prefer all the previous cartoons in the series. It is still good however and as far as Terrytoons' 1947 output goes, 'Flying South' is by quite some way one of the best.
'Flying South' is not flawless and falls short of being great, and is merely quite good. Despite the premise actually being quite original for the Heckle and Jeckle series, with initial allusions of 'Little Red Riding Hood', it does get increasingly easy to know what happens next from it structurally actually not being much different to other Heckle and Jeckle cartoons. It was no surprise as to how 'Flying South' was going to end, with a couple of exceptions such as 'The Intruders' there was little chance of it ending the way one think it would from the tone of the rest of the series.
Part of me did feel that it was a bit too neat at the end and tonally it was at odds with the rest of the cartoon.
There is so much to like about 'Flying South'. Heckle and Jeckle are amusing and colourful characters and actually quite liked it that they were more rootable than usual in a situation that did make me root for them to come out of. All while not toning them down too much, their anarchy is as sharp and darkly amusing as ever. The wolf is one of the few opponents to actually pose a genuine threat, wanting to make them into magpie stew is one of the darkest motives for any of their opponents, while not being too creepy or being too much of a buffoon in his comic timing.
Animation is also fine. Vibrant colours, nice attention to detail, far from static or simplistic backgrounds, the drawing is so much smoother than when the studio first started and the transitions are much more fluid and less choppy, nowhere near as much recycling or cutting corners either. The music never disappointed with Terrytoons, always the best asset of their worst efforts and it is one of the best things here still. It is so lovely to listen to and there is such an uplifting vibe hearing it because of the snappy character it has.
Despite there perhaps being higher gag counts in other Heckle and Jeckle cartoons than 'Flying South', and also more original ones, there are still plenty of them here and all of them are fun and well timed if not quite hilarious. The dialogue is snappy, with a very chilling introductory line from the wolf, and so is the pacing which never lets up in liveliness.
Concluding, quite good. 7/10