"Scrambled Eggs" (1939) is a cartoon about a mischievous supernatural forest character named Peterkin who is drawn as a boy satyr (human form with pointed ears, tail and goat legs) who plays a flute and causes mischief in the forest. When the birds tell him to be quiet, he decides to get back at them by sneaking under the birds' nests positioned on a massive "Maternity Tree" and switching the eggs in the various nests so that when they hatch, every bird couple is greeted with a different species of bird. E.g., the canaries hatch a pirate-talking parrot and the English sparrows hatch a mockingbird, which quickly begins "mocking" the sparrow father by speaking in an English accent, too. The father birds get very suspicious of their wives and fly off to "the club," while the mother birds "go home to mother," leaving the baby birds hungry and crying for food, which leaves Peterkin the only one who can take care of them, a task he attempts gamely but is profoundly unsuited for.
It's a cute cartoon with some amusing gags, but it's of interest mainly for the bright Technicolor spectrum, the beautiful forest background designs, including some remarkably detailed tree trunks, and the artful designs found on each of the nests. There's a pretty impressive array of bird species on view also, including, in addition to those already mentioned, finches, warblers, blackbirds, and a stork doctor. Foreshadowing the emergence in the next year of Walter Lantz's most popular character, Woody Woodpecker, there's even a Woodpecker couple.
The story is by Elaine Pogany, with designs by Willy Pogany, both of whom are given prominent credit. Apparently, there were no other Peterkin cartoons by Walter Lantz, although the character was featured the following year in a children's book called "Peterkin," created by the Poganys, a husband-and-wife team, with Elaine doing the story and Willy doing the artwork. A prominent book illustrator, Willy Pogany also did art direction on some major films in the 1930s, including PALMY DAYS, FASHIONS OF 1934, and the Busby Berkeley musicals, WONDER BAR and DAMES, in addition to directing the delirious Technicolor finale of Eddie Cantor's KID MILLIONS. This cartoon was one of the first done in color by Lantz and it's found in the Woody Woodpecker and Friends Classic Cartoon Collection DVD box set.