She Was an Acrobat's Daughter is an animated short in the Merrie Melodies series, produced by Vitaphone Productions and released by Warner Bros. Pictures, Inc. on April 10, 1937.
A sign advertises the double feature of the day, 36 Hours to Kill and His Brother's Wife (both 1936).
This introduces a scene where every other member of the audience decides to change seats, resulting in constant re-positioning.
[3] The film show begins with a newsreel called "Goofy-Tone News", produced by "Warmer Bros.".
[3] The first news item is that the United States are involved in a shipbuilding race and have just constructed the longest ocean liner.
[3] The next news item features "Heddie Camphor" (Eddie Cantor) interviewing Little Oscar, a long-lost insect.
His news story takes place in the town of Boondoggle, Missouri, where the bite of a mad dog has had strange effects on the population.
Maestro "Stickoutski" (Leopold Stokowski) plays his "fertilizer" (Wurlitzer pipe organ), while lyrics appear on screen for the audience to follow in singing.
[3] In a gag, an irrelevant sign is depicted among the lyrics, and the audience sings its message: "please do not spit on the floor".
[3] Afterwards, the main feature is presented, with a parody of the Leo the Lion (MGM) logo who crows like a rooster instead of roaring at the start.
He starts advertising various food items that he is selling in a loud voice, which results in the audience kicking him out of the building.
Like other Warner Bros. animated shorts of the late 1930s, the film uses such typical nuisances and the reactions to them as a subject of comedy.
[4] Part of the film parodies The Petrified Forest (1936) and depicts caricatures of its leading actors, Leslie Howard and Bette Davis.
The film is turned "funnier" by having an interference in the projecting booth altering and reversing its sequence of events.
[5] Donald Crafton suggests that the film also pokes fun at another figure familiar to its creators, though not necessarily the audience.
[6] Some gags seem to be recycled from the earlier films Bosko's Picture Show (1933) and Buddy's Theatre (1935).