Hello my friends and happy Saturday morning. Once again, it is time for some animated treasures.
Today's cartoon selection begins with Midnight Frolics (1938). This Columbia Color Rhapsody cartoon was directed by none other than Ub Iwerks, co-creator of Mickey Mouse and at one time Walt Disney's right-hand man.
Now for more singing and dancing ghosts here is the Terry Toons cartoons, Seeing Ghosts (1948).
Though Chuck Jones would be one of the main contributors into Daffy Duck changing from his early wild, unhinged and well Daffy personality into the later self-absorbed and greedy duck, Chuck's earliest cartoons with Daffy featured the duck as completely crazy. In my opinion one of the best of these films is To Duck or Not To Duck (1943). This is a wild and crazy and very funny cartoon that is instantly quotable. This short has fallen in the public domain and therefore those who collect VHS and DVDs of classic cartoons will instantly recognize it. A review in The Film Daily stated, "Leon Schlesinger has turned out another ace Technicolor cartoon featuring the characters of Daffy Duck and the Goofy hunter."
When Ub Iwerks had his own cartoon studio, it unfortunately had the same problem that many forgotten studios did. Ub's studio struggled to find a character that would fully win over movie audiences, the way the Warner Brothers and Disney characters did. One of the forgotten characters from the studio was Willie Whopper, a young boy who told great tall tales and tried to pass them off as stories from his life. Here is one of the Willie Whopper cartoons, Rasslin' Around (1934). While his cartoons have a certain charm to them, it is easy to see why the character never took off like Mickey Mouse or Bugs Bunny.
Now it is time for a commercial break.
Now we join Dingbat in The Hard-Boiled Egg (1948). This is the first of five theatrical cartoons starring this crazy yellow bird.
Today's cartoon selection concludes with one of Walt Disney's great Oswald the Lucky Rabbit cartoons, The Ocean Hop (1927). Like the early Mickey Mouse cartoon, Plane Crazy (1928), in this film Oswald takes to the skies in his self-made plane. Here though Oswald is in a race against a variety of competitors including an early version of the later Mickey Mouse nemesis Peg Leg Pete. When it comes to the early Disney cartoons, the animator most cartoon buffs think of is Ub Iwerks. However, Iwerks animates surprisingly little footage in this movie. Still, what he does animate shows his skill to its finest level. For instance, there is an incredible scene (animated by Iwerks) in which Oswald's "plane" is spinning wildly out of control and rotating around the sky. Rollin "Ham" Hamilton's animation looks crude in comparison with other Disney animators, but there is some great acting in his scenes that come across perfectly. This is something that is well seen when Oswald tells a couple of mice to blow up a balloon. Hugh Harman animates the majority of action in this cartoon including a great scene in which Pete uses a stick of gum to prevent Oswald from winning. There is unfortunately a missing scene from this film. That scene involves the dog falling into a taxi's engine and coming out as a series of sausages. While that joke sounds mean spirited today, it was a common joke during this time period and Walt Disney himself had previously used a similar gag in the Alice Comedy, Alice’s Mysterious Mystery (1926). These Oswald cartoons were later released in the 1930's with new soundtracks and unfortunately scenes shuffled around and left out.
Next is the Mickey Mouse cartoon, Orphan’s Picnic (1936). The original story outline for this film had the orphan mice playing various practical jokes on Mickey. However in the finished film, these jokes are aimed at Donald instead.
Now let us close with a song.
Resources Used
Of Mice and Magic: A History of American Animated Cartoons by Leonard Maltin
Walt Disney's Mickey Mouse: The Ultimate History by J.B. Kaufman and David Gerstein
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