Halloween (1931)

Directors:

Dick Huemer
Sid Marcus

Release Date:

1 May 1931 (USA)

Genre:

Animation | Short | Comedy | Family

Plot Keywords:

Toby The Pup | Surrealism | Dog | Cartoon Dog | Puppy

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Black and White

Sound Mix:

Mono

Company:

Screen Gems

Halloween is a Toby the Pup cartoon that had an imperfect transfer on YouTube

*** This review may contain spoilers ***

Originally written 6/3/07-Halloween is a weird Toby the Pup cartoon from the Charles Mintz studio. Unfortunately, what I saw on YouTube was a technical mess. First off, the soundtrack somehow went ahead of some of the frames. Then for the last 3 or so minutes, there is no sound. So it's hard for me to be real objective in this review of the cartoon. There are certainly many wonderfully weird scenes that would be typical of such cartoons from the '30s such the cow peeling a candle like a banana, or his eating an apple with a worm in it while the worm's taking a bath and pulls down an asbestos curtain! Or three bird skeletons drinking with the largest one taking a first try at the punch as the liquid falls outside his neck letting the second middle sized one drink from that with the same thing happening to him as the smallest one drinks from that...There's also some piano playing by Toby and a little girl scolding singing, "Smarty, Smarty, Smarty". Largely based on what I've seen from the imperfect YouTube linkage, I give this one a 2. Maybe I'll up it if I ever see a better transfer. Update 10/30/08-I've just seen the complete version (Thanks, Thadblog!), it's even more weirder with the "smarty" girl getting spanked by a man dressed in a toga, and Toby scaring all the ghosts by simply saying "cock-a-doodle-doo" like a rooster! Then there's a little ghost calling him "Daddy"! Okay, since I've now seen the whole thing clearly, I'm now giving this a 5.