Mr. Nobody Holme Buys a Jitney (1916) User Reviews

poor animation but a few laughs

[planktonrules · 5/10 · 6 July 2006]

This is a cartoon short from 1916. Mr. Nobody Holme appears to be a total idiot, as he foolishly puts a flame under his car to see why it won't start. And, very oddly, the idea comes from this bizarre little creature (labeled "GLOOM") that encourages this dangerous behavior. But, then, out of the blue, another odd creature (labeled "JOY") appears and begins fighting with the first and shoots him! It reminded me of the little angel and devil you see in later films that try to encourage characters to do good or evil--but in this case, it's more just to do something really stupid. Oddly enough, the flame actually works and the car starts--it looks like the dead little creature was right. That is, until the car later blows up. An oddly watchable and simple film with only the most rudimentary type of animation.

Cute, but nothing special

[Mary-18 · 6/10 · 10 April 2005]

In general, Tom Powers' cartoons have very basic and cheaply made animation style. Nobody Holme is especially simply drawn--he looks like a slightly fleshed-out stick figure. But the saving grace for his cartoons is usually their wit and bizarre, unexpected endings. This one, alas, is actually quite straight-forward. The big gag is that Nobody has to create an explosion in order to get his car to run. While he does this, Gloom and Joy shoot at each other for no apparent reason. And that's about it. Heck, the cartoon is only 1 and a half minutes long. Not really enough time to create an actual plot or point. Anyway, for those who might want to check out some of these early cartoons, this and several other Powers cartoons are now available on the Library of Congress website!

A One Joke Film

[Michael_Elliott · 18 August 2016]

Mr. Nobody Holme Buys a Jitney (1916)

** 1/2 (out of 4)

This animated short runs just under two minutes and is pretty much a one joke comedy. Mr. Nobody is in his garage trying to crank start his car but it's froze. Someone then gives him the idea to start a fire under it. I won't spoil what happens next. For the most part this is a decent short that at just two minutes is worth watching, although there's certainly nothing terrific that you're going to see. Everything is leading up to that "one" joke and once that joke happens I think you'll be happy you watched the film. The animation itself is quite simple but it looks good and the lead character was at least fun to watch.