My Old Kentucky Home (1926) User Reviews

My relatively high score is purely for its historical value...

[planktonrules · 5/10 · 22 May 2011]

Okay, I have gotta say it up front. I didn't like this cartoon at all. So why, then, would I give it a 5 Well, I am a history teacher and love cinema history--and this is a super-important cartoon to the history of the genre. Why? Well, because it's the first sound cartoon--well before Disney's "Steamboat Willie". However, quality-wise, it's not even close to the Disney film--as "Willie" is still a delight after all these years.

The film begins with some very simple animation involving a dog chewing on a bone--that then becomes a trombone. Considering it's from the accomplished Fleischer Brothers, I was surprised at the very poor quality of the film--much poorer than other Out of the Inkwell cartoons. What follows is simply a sing-a-long--with minimal animation. And considering the song is the very dated Stephen Foster song "My Old Kentucky Home", my brain totally shut down from this point on...

Dreary and crappy to watch now, this still should be seen by any student of the history of animation...but no one else!!

Nope, Wrong Again

[boblipton · 7/10 · 28 April 2019]

Although this Fleischer Screen Song is credited in the IMDb as the first talking cartoon, it isn't. Before this was issued in June of 1926, Max and Dave Fleischer had produced more than a dozen short cartoons in the series that came to be known as 'Screen Songs'. The earliest appears to be COME TAKE A TRIP IN MY AIRSHIP, which was released in a silent version on March 9, 1924, and in a sound version (with a Deforest Phonofilms soundtrack) in January of 1925.

It is possible that this is the first appearance of the Bouncing Ball that leads the audience in singing. I haven't looked at the earlier Screen Songs in a long time, so that may qualify for a first --- although I am sure performers used a pointer or even a flashlight back in the nickelodeon days to much the same effect.

The gags that begin the short are amusing, but the song itself is performed so slowly and dolefully as to be obnoxious.

Unusual short, more sing-along than animation

[llltdesq · 7/10 · 14 January 2007]

This short is arguably the first sound cartoon, though the argument is almost a courtesy, as there's barely enough animation for it to qualify as a cartoon. While there isn't much to give away here, I will describe the animation a bit, so there are spoilers below:

This qualifies as a cartoon because of an introductory bit of animation, which is relatively brief, and a small amount of animation during the sing-along portion (including a bit right at the end which will probably be rather offensive-I'm rather hard to offend and even I found it in poor taste). It qualifies as the first sound cartoon (barely) because there is a limited bit of somewhat synchronized dialog "spoken" by an animated dog.

The animated sequence is basically a dog who takes a piece of ham, carves away and discards the meat in order to get to the bone the meat surrounds, then sharpens his teeth so that he may better chew the bone! He then instructs the audience to follow the "bouncing ball" to sing the song, "My Old Kentucky Home", which makes up the bulk of the short. The ball is replaced by animated figures about halfway through.

Interesting short, at least to animation collectors.

Max Fleischer's My Old Kentucky Home is an interesting find as the first sound cartoon on record

[tavm · 6/10 · 28 November 2008]

The previous commenter mentioned some of the gags of this Max Fleischer Song Car-Tune. What he didn't mention was that while Bimbo took his dentures out, someone still drew some teeth in his mouth! And that the bone he took a bite out of then turned into a trombone which he played with appropriate music effects when he then took a ball out of the hole part and instructed the audience to follow as the song played and the words appeared on screen as the ball bounced over them. The end part with a caricatured woman of color is indeed a little politically incorrect and possibly a little offensive (you be the judge). Since this historically is the first sound cartoon ever produced on record-preceding Walt Disney's Steamboat Willie by two years-My Old Kentucky Home gets a recommendation on that fact alone.