Hittin' the Trail for Hallelujah Land (1931)
** 1/2 (out of 4)
STEAMBOAT WILLIE and THE SKELETON DANCE are certainly "borrowed" from in this Warner short that is best remembered today for being part of the "Censored 11" due to the racial content. In the film, Piggy and Fluffy are on a riverboat trying to escape some bad guy while Uncle Tom runs into some skeletons. While this cartoon probably would have been forgotten had it not been for the controversy, there's still some mildly entertaining things to be found here. In fact, I'd say out of all the "racial" cartoons that have been banned, this one here is probably the least offensive as there's really no blackface jokes or anything to that nature and in fact, if you didn't know about the history before hand I doubt you'd see anything overly offensive. With that said, it's rather amazing that Disney didn't come after this short because it does rip off two of their most beloved early animated films. As it stands, this one here is mildly entertaining thanks in large part to the nice animation and I also thought the pacing and flow were quite good. There really weren't any laughs, which is what kept it from being rated even higher.