A Cowboy Needs a Horse

In the 1950s, UPA began producing some of the worst quality animations in film history. Instead of the usual beautiful animation and backgrounds like you'd see with Loony Tunes, MGM or Disney, UPA began making a mint--and mysteriously winning Oscars in the process. Here, you can see that Disney had finally given up on producing good cartoons and decided to also make crap like UPA. Horridly drawn backgrounds, blocky animation and a weak story make this a chore to watch. And, as for the omnipresent song, you'll either love it or have a hard time not ripping your ears off to make it stop. All in all, a pretty limp cartoon with terrible production values. Thank goodness this sort of stuff is no longer fashionable--it is simply awful.

A Walt Disney Cartoon.

A little boy living in an affluent penthouse apartment dreams of being a sheriff during the days of the Old West.

A COWBOY NEEDS A HORSE, an agreeable little film produced in the flat, limited animation style so popular in the 1950's, is fun to watch as the brave tot heroically fights outlaws & rescues fair young maidens in distress.

Walt Disney (1901-1966) was always intrigued by drawings. As a lad in Marceline, Missouri, he sketched farm animals on scraps of paper; later, as an ambulance driver in France during the First World War, he drew figures on the sides of his vehicle. Back in Kansas City, along with artist Ub Iwerks, Walt developed a primitive animation studio that provided animated commercials and tiny cartoons for the local movie theaters. Always the innovator, his ALICE IN CARTOONLAND series broke ground in placing a live figure in a cartoon universe. Business reversals sent Disney & Iwerks to Hollywood in 1923, where Walt's older brother Roy became his lifelong business manager & counselor. When a mildly successful series with Oswald The Lucky Rabbit was snatched away by the distributor, the character of Mickey Mouse sprung into Walt's imagination, ensuring Disney's immortality. The happy arrival of sound technology made Mickey's screen debut, STEAMBOAT WILLIE (1928), a tremendous audience success with its use of synchronized music. The SILLY SYMPHONIES soon appeared, and Walt's growing crew of marvelously talented animators were quickly conquering new territory with full color, illusions of depth and radical advancements in personality development, an arena in which Walt's genius was unbeatable. Mickey's feisty, naughty behavior had captured millions of fans, but he was soon to be joined by other animated companions: temperamental Donald Duck, intellectually-challenged Goofy and energetic Pluto. All this was in preparation for Walt's grandest dream - feature length animated films. Against a blizzard of doomsayers, Walt persevered and over the next decades delighted children of all ages with the adventures of Snow White, Pinocchio, Dumbo, Bambi & Peter Pan. Walt never forgot that his fortunes were all started by a mouse, or that simplicity of message and lots of hard work always pay off.

Not a personal favourite of mine and A Cowboy Needs a Horse is not going to appeal to everybody, but there is a lot to enjoy here. One thing that won't appeal to all is the stylised animation, with me while it is a very unique style and has a lot of vibrancy some of the drawing has a limited and blocky look, so it was a case of neither loving or hating the animation style. A Cowboy Needs a Horse is very amusing though, the sights and sounds are distinctively Cowboy/Wild West style and the gags are timed well and have great entertainment value. A Cowboy Needs a Horse is pleasingly mellow, which gives it a relaxing touch too, what there is here is so imaginative that I found myself positively drifting off to another world like that of the short itself. The characters are appealing and while the story doesn't have a lot to it structurally it is never dull and the amount of fun, charm and gentleness is most admirable. The standout component was the music, the orchestration is energetic and lush but best of all is the title song which is incredibly catchy and is one of Disney's best ever title songs. So all in all, entertaining and charming if perhaps not for universal appeal, worth watching for the title song alone. 8/10 Bethany Cox

What I like about this cartoon was that it was really cut,. and I also liked the songs, even though I barely remember the cartoon I could hum the melody. What I also liked about this cartoon was the animation and the drawings.