The Shriek

This is another vintage cartoon I watched on Uncle John's Crazy Town site. This was a Walter Lantz/Bill Nolan cartoon starring Oswald the Lucky Rabbit. It takes place in Egypt with him and his girlfriend enjoying some romance before this bad guy sheik threatens to give them a bad time by kidnapping the girlfriend. Quite a few funny gags involving accidental punching, skeletons, and disguises though the topper is at the end that I won't reveal here. Among the animators was one named Fred Avery. He first moved to Warner Bros. where he helped create Bugs Bunny before going to M-G-M where he became better known as Tex and created Droopy there. Anyway, for animation buffs, The Shriek is worth a look.

Despite Oswald the Lucky Rabbit and his cartoons being popular and well received at the time, they have been vastly overshadowed over time by succeeding animation characters. It is a shame as, while not cartoon masterpieces, they are fascinating for anybody wanting to see what very old animation looked like.

The 1929-1930 batches of Walter Lantz-directed Oswald cartoons were a mixed bag, with some good, some forgettable and not much special and a few mediocre. The 1931 batch was mostly underwhelming, with only 6 out of 18 cartoons being above average or more. The 1932 batch had a few not so good, though the cartoons in question were nothing compared to the worst of the previous 3 years, cartoons, but most were decent to good and some even very good.

It was wonderful to see 'The Shriek' be just as good as one of the best Oswald cartoons in a while 'The Plumber'. Looks like the 1933 batch is shaping up to be the best year yet of the Lantz era. Sure the story is wafer thin and it's not hard at all to figure out how things will end. That said, that asset has been done far worse in Oswald cartoons (we are also talking about the Disney and Winkler era cartoons too, which were mostly good apart from a couple of stinkers in the Winkler era).

However, the animation is very good. There is the looser and more elaborate look of many of the previous Lantz era Oswald cartoons, but it was surprising and lovely to see parts of the animation reminding one of the animation style of the Disney years in places.

Likewise with the music and gags. The gags are some of the funniest and imaginatively timed of any Oswald cartoon seen recently, some of them are just hilarious and have just about enough variety to stop things getting repetitive. The music is infectious and lushly orchestrated, synchronisation looks natural and the sound is not as muffled as it can be.

Oswald is likable, cute and often very funny, while his girlfriend is charming and the villain is both amusing and appropriately antagonistic.

All in all, another winner for Oswald. 8/10 Bethany Cox