Academy Award in Short Subjects, Cartoons - 1932/1933

Academy Award in Short Subjects, Cartoons - 6th Academy Awards - March 16, 1934

In the early days of the Oscars, it was a relatively small event. Sometimes nominees skipped it because they were busy. But there were early signs that it would be a big thing.

The 6th Academy Awards covered an extended period due to a rules change that endeavored to make the calendar for the event match the calendar for the year. The nominees could be released between August 1, 1932 and December 31, 1933. The ceremony was hosted by Will Rogers, a major star of film, vaudeville, radio and a columnist.

The Nominees

The Merry Old Soul - Walter Lantz

This cartoon requires a content warning for the presence of caricatures from the film the Jazz Singer. These characters are depicted as wearing blackface. I felt Oswald's pain at the dentist. I've had a bit of dental work done. This Oswald cartoon features caricatures of popular actors like Laurel and Hardy and the Marx Brothers. It's a very lively cartoon with a good variety of gags.

Building a Building - Walt Disney

The Mickey Mouse cartoon features the same overly repetitive motions of Mickey's Orphans. But they're not as noticeable because they didn't spend as much time with the scenes featuring the repetitions. This cartoon is not on Disney Plus so I watched it on YouTube. I feel the action of the cartoon is not dynamic enough to support the silence. The foley artist was lacking. This was the least interesting of the three.

The Winner

Three Little Pigs - Walt Disney

The Three Little Pigs made me wish for a Too Many Cooks style twist. It is basic retelling of the story. The pigs don't have personalities beyond the straw guy, the wood guy and the brick guy. The whole cartoon feels like prestige chasing. The highest praise I have is the Wolf's design is nice and the brick piano in the third pig's house is a nice detail. The portrait of their father being a picture of a ham hock is an interestingly dark touch. I've seen the joke before but it's not fair to judge a cartoon from the 1930s for having a dated joke. It's just a pretty gross idea if you imagine a human having a similar portrait. Their little song is brain curdling.

Who I Think Should Have Won

I love the work of Fleischer Studios. Betty Boop's Museum was released in December 16, 1932. The look of the museum, the creepy gags, Betty Boop. Koko abducts Betty for a trip to the museum. Betty becomes trapped in the museum after closing. Chaos and confusion ensue with an out of nowhere ending. It's another classic in my view.

Academy Award in Short Subjects, Cartoons - 1931/1932

Academy Award in Short Subjects, Cartoons - 5th Academy Awards - November 18, 1932

There were twelve awards in the 1931/1932 Academy Awards (about half of the current number of awards). This was the first award show to include Short Subjects, Cartoon. The eligible films were those shown in Los Angeles between August 1, 1931 and July 31, 1932.

For the Academy Awards, Walt Disney produced a short featuring his characters and caricatures of contemporary celebrities. He also received an honorary award for the creation of Mickey Mouse. The short's good. I particularly like the Jekyll and Hyde. It's interesting that he was given an honorary award about four years after Mickey premiered and Ub Iwerks was not. I don't know the story behind the lauding of Walt but it seemed to have been an award for the prestige Walt had attained in the industry as the cofounder of Walt Disney Studios.

The Nominees

It's Got Me Again! - Leon Schlesinger

It's Got Me Again! was released on May 14, 1932. I'm just going to say it. The mice look like Mickey. The rubber hose style of the era was popular in this time period and there were a few characters that looked like but it's a bit glaring. The voice in the cartoon kind of sounds like a version of the voice I've come to associate with Mickey. I found this to be the most enjoyable out of the three cartoons. The action is kinetic and the animation is well done. The characters are memorable. The cat design is cool. The attack with the drumsticks made me pause. I felt bad for that cat even though he was going to eat those cats.

Mickey's Orphans - Walt Disney

Mickey's Orphans was released December 9, 1931. The premise of Mickey and Minnie adopting a bunch of abandoned kittens on Christmas is nice. There's no point in reanimating the same sequence from scratch more than once, so animators use the same sequences more than once. You'll see this on display in pixel games with the walk cycle. Animation where characters walk all have walk cycles but it's easy to see this in the pixels because the sprites are so small and simple. You can find the sprites for famous games on websites. It feels like this cartoon lets the animations repeat just a little too long. It makes it stand out. The cartoon felt padded.

Flowers and Trees - Walt Disney - The Winner

This Silly Symphony cartoon was released on July 30, 1932. It's a beautiful work of art. A masterful display of animation. This was the first color film to win an academy award. It was also just a novelty. The cartoon did well due to Walt Disney's exclusive contract with Technicolor. The cartoon is beautiful and it tells a story but I find the story slightly dull. The cartoon wouldn't have had the same impact in black and white. It would have had nearly the same level of success. The short's significance would have been relegated to just another cartoon on Disney's filmography.

My Take

Flowers and Trees made me want to animate something but it doesn't make my favorites list. The animation work is beautiful. It's technically beautiful. I see why it won the Oscar even though I'd rather watch It's Got Me Again! I prefer the anarchic frenzy of Merrie Melodies.

BUT

I think Minnie the Moocher should have won. It's release date was within the eligible time period. This cartoon featuring Cab Calloway is a classic. There were reasons why Minnie the Moocher didn't even feature on the nomination list but whatever those reasons were were wrong. Minnie the Moocher is a classic.

The Bug Parade - Merrie Melodies - Toonstalgia

The Bug Parade - Merrie Melodies

An announcer describes the strange behaviors and adaptations of bugs and insects.

The Bug Parade premiered in 1941. The official release date was October 11, 1941. This was two years into World War 2 and just two months before the United States entered World War 2. The Maltese Falcon came out on October 18th. The first Wonder Woman comic came out on the 21st. My only point with these facts is to offer a brief idea of what the world was when this cartoon was showing in theaters. It's one thing to watch the cartoon now. The people watching it then were dealing with totally different chaos.

The short was inspired by contemporary educational shorts that would show in the same theaters as the cartoon shorts. The bug jokes are a traditional kind that can be found in books like Alice Through the Looking Glass where Lewis Carroll described the Rocking Horse Fly, the Bread and Butterfly and the Snapdragonfly. This cartoon is less pun fueled. They take commonly known insects and anthropomorphize them. Each part of the segment ends with a subversion of expectations (as jokes will).

This is an expertly done cartoon. The only big historical note for this cartoon is it was the last Tex Avery worked on before leaving Warner Brothers.

My Art

I love the fly in the short. I love his happily creepy, "I See You". I love his eyes. So I drew him with my usual mix of ink, markers and colored pencils.