Best Animation Movies of 1929

For his initial Lantz entry, Oswald enters his horse in the race as he tries to get him in shape doing exercises with the accompaniment of a pianist.

Cartoon based on Rudolph Erich Raspe's stories about Baron Münchhausen.

Drawn with steaming ink, Koko and Fitz try to cool off.

Pete is a organ grinder, until Oswald spits out his gum and Pete's monkey gets tangled in the gum. Pete then uses Oswald as the monkey..

Eveready Horton and his behemoth penis venture through the country in search of the penetrable.

The demons of hell play music for Satan, whose delight turns to wrath when an insubordinate refuses to become food for Cerberus.

A puppy is forced into a barber shop run by Oswald the Rabbit. Oswald can't shave the dog's back at first, as the hair keeps growing back. He eventually realizes the mutt's drinking hair tonic and so he takes the bottle away and finishes the job. A hippo's next in line, then an elephant, then a truculent and lascivious bear, all with equally humorous results.

Another Van Beuren's mouse cartoon variation of Aladdin's lamp, with a soundtrack added in the late 1940s.

With the screen split asymmetrically, one part in positive, the other negative, the film documents the evolution of simple celled organic forms into chains of cells then more complex images from tribal cultures and contemporary modernist concepts. The images react, interpenetrate, perhaps attack, absorb and separate, until a final symbiosis (or redemption?) is achieved.

Flowers, insects, and a crow family all dance to a jaunty tune celebrating spring. After a brief storm, grasshoppers, frogs, and spiders cavort to the Dance of the Hours.

Oswald and his dog go up the mountains to rescue a pussycat dangling from a ridge.

Original short that introduced Bosko, never released. Producer-directors Hugh Harman and Rudolf Ising showed it to various studio executives as a pilot for the Bosko character.

The short starts with a mouse playing some bell-like tulips like musical bells....

Friz Freleng's second directorial effort -- under his legal name of 'Isadore' and credited as co-director with Rudolf Ising -- is a silent Oswald the Lucky Rabbit effort, made soon after Charles Mintz grabbed the rights to the character and almost all his crew from Walt Disney. Oswald takes in Homer, a small kitten, and attempts to teach him table manners and to give him a bath, but Homer retaliates using a clothesline and a player piano.

In this one, Oswald is wooing his girlfriend (who looks like a cat) on a canoe. Like Felix the Cat, Oswald sometimes uses his tail for something other than wagging, in this case, he uses it as an outboard motor to bring the boat to shore.

This is a very early Lantz sound cartoon, so early that it merely makes use of simple synchronization, matching the music and tempo to the action at hand -- for example, when Oswald sticks a burning stove in Pete's trousers, we hear "There'll Be a Hot Time in the Old Town Tonight".

Animated figure Talkie gets a visit from his friend Mutie in search for a job. Talkie takes him to the Western Electric sound lab...

The Fly's Bride was produced in 1929, one year following Van Beuren's edict that all cartoons would be produced in sound. The RCA Photophone System is the credited process, and Carl Edouarde is credited with "synchronization." The film continues the long-running silent series of Aesop's Fables ("sugar coated pills of wisdom" as the end titles remarked) that the studio turned out. This entry displays the lively brand of "rubber hose" animation that was common in the early sound era. The story opens as a swarm of white shoe-clad flies cavort in a kitchen (gags include a soft-shoe number danced over spilled salt and a cop fly directing traffic around a piece of flypaper). The story shifts outside as a fly calls his gal on the phone. Here some rare lip-synch is attempted during the dialogue; Van Beuren usually avoided dialogue in the years to come in favor of songs to help the story along.

It's summertime and the animals are having fun in the sun while farmer Alfalfa needs refreshments.

In this one, there are two Chinese men on screen. One is eating and the one to the right of him is ironing. The one eating seems to be so dumb as to accidentally swallow a shirt that was just ironed in front of him.

Noah seems to have major problems with his animals when they all get restless and leave the ship to go to Coney Island and Luna Park to get away from him.

Rough seas makes it difficult for Captain Peg Leg Pete. Oswald tries to make his captain soup, but a duck steals Pete's dinner.

A series of animated short subjects created by Paul Terry and actor-turned-writer Howard Estabrook.

Oswald the Lucky Rabbit goes to an Amateur Nite show, where he sees the "Hippy Hippos", "St. Louie Blues", and "Quacky Quacks". His reaction is usually opposite the other members of the audience, who force him to react the same way as them.

A series of animated short subjects created by Paul Terry and actor-turned-writer Howard Estabrook. Estabrook suggested making a series of cartoons based on Aesop's Fables.

Thanks to Magic Ink, a live-action girl joins Koko in a haunted house.

Felix is in love with a fair maiden. When serenading her, his rival spots him and tries anything he can come up with to get his girl back.

After singing all night, Felix decides to save a fox from hunters.

A live-action amateur hypnotist mesmerizes Ko-Ko the clown and Fitz the dog; but a witch teaches them how to take their revenge…

Koko the Clown and his dog try to become salesmen.

Ko-Ko and Fitz emerge from an inkwell into the sultan's harem.

In this one, a cat is cleaning a store carpet when he gets interrupted by a mouse. After they do a brief tap dance, a lady cat comes in which has the male cat already smitten.

Koko the Clown tries a mad scientist's formula on various animals.

This one covers the 19th century ballad in a very respectful manner: although the written reprise is gagged up, the song is introduced very respectfully by an unshown Irish tenor and then offered for the audience's singing without any voice-over to lead them.

Mice sold into slavery and driven to pick cotton by whip-cracking cats plot their escape to freedom.

A cat and mouse nonchalantly dance on roller skates and comically harass Farmer Gray.

In this one, a traffic cop is up in the sky on a platform guiding various planes and birds on their way.

A band of cartoon animal musicians-- including their long-haired lion conductor -- warm up before going into the title song.

While George Herriman is credited as Kat's creator here, Krazy in this short bears little resemblance to the original comic strip character. In fact, instead of pining for Ignaz Mouse, this Kat is hunting American Indians, what we call Native Americans today, as he gets almost burned at the stake by them (it should be noted that the fire, like in many animated shorts made during this time, has a personality of his own here!).

A Van Beuren cartoon set in a night club with cabaret musical numbers and a drunken brawl.

Farmer Al Falfa flies to Africa with the Royal Society of African Explorers to hunt in the jungle.

The annoying animal antics- combined with the collapse of his porch- finally get to Farmer Al Falfa, so he sells his house to odd-looking twins. But their money bag is filled with mice who chase Al Falfa into the lake. Drawn into a whirlpool, he magically travels through a faucet back into his house. The mice also pour out and chase him- and the loony twins- down the road.

Fleischer Studios giving "Smiles" the bouncing ball 'Screen Song' treatment.

Animals take on human characteristics in this good-natured comedy.

This short, Cave of the Wobbly Wizard, was made directly after the much more common The Land of the Wooden Soldiers, and explains why Chip the Wooden Man is riding a dinosaur at the beginning of the next film.

Mickey runs a small theatre. The orchestra plays, rather badly, excerpts from Carmen. Mickey appears as a snake charmer, but the snake is revealed to be a cat with a snake's head painted on its tail. Mickey does a belly dance, to the audience's delight. Mickey then plays the piano, but the piano and stool, apparently annoyed at the violence and complexity of the piece, kick him off stage.

Mickey puts on a show in his barnyard. A short dramatic scene by a chicken and rooster; an operatic ode by Patricia Pig, and then the main attraction: Mickey sings and plays his theme song, then dances to it.

While Tom Cat goes away hunting, Mickey, Minnie, and their mouse friends break into his house and perform music. They play various tunes on the piano while the other mice hit household objects in tune to the music.

A village of dwarfs dance and play through their day. A blacksmith shoes a centipede, a street-cleaner sweeps, a marching-band strikes up and the townsmen roll out beer barrels.