Best Animation Movies of 1940

Lonely toymaker Geppetto has his wishes answered when the Blue Fairy arrives to bring his wooden puppet Pinocchio to life. Before becoming a real boy, however, Pinocchio must prove he's worthy as he sets off on an adventure with his whistling sidekick and conscience, Jiminy Cricket.

Daffy Duck convinces Porky Pig to quit the cartoon biz and try his luck in the features. Porky's adventures begin when he tries to enter the studio.

While hunting rabbits, Elmer Fudd comes across Bugs Bunny who tricks and harasses the hunter.

Jasper is given an ultimatum by his master: break one more thing and you're out. Rodent Jerry does his best to make sure that his tormentor "gets the boot".

Gabby is constable in the village, and the mayor is on his case to catch pig thieves.

Donald visits the house of his new love interest for their first known date. At first Daisy acts shy and has her back turned to her visitor. But Donald soon notices her tailfeathers taking the form of a hand and signaling for him to come closer. But their time alone is soon interrupted by Huey, Dewey and Louie who have followed their uncle and clearly compete with him for the attention of Daisy. Uncle and nephews take turns dancing the jitterbug with her while trying to get rid of each other. In their final effort the three younger Ducks feed their uncle maize in the process of becoming popcorn. The process is completed within Donald himself who continues to move wildly around the house while maintaining the appearance of dancing. The short ends with an impressed Daisy showering her new lover with kisses

Mickey is heading out on vacation from Burbank to Pomona, taking the train. The conductor, Pete, won't let him on with Pluto, so he hides Pluto in his suitcase, and tries to hide him all throughout the trip without much luck. But Pete wins when Pluto is hooked by a mail hook. Or does he?

Mickey is performing routine maintenance on his tugboat (with interference from a pelican) when a call comes on the radio that there's a sinking ship needing assistance. Sadly, Mickey's crew consists of Donald and Goofy, so getting underway to help is not easy. Goofy has to fight a boiler's door to get it stoked with coal (and when he succeeds, he overfills it) and Donald gets tangled up in the machinery. Not to mention that nobody casts off, so they drag half the dock along with them. The overworked boiler soon explodes.

With a rubber bone as a lure, Donald Duck tries to entice Pluto to try his mechanical dog washer. When the bone gives Pluto trouble, Donald tries a toy cat as a lure only to unexpectedly fall into the washer himself, get scrubbed and then hung out on the line to dry.

Elmer takes up wildlife photography but finds his subject, a rabbit, much too rascally.

Gabby has a letter to deliver to the king of Lilliput; when he arrives, the king is in the bath and Gabby tries on the royal robe. The king emerges and gives Gabby a stern look; Gabby hands over the letter and leaves quickly. The letter, however, is ominous: "Please be at home today; I have orders to shoot you."

Willoughby, a big dumb hound, is repeatedly tricked by George, the fox, into jumping off cliffs, among other things.

A cave-boy comes to woo a cave-girl, but her cave-father is against it. A giant stone valentine is catapulted into her high rise cave, but it hits father instead. In the end, girl clubs boy in a reversal of standard antediluvian courting techniques.

Andy Panda asks Pop if you can really catch a bird by putting salt on its tail. Pop tells Andy not to bother him only to hear a knocking at the door. The "knocking" is really coming from a woodpecker pecking against their roof. Pop sets out to trap the bird but is no match for its screwiness. He uses a wind-up explosive decoy that the bird falls for but when it explodes, he just feels "betrayed!" After giving Pop a wild ride through the sky, Andy pours salt on his tail and traps it! Two ambulance attendants come to take the bird away but they too are just as looney!

When Popeye tells Olive Oyl that he will propose to her the next morning, she has a dream that their four boys will run roughshod over their house.

Dodgy construction foreman Pegleg Pete has just fired his riveter. Donald is in need of a job, so he pretends to be experienced and gets it, lacking any competitor. Even the open elevator on the every skyscraper is enough to make Donald sickeningly dizzy, high up the roofless top-floor without railings the work is spooky, but the boss keeps coming up to keep a close eye on him. The damned riveting machine has its own will and much more strength then any duck: it ends up dragging the duck on a wild ride. Greenhorn Donald must also 'serve' lunch, an equilibrium nightmare while the riveting colleagues work their seismic vibes, till short-tempered Pete...

Donald and his nephews are the staff of a fire station. Huey, Dewey, and Louie, annoyed by Donald's snoring, ring the fire alarm. Soon, his bumbling sets the fire station itself on fire. They race off at the alarm, not realizing they are already at the destination, and the firefighting efforts go downhill from there.

Pluto wakes up in the morning seeing birds eating his dish. Pluto's dish is empty, and he is hungry. He goes after the bone in the dish ofButch the bulldog, who is sleeping next door. He sneaks carefully trying to not wake him up. Though he succeeds in stealing the bone, Butch eventually wakes up. Pluto comes back to his home ,about to enjoy the bone, until an angry Butch shows up. Soon they are chasing each other through town and into a deserted carnival. The gust of wind from the chase made a poster of a belly dancer look like it was belly dancing. They chased each other through a "Tunnel of Love" ride and Pluto lost Butch by going into into a hall of mirrors. Pluto was having fun with hall of mirrors until he sees Butch. Pluto takes advantage of one set of mirrors to successfully scare Butch off, and even gets to keep the bone. He winks at the mirrors and goes off with the bone.

Christmas Eve, and Sniffles is determined to stay awake to see Santa. Not an easy task.

Donald takes a kayak trip. When he gets to his campsite, he unloads the kayak, fights with his folding chair, and goes to sleep. Meanwhile, the chipmunks of the forest (precursors of Chip 'n Dale), attracted by his squawking, make off with the huge pile of food he carelessly unloaded. They get the attention of a bear, who Donald is soon battling.

Donald and Goofy are putting up advertising posters in a farm. Goofy prepares to post on a windmill, but his tools keep disappearing and reappearing on the windmill blades. Donald puts up his posters, a picture of a soup can, and a goat eats them immediately. Goofy gets stuck to his poster after it comes around on the windmill. Donald, being his calm, even-tempered self, gets into a battle with the goat.

Yet another sport is made 'easy' for us by Goofy's demonstration how- never, ever, to try anything for real, least of all with a glider-flying machine he launches in ways that would kill anything but a cartoon character, such as a giant catapult and even a canon. Meanwhile Goofy proves totally incapable to control any of its movements in the air, let alone the 'landing' which is too messy even for a bombshell.

Popeye has a new car; Olive wants a driving lesson. Things don't go well.

Caveman Porky awakens and plays with his pet Rover, a massive dinosaur. After Rover's playfulness causes a disruption to the prehistoric peace and quiet, Porky's copy of "Expire" magazine arrives in the mail, filled with ads for fashionable new bearskins. Porky decides to go out and get himself a new suit, and sets off with his trusty club.

Popeye's 99-year-old father won't admit he's too old to help Popeye build a ship. Popeye tells him to build one side while he builds the other; Pappy's side is a mess. He falls asleep helping hoist the mast. While Pappy sleeps, Popeye rebuilds his side and finishes the above-decks, with a little help from spinach, of course.

Lye edited together “swing” versions of the popular Lambeth Walk (including Django Reinhardt on guitar and Stephane Grapelli on violin), combining them with a particularly diverse range of direct film images, scratched as well as painted. He was particularly pleased with a final guitar solo (with a vibrating horizontal line) and double bass solo (with a stomping vertical line). For this film Lye did not have to include any advertising slogans; friends at the Tourist and Industrial Development Association, shocked to learn that Lye and his family had become destitute, arranged for TIDA to sponsor the film – to the horror of government bureaucrats who could not understand why a popular dance was being treated as a tourist attraction. - Harvard Film Archive

Barney's going fishing, but just as he's getting ready to hook a whole school of trout, a rather persistent duck keeps getting in the way.

To the sound of the title song being sung by a campfire, a cow and her calf are bedding down for the night. The calf is frightened by a shadow, until it's revealed to be a jackrabbit. He follows the rabbit deep into the woods, but neither of them notices the wolf following until it's too late for the calf. The calf is trapped in a niche under some rocks, which the wolf quickly digs out. The wolf is closing in on the calf when the rabbit tries to distract him, to no avail.

Porky checks into a hospital with a tummyache; he has the bad luck to encounter a patient posing a "Dr. Chilled-Air" who is a bit too eager to operate.

A classic about an anteater who makes life rough for a colony of ants. In the ant community, the queen spreads warnings of their greatest enemy, the Anteater. "He's a menace, he's a brute, he will scoop you with his snoot." Their motto is "make him yell uncle," which they do when the anteater invades them. Theme - Make him yell uncle! Uncle! Yeah! Just kick him in the snoot! We'll kick him in the snoot! For our brothers and our sisters and our nephews and our cousins and our aunts! Make him yell uncle! Uncle! Yeah! Just let him feel your boot! We'll let him feel our boot! For our brothers and our sisters and our nephews and our cousins and our aunts! We're not a-scared of anything at all! We're not a-scared of anything at all! If we see him first! Make him yell uncle! Uncle! Yeah! Just bust him in the snoot! We'll bust him in the snoot! For our brothers and our sisters and our nephews and our cousins and our aunts! We'll make him yell uncle, yeah!

Donald is washing windows on a high-rise; Pluto is his assistant, hauling the rope for the platform and refilling buckets but mostly sleeping. And when things are finally going well, Donald makes the mistake of tormenting a bee.

The three little kittens have lost their mittens and are sent to bed without dinner. From their room, they see the Milky Way and sail up to it, using a basket and helium balloons, passing through some fanciful astronomical bodies, until they reach a Milky Way filled with every conceivable form of milk.

Porky decides to go fishing the next day and tells his cat. The cat sleeps fitfully. The next day, while they are fishing, the cat gets into a battle with a flying fish who behaves rather like Daffy Duck.

Olive has a secret treasure map, but while she's showing it to Popeye, Bluto photographs it and gets there first.

Popeye's elderly father, Pappy, wants to go out at night. Popeye wants him to sleep.

An inexperienced little ghost tries out for a house-haunting job, but winds up getting terrorized by the fat ghost interviewing him for the position.

Tom's father mistakenly believes that the little bird who's just rescued his tiny son from drowning in the dishwater is attacking the boy and drives it away. Tom sets off to find the bird and gets lost in a fierce snowstorm.

A series of gags based on Mother Goose stories.

Olive rushes over to show Popeye the headline: Vaudeville is coming back. They agree to rehearse their old act. After a brief song-and-dance intro, the act begins: Popeye demonstrating his strength while Olive displays her flexibility and balance; impersonations of Jimmy Durante, Stan Laurel and Groucho Marx; and the last act, more feats of strength and agility.

Porky Pig owns a fish store and goes out to lunch. After a cat is not having much success with a mouse, he goes into the fish store when Porky is away. When the cat thinks he has the good appetite, the fish go to war against him and drive him out of the store. He is then freaked out by the mouse and shrinks as the mouse grows.

A barker guides us through a sideshow, a menagerie, and on to the big top, for a series of typical Avery gags. For example, the trapeze artists, the Flying Cadenzas, literally fly; the lion puts his head in the tamer's mouth; and the human cannonball flies around the world.

It's midnight in a graveyard. The principal characters are spooks, ghosts, bats, bells, and, at the end, the sun. As midnight strikes, 12 spooks appear, then two ghosts. They move to the music's rhythm. Against the black night, they are blue and yellow. Bats appear as does a xylophone of bones. Mist rises, spooks swirl. A bell tolls. The sky turns light blue, the ghosts' dance slows. Then black night returns bringing intimations of frenzy. Bones play snare drums; spooks peek out of square graves. Scary faces appear. Frenetic movement takes over. A rooster crows and all return to earth as the sun's light appears.

Pluto is towing Donald and his little motorboat. He gets distracted by a frog, and the boat runs away from him. While Pluto is struggling with the frog, and then a bedspring, Donald struggles with the outboard motor, which either won't start, or when it does start, has a tendency to destroy the boat.

A dog thinks he is being chased by small pink elephants, and goes to the hospital. While Porky is working on medication, the pink elephants find him and cause havoc. Porky finally gives him some medication, that only works temporarily, but then sees them again. He rushes back in and is once again ill.

A series of typical Avery spot gags set around wild animals. A dainty deer drinks very loudly and rudely from a lake. A pack rat swaps an egg and an acorn, then back again ("monotonous, isn't it?"). A flock of ducks lands; a hunter fires; all fly away, except one with an American flag on its side. A termite fells a huge tree. A cowboy rides across the plains well, no; his horse is just slapping itself with the front hooves. A coyote calls to its mate: "Hey, Mabel, come on out!" A camel contradicts the narrator, saying he's really thirsty. A wild dog: because of the lumbermen.

Porky runs a farm; we see him plowing the fields. But it's primarily a poultry farm; as the sign says, "For sale: Miracle eggs if it's a good egg, it's a miracle." A rabbit, doing a Jack Benny impression (Jack Bunny), paints and inspects eggs. He starts to smash and reject a black egg, but it hatches into a black baby bird doing a Rochester impression. We next visit the Eddie Cackler family, (Eddie Cantor) who have been trying without success to have a son; the next five eggs hatch, and they are again all girls. A Bing Crosby lookalike comes by with a stroller full of sons, and Eddie asks for his secret; he demonstrates by crooning to a chick, who lays dozens of eggs with boys names on them. Eddie croons to his wife, but in a higher pitch, then dances out singing the theme song to other caricatures. The egg hatches, but in answer to Eddie's question, is it really a boy? "Mmmm... could be."

The Three Bears meets Little Red Riding Hood, told in the style of Tex Avery.

Sniffles the mouse and his friend the Bookworm decide to take up egg collecting, setting their eyes upon a big barn owl egg. But the big barn owl isn't so hot on the idea.

A series of blackout gags parodying aviation and aviation films. Gags include a parchutist whose parachute reads "Good to the last drop", jokes about LA's expanding city limits, and a satire of test pilot and their bravery.