Bernice Hansen

Before Mickey there was Oswald, the floppy-eared star of Walt Disney's first cartoon series, THE ADVENTURES OF OSWALD THE LUCKY RABBIT. Fun and mischievous, the cheerful rabbit's popularity quickly multiplied, and so did his shorts. Between 1927 and 1928, Disney created a bounty of legendary and rarely seen Oswald cartoons. Now for the first time ever on DVD, the premiere collection of Disney's Oswald shorts -- all featuring new scores composed by Robert Israel especially for this release. The long-lost rabbit's life story, from his birth to his long-awaited return to Disney, and a documentary on the legendary Ub Iwerks set the stage for the comeback of one of the most important stars in Disney's menagerie. Featuring exclusive introductions by film historian Leonard Maltin, this is a timeless collection from generations past for generations to come.

Andy Panda and his dog Balmer plant a victory garden, while a pesky rooster eats their plants. Andy wants to plant a new garden with the help of his dog. Unfortunately, everything goes wrong for both of them. Andy finds that the ground is hard as rocks and he can't dig; he has to use a drill. The dog chases a worm and gets stuck in a rake. The worm whacks him and leads him on a merry chase through a garden hose, turning it into a snake which blasts the poor dog in the face with water. Meanwhile, Andy's seeds are vacuumed up by a rooster, which he attacks with a sickle. The rooster lands on the dog. The battle rages with everything in a heap. The garden is ruined... or is it? The super-grow fertilizer is working wonders.

Woody's friends warn him that the groundhog has predicted a blizzard. Unconcerned, Woody decides not to go South with his pals. Soon enough, the blizzard sweeps in and destroys the loony woodpecker's stash of food. Facing starvation, a glimmer of hope arrives in the form of a cat. The cat is also starving and it turns into a match of brawn and wits to see who eats who.

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.

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.

A series of gags based on Mother Goose stories.

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

This cartoon deals with three kittens who are cruel and mean to an orphan kitty, but the mother cat adopts the little orphan, serves pie to all four kittens and all is well at the cat-house.

Two baby squirrels ask grandpa to explain what "men" are when he comes in singing "peace on earth, goodwill to men". Grandpa tells the story of man's last war. This classic animation short was an Academy Award Best Short Subject, Cartoons nominee.

Momma's singing "Three Little Kittens" with her brood, but Blackie thinks it's for sissies and he'd rather listen to crime dramas on the radio. Momma sends him to bed, where he dreams of venturing out. He sees a sign looking for boys, no experience needed. It's Fagin's school, where he trains boys to steal. The cops raid the place. In the shootout, the phone rings; Fagin answers and passes the message on to a cop: bring home a pound of butter. Blackie dives out a window, gets tangled up in a curtain, and wakes up, tangled in his blanket; he runs downstairs and joins in "Three Little Kittens."

Peterkin, a mischievous elf with mixed body parts, decides to see what would happen if he switched the eggs in the tree-maternity nests. What happens is that there are many surprised mothers, and just as many indignant fathers, when the eggs hatch and each family gets a hatching that resembles neither parent. All fly the, figuratively-speaking, coop and Peterkin is left to tend to all the young birds.

A hen adopts an abandoned egg which hatches into a turtle. The baby turtle becomes the butt of all the real chicks' jokes until danger threatens.

Petunia Pig and Porky Pig, each from two families, declare peace between their respective families, the Martins and the McCoys, who have been violently feuding all this time. The happy disposition doesn't last long, and soon the Martins and McCoys are fighting again.

Sniffles the mouse has to get an owl's egg for a scavenger hunt, but once he's gotten it, the egg hatches and draws the attention of the mouse-eating father owl.

The introduction of Lantz's little black-boy character, L'il Eight Ball, finds him going to bed in his small cabin and being visited by a baby ghost. He avers he is not afraid, and his isn't, so the little ghost transports him to a haunted mill where the adult ghosts hang out. They run the little hero through all the standard ghost tests and, while he is shaken, he still will not admit to being scared.

Porky Pig goes on a picnic.

A little tough mouse is out on the town getting food.

A fox captures a group of squirrels while they're playing at "Robin Hood." The smallest of the bunch, who'd been bullied into playing the villain and thus avoided capture, uses his ingenuity to rescue his friends.

The mice are on the loose after hours in a doctor's office, playing with the various pieces of medical apparatus. Susie Mouse is caged for research until her lover Johnnie frees her. A mouse orchestra plays a swinging wedding song. But throughout, a cat is stalking...

Baby-Face Mouse, disobeying his mother, goes into the territory of Rat Enemy No.1. The gangster is working on turning the young mouse into a member of his gang, but Baby-Face gets so tough he knocks out Rat Enemy No. 1 and turns him over to the police and gets a reward. Back home though, he gets spanked for crossing the railroad tracks into bad territory.

A little mouse runs away from home and goes to sea. Aboard the ship, a rat starts to educate the mouse on the ways of sea-farin' mice by sending him to the galley to steal cheese from the Captain's table. But the Captain's parrot, a sea-goin' snitch, spots the thievery and squawks loud and long about it. That brings the whole crew down after the mouse, who gets away and learns that there is no place like home.

Johnny Smith enters an America where the Indians behave like 1930s average Americans. When he is arrested, the girl Poker Huntas rescues and elopes with him.

Porky and Pinky go to the beach. As Porky tries to nap, Pinky keeps whacking him with his little shovel. Then he fakes drowning in a shallow puddle. Porky enters a swim race, and Pinky sets a fake shark to follow him.

Hayseed Egghead arrives in the big city of Bagdad and quickly wins a magic lamp in a carnival coin-operated crane game. The shady character who was playing the game before him covets the lamp, and tries to steal it. Egghead sees a poster: The sultan is having a contest for his daughter's hand in marriage. With his lamp, Egghead thinks he's a sure bet; he conjures up a magic carpet, and he's off. After a couple bad vaudeville acts, it's Egghead's turn, but in the meantime, the bad guy swapped the lamp for a coffeepot. Egghead is thrown out, then sees the bad guy using the lamp; Egghead breaks in, steals the lamp and the girl, and flies off. But she uses the lamp herself to conjure up a real hunk to replace the nerdy Egghead.

Cinderella goes to the ball, where she meets Prince Charming (Egghead).

Public Rat Number One takes along Baby-Face Rat to steal the cheese out of the kitchen icebox. The dishes in the kitchen become animated and chase the marauders, capturing the youngster while the gangster rat escapes. Baby-Face is brought before Policeman Sugar Bowl and given the third degree. He escapes, is chased by the frankfurter-bloodhounds but manages to get away. Arriving back in the rat-hole, he beats up the big rat for leading him astray into a life of crime. He turns the big rat over to the police, and then broadcasts over the radio that crime does not pay.

Wildcat Willie, one of Walter Lantz's lesser known characters, is the protagonist here, a mean widdle kid who runs away from home and masquerades as an orphan. Trouble ensues when Wildcat's new family suspects Wildcat is a rat - er, wildcat. Lots of fast action and violence (Wildcat wields a mean axe).

Emily the chicken lives in Hickville but dreams of Hollywood. Her chance comes when director J. Megga-Phone happens to drive past and gives her his card.

When Mama hen takes her chicks out to get breakfast, little Wilbur is soaked in a sudden rainstorm and comes down with a head cold. Mama puts him to bed, then goes back out to get the doctor. A conniving weasel, seeing Mama leave, disguises himself as a doctor and comes calling on the unattended chicks.

Little Cheeser and his friends, inspired by Buck Rogers (and visions of cheese), build a rocket ship and fly to the moon.

A mouse is trying to free himself from a trap when a cat arrives. The mouse, desperate, asks if the cat has heard the story of the lion and the mouse.

Momma parrot is teaching her young-uns to say "Polly want a cracker" but little Peter doesn't want a cracker, he wants to be a sailor like dad. Mom tells him what a no-account his dad really was, setting sail for Hawaii ("no, Maw, it was Catalina") right after the kids were born. Peter is unswayed, and takes off. He turns a barrel into a boat, and crews it with an annoyingly talkative duckling, then sets sail on a lake. They get caught in a thunderstorm (the duck loves it). Peter calls for help and momma comes running, but the duck has already saved him. But he still wants to be a sailor.

A series of gags at a dog show, including a stage revue. A dog gets into a trunk of roller skates and crashes through the stage show.

A rat comes between two mice in love.

In the world of this cartoon, cars act like humans. Junior wants to grow up to be a taxi, but mom wants him to be a nice, respectable touring car (taxi dancers are literally taxis). What mom doesn't know is that junior has been sneaking into town to play in traffic, drink hi-test gas, and race trains. He runs out of gas at a particularly bad time and gets towed to the garage.

Porky and another contractor are competing to submit the lower bid for a new city hall. When they submit identical bids, the city has them compete, whichever finishes first gets the job.

Warner Bros. cartoon parody of Uncle Tom's Cabin.

The introduction cartoon for Petunia Pig deals with Porky's courtship with her. Once he's won her hand in marriage, he fantasizes about his future with her, which doesn't seem very appealing.

A mouse fakes blindness and plays his fiddle; he returns home, where it becomes apparent he's rich. The tax collector arrives, and he pulls various levers and presses buttons to make his home look like a shack. The tax collector can't catch him. A cat sees this and tries baiting a trap with a gold coin; that fails, but a gold crown on his tooth lures the mouse in. Or does it? The mouse telling this story to his grandchildren looks oddly familiar...

A hungry little pig eats a couple of pies off the windowsill. When it's time for dinner, he ties together the spaghetti of all the other little pigs and eats it all. That night, he has a nightmare where he is force-fed by a mad scientist.

Porky runs a game refuge. Despite the abundant signs to the contrary, Jean-Baptiste the trapper sets numerous traps. Porky rescues the animals from the traps. Jean-Baptiste tracks him down and beats him up. The animals come to Porky's rescue.

On Christmas morning two pups and the household's children are up early. The pups are frightened by a large stuffed dog, a train set, a crying doll, a toy tank, and other toys.

A visit to a Hollywood nightclub, featuring caricatures of, among others, Walter Winchell, Hugh Herbert, W.C. Fields, Katharine Hepburn, Ned Sparks, Johnny Weissmuller, Lupe Velez, John Barrymore, Harpo Marx, George Arliss, Mae West, Stan Laurel, Oliver Hardy, Clark Gable, Edna May Oliver, Gary Cooper, The Dionne Quintuplets, Groucho Marx, Helen Morgan, Wallace Beery, Edward G. Robinson and George Raft.

Little Cheeser is a young mouse who thinks he's more grown up than he is. Mama tells him to go to bed, calling him "Mama's little man"; he doesn't want to. His devil side emerges and guides him to the cheese in the pantry, where his angel side appears to stop him. The devil leads him on to the smoking supplies, where he lights a pipe, then to a racy magazine, and then to the booze. The soused Cheeser goes looking for the cat, but when he finds it, the reality sobers him up quickly. The devil, meanwhile, has been trapped in a copy of Dante's Inferno by the angel. The angel helps Cheeser escape, and he's all too happy to go to bed and be Mama's little man.

It's St. Valentine's Day. Cupid is having fun arranging, while a young devil is making mischief sabotaging, love affairs.

A baseball team full of anthropomorphic animals play on.

A child would rather listen to the radio than go to bed, but mother insists. He sleeps, but at midnight, his toys come alive and put on a show for him (much of it recycled, though often with different backgrounds, from earlier cartoons).

I Love to Singa depicts the story of a young owl who wants to sing jazz, instead of the classical music that his German parents wish him to perform. The plot is a lighthearted tribute to Al Jolson's film The Jazz Singer.

Two little puppies, one black, one brown, go on a picnic outing with their human family. The pups wind up unwitting participants in a fox hunt.

A radio crooner spirits a girl away to the big city only to drop her like a hot potato.

Porky Pig and his friends Beans, Little Kitty and Ham and Ex, travel as pioneers toward the western frontier. As their wagon travels across the prairie, Ham and Ex cause trouble by pretending to be Indians. Then the real Indians show up!

Little Elmer Elephant has a crush on Tillie Tiger and his affection is reciprocated. Trouble is, the pint-sized pachyderm is beset by bullies who ridicule his trunk and make his life miserable. Then a conflagration breaks out at Tillie's tree house.

A bellhop in the best hotel of a small town awaiting the arrival of Miss Glory dreams he has to page her at a first class hotel in New York. In time he is awakened by the manager, because Miss Glory's car has arrived.

Momma cat is teaching her kittens to catch mice. Meanwhile, across the basement, Momma mouse is teaching her little ones how to avoid cats..

A young worm is chased by the Early Bird, but then a snake and two crows join the chase.

Uncle Beans and the kids are off to visit a haunted ship ('The Phantom') trapped in the ice, hoping to find pirate treasure. They encounter all manner of ghosts and goblins, but eventually find what they've been looking for. When Beans tries to warm up by throwing some chairs in a stove and lighting it, he thaws out a pair of pirates that chase the trio around. They treasure-seekers are eventually forced back into their plane and they decide to fly away.

Prologue: various animals enjoy winter sports. Beans sees a notice of a ski race, and decides to enter. But so does a bad guy (who looks more than a little like Disney's Pete). The bad guy sabotages the other contestants in various ways, takes short cuts, etc. But Beans manages to tie up the bad guy in his own trip line. A duck riding a dachshund knocks the bad guy out for a while; he and Beans trade places a few more times before Beans wins the race, just barely.

A dark and stormy night in a drugstore. The druggist mixes a potion and falls asleep. The skull-and-crossbones on the bottle comes to life and drips the potion on the druggist.

Two bear cubs, one black, one brown, frolic near their sleeping father.

2 puppets are left to their uncle's attention who works at the Fire house.

Mrs. Mouse is reading "A Visit from St. Nicholas" to her brood when a cat tries to break in. The cat overhears them arguing about the existence of Santa, so he dresses up accordingly.

Porky and Beans are prospectors during the Gold Rush, but when a villain steals Porky's bag of loot Beans races to get it back so he can marry Porky's daughter Little Kitty.

W.C.Fields enters the Warmer Bros. Studio. Beans tries to drive in, but the guard throws him and his car against a tree. Charlie Chaplin drives in, followed by Oliver Hardy on foot - but we see that it's really Beans in disguise. Oliver Owl is directing a picture; Beans sneaks onto the stage. He's watching from a catwalk when someone knocks him off, into the middle of the scene. Beans is thrown off the set, right into the set of a Frankenstein movie. He accidentally brings the robotic monster to life, and it crashes into the original studio, eating the camera. Beans tries to stop the monster, but is sent flying. He lands against a wind machine. which chops up the monster.

Old King Cole marries the Woman in the Shoe. As soon as they get home, the babies show up from every drawer and closet, much to the king's chagrin.

It's recital day at the schoolhouse. First up: Porky, who recites The Midnight Ride of Paul Revere. A nervous kitten recites Mary Had a Little Lamb. The puppies Ham and Ex sing the title song. Oliver Owl plays the piano; Beans the cat puts a cat and dog inside, and they play a tune as well.

Mother rabbit sends her charges off to school. Peter needs a bit more attention; he's hiding with the chickens, using a feather duster to stand in for a tail. On his way to school, Peter starts to sneak into a farmer's field, but is caught by three schoolmates. They threaten to tell the teacher, and Peter heads off to school.

An Oswald the Lucky Rabbit cartoon.

A poor shoemaker and his wife have only a stale donut and a cup of coffee left to share. An elf drops by, and they offer to share with him. He teaches them (in song) to dunk the donut in the coffee. Later, as they sleep, he brings several other elves back, and they work through the night making shoes in humorous ways. The shoes are a success. Soon, the shoemaker and his wife are quite prosperous. They treat the elves to a feast of donuts and coffee, and the elves treat us to another chorus of "Dunk! Dunk! Dunk!".

An Oswald the Lucky Rabbit cartoon.

Buddy's musical antics as a waiter at a German beer garden are truly delightful! Cookie appears as a cigarette girl and scarf-dancer, and a drag-decked lounge-singing Buddy brings down the house.

This cartoon has some amusing sight gags like a car going back through a fence and crashing into various animals before landing in Cookie's yard or a train that seems on its way into crashing into a car with Elmer and Happy inside when Buddy and Cookie use a ladder to derail the locomotive in another direction.

Oswald the Rabbit comes to the rescue when a peg-legged sheik abducts his girlfriend and brings her to a mysterious pyramid filled with walking skeletons, animate hieroglyphics and other strange sights.

An old man is reading a book by the fire. The clock strikes 8, and he heads off to bed. From his book, Alice in Wonderland, out crawls Alice, who turns the radio to the title tune. This wakes up Rip Van Winkle; Alice then rouses the Three Musketeers, who sing a bit. Next tune: Nero fiddles, Rome burns, and Cleopatra sizzles in a slinky dance. Uncle Tom sings a spiritual as Mr. Hyde sneaks up and abducts Alice. Tarzan to the rescue, along with several other characters who mount a spirited attack using such office supplies as pen points, matches, and a fountain pen. They box him up and carry him off.

A Walter Lantz Oswald the Lucky Rabbit cartoon released November 21, 1932.

Oswald is driven out of his store by mice, so he turns to a cat for help in this Oswald the Lucky Rabbit cartoon from Walter Lantz.

A Walter Lantz Oswald the Lucky Rabbit cartoon released April 21, 1932.