Ten Strange & Scandalous Pre-Hays Code Cartoons

The Hays Code was initially created in 1930 and began being enforced four years later. The code was meant to help reduce the amount of violence, sex and other 'anti-social' behavior onscreen. It was adopted due to conservative concerns about film content and controversy surrounding several off-screen scandals involving Hollywood stars.

However, many artists and filmmakers felt heavily restricted by the Code's rules which stated that films could not show such actions as: illegal drug trafficking, onscreen nudity or sex, profanity, 'white slavery', and ridicule of the clergy. Additionally, any crime shown on the screen had to be punished and couples could not be depicted sleeping in the same bed together. (Due to competition from other studios and changing social norms, the Code was eventually replaced by the film rating system we have today in 1968. While certainly not perfect, the MPAA's use of ratings does not rely on censorship, and thus allows more artistic freedom.)

A photo taken by A.L. Schafer that symbolically protests the Hays Code. It depicts several elements banned by the Code.

As a result, filmmaking in Hollywood changed drastically. Theatrical cartoons were not exempt. Despite that old animated shorts are often considered to be 'wholesome' / 'safe for the entire family,' many Pre-Code cartoons contained quite a few bizarre and sometimes unsettling scenes. If you don't believe it, then prepare to be enlightened by the ten shorts below.

The Oscar Nominated Shorts of 2014 (Who Will Probably Win & Who Should Win)

Why is the statue called Oscar anyway?

The Oscars are fast approaching with a live screening set for March 2nd. While the Oscars are and have always been biased towards certain films (specifically English speaking ones usually produced by major Hollywood studios or well known directors), they have become increasingly popular and prestigious. The movies nominated for best picture always get lots of fanfare, but films in other categories are sometimes overlooked.

The short film categories often suffer from this. This is shame because they are a great way to showcase talents from across the globe. Because they cost significantly less to produce they can vary greatly in their subject matter and style. While some of them are made by larger studios, many of them are not and are very personal films made by small independent creators/companies passionate about the medium.

The Oscar nominated animated shorts from last year.

For those of you who have yet to see them, the Oscar nominated animated shorts this year, are overall, a pretty solid bunch. The nominees include a Disney short, three entries from Europe, an anime, and an independently produced short. If you happen to attend the screening of the nominees at your local theater, you will probably notice that the program also includes three honorable mentions which were not nominated for the Oscars. Fortunately, they are also fairly enjoyable as well. (Unfortunately, the animated shorts are 'hosted' between each segment by two obnoxiously unfunny CGI animals. But, hey, at least the awards aren't being hosted by Seth MacFarlane again this year.) So without a further ado, here are some brief reviews (and winner predictions) for the nominees and honorable mentions for the Best Animated Short of 2014.

The Nominees

Get a Horse!

Director: Lauren Macmullan
Company: Walt Disney Animation Studios
Country: USA

Get a Horse is a throwback to Disney's original rubber-hose Mickey Mouse shorts from the early 1930s with a twist. When Peg Leg Pete attempts to run a hay wagon off the road, Mickey and Horace are forced out of the movie screen and into the theater, becoming CGI colored versions of themselves. Horace and Mickey then battle Pete, who has kidnapped Minnie, by finding ways to interfere with movie playing on screen. While the premise is a bit gimmicky and not entirely original, (Tex Avery loved inserting self aware sight gags into his cartoons, and Get a Horse bears some resemblance to Osamu Tezuka's 1985 short, Broken Down Film) the film has been made with so much love and passion it is hard not to smile at the character's antics.

Get a Horse is not necessarily the best nominee, but it has already become an audience favorite, having won the Annie Award for Best Animated Short Subject and being nominated for Best Animated Film at the San Diego Film Critics Society. More than likely it will probably win the Academy Award. Get a Horse also features original voice recordings from the 1930s, marks the first appearance of Oswald the Lucky Rabbit in a Disney cartoon in over 84 years, and is the first Disney production to be directed solely by a female animator.

Rating: 3.5

Mr. Hublot

Directors: Laurent Witz & Alexandre Espigares
Company: ZEILT Productions, WATT Frame
Country: France

Mr. Hublot moves at a far more leisurely pace than Get a Horse and has no dialogue. However, this largely aids the film rather than hindering it. The short follows a little mechanical man who lives in a Victorian era steampunk-like society. But Mr. Hublot largely chooses to ignore the beautifully rendered CGI/ stop-motion animated landscapes around him. Instead, he focuses intently on his work, preferring the company of his typewriter indoors rather than socializing with others. One day, his work is disrupted after he discovers a small robotic puppy abandoned outside his apartment. Mr. Hublot takes pity on the creature and adopts it. Eventually the puppy grows into a huge dog, and Mr. Hublot is faced with a difficult decision: Should he keep his pet / only friend and allow it to disrupt his work? Or should he get rid off it?

Mr. Hublot is a charming short. Although the story is a bit familiar, the short's animation is very distinctive and Mr. Hublot's apparent OCD is very relatable in our day and age. While not as likely to win the AA as Get a Horse, this film has a bit more substance to it. I would love to see what the short's creators do next.

Rating: 4/5

Feral 

Director: Daniel Sousa
Company: SousaAnimation
Country: USA

Feral greatly contrasts from the other contestants mentioned so far. It is not cute, funny, or heartfelt, but it is a rather mature, gloomy piece. The short tackles a difficult, yet intriguing subject with no clear answers: How would a feral child react if suddenly he or she were suddenly placed back into society? The huntsman who discovers the lost boy in the film certainly thinks that he is helping the child by reintroducing him to his 'proper place' in society. But the audience is left unsure, especially after they see the boy alienated by his strange new environment. The boy tries to adjust by using the same methods that kept him safe in the woods, but is teased by his peers and misunderstood by others. Feral ends openly with the boy running back towards the forest.

The short is quite ambitious and manages to tell its story with little to no dialogue, but, unfortunately, it can be difficult to understand at times due to its level of abstraction. Feral is indeed beautiful to look at, but feels a bit unevenly paced and may leave its audience cold. Still, one has to admire the efforts of Daniel Sousa's creation as he created almost entirely by himself.

Rating: 3/5

Possessions

Director: Shuhei Morita
Company: Sunrise
Country: Japan

Possessions is perhaps the most unique of all of the nominees and bears a couple of distinctions. It is the first anime film to be nominated that has not been directed by Hayao Miyazaki and its animation is blend of both cel shaded characters and traditional background art. The film's director, Shuhei Morita, is perhaps best known for his half-an-hour ghost story film, Kakurenbo ['Hide and Seek']. (It should also be noted that Possessions was originally part of an anime anthology film, Short Peace, which contained three other shorts including the award winning Combustible.)

In Possessions, a traveler comes across a shrine when he tries to find shelter from pouring rain. He decides to spend the night there, but notices that the shrine is full of neglected items. According to Japanese legend, abandoned items will come to life after one hundred years have passed. The umbrellas, kimonos, and other objects attempt to scare off their unwanted guest. However, the man decides to mend all of the tarnished objects instead and is rewarded for his efforts. Possessions may be more unusual then some of the other candidates, but there is still a small chance it could win. After all, Miyazaki's Spirited Away won Best Animated feature back in 2002 (making it the only anime film to do so so far).

Rating: 4/5

Room on the Broom

Directors: Jan Lachauer & Max Lang
Company: Magic Light Pictures
Country: UK

Easily the cutest entry on the list, Room on the Broom is based on a picture book by Julia Donaldson. The short also sports a well known cast, featuring the voices of Gillian Anderson, Rob Brydon, and Martin Clunes among others. Like Mr. Hublot, Room on the Broom blends several animation mediums (specifically models for the sets, CGI for the characters, and traditional animation for fire and water effects). This gives the film its own unique look, which is refreshing in this age where everybody seems to try and copy Pixar's style.

The short itself, is of course, aimed primarily at children, but is actually the longest nominee running at about half an hour. It manages to keep audiences of all ages alike amused with its gentle humor and rhyme filled narration. Room on the Broom is about a kindly witch who flies around with her grumpy cat in tow. The witch keeps dropping things, but the objects are always found by a forest animal. The witch always invites them to ride on the broom with her, despite her cat's protests. However, the broom eventually becomes to heavy to float and the witch runs into trouble with a hungry dragon. While nothing complex is offered in this short, it is quite enjoyable and certainly will please young ones and their families.

Rating: 4/5

The Honorable Mentions

A La Francaise 

Directors: Morrigane Boyer, Julien Hazebroucq, Ren-Hsien Hsu, Emmanuelle Leleu, William Lorton
Company: Supinfocom Arles Animation Film School
Country: France

A la Francaise is sort of a one trick pony. The short is about a bunch of pompous 18th century aristocrats attending a party at Louis XIV's palace…except that they all happen to be chickens. That's about it. Most of the gags actually tend to be pretty funny though and occasionally even a little risqué. The plot becomes increasingly chaotic and disorganized after a hen writing down all of the details about the party loses her papers, which fly throughout the ballroom and start offending all of the guests.

The biggest letdown of this short, however, is its very unsatisfying ending. The audience doesn't even get to see Louis XIV's full reaction to the disasters occurring around him. Still, there is much to be admired about this short on a technical level, given that it is CGI student film that was worked on by only handful of people over the course of three years. It's apparent why A la Francaise wasn't nominated, but it was rightfully given an honorable mention.

Rating: 3/5

The Missing Scarf

Director: Eoin Duffy
Company: Belly Creative Inc.
Country: Ireland

The Missing Scarf is one of those films that takes all of your expectations then completely subverts them in the best possible way. The short begins like a typical children's story. Narrated calmly by George Takei, it tells the tale of Albert, an optimistic squirrel, who has lost his scarf. Albert goes to the woods to search for it, but meets several other animals who have problems of their own (such as an owl who is afraid of the dark and a fox who fears being disliked by others). Albert gives each of them advice about how to deal with their problems, however the short becomes subtly darker as time goes on. So much so that even the bear's troubling existentialist question may not seem as impractical as it sounds.

The Missing Scarf's animation, done in a combination of Adobe Flash and Blender, suits the style of the film well. It is simple and to the point. The cute character designs also greatly contrast with the black humor at The Missing Scarf's ending. Personally, I think this short should have also been nominated, but The Missing Scarf was probably too unorthodox for the Academy's tastes. Their loss.

Rating: 4/5

The Blue Umbrella 

Director: Saschka Unsled
Company: Pixar
Country: USA

Many people where surprised when they discovered that Pixar received no nominations this year, not just for their main feature, Monsters University, but also for for their short, The Blue Umbrella. In the case of The Blue Umbrella, however, it is pretty apparent to see why it wasn't nominated. There is nothing wrong with the film, in fact it contains some beautiful CGI effects and utilizes some really creative animation on various inanimate street objects. However, The Blue Umbrella fails to offer its audience anything that they haven't already seen before.

The story is cute (involving a male blue umbrella who gets separated from his love interest, a red female umbrella), but it bares an uncanny resemblance to the 1954 Disney short, Jonny Fedora and Alice Blue Bonnet, and is rather predictable. The animation on the umbrellas is also somewhat disappointing. The drawn on cartoon faces simply don't blend very well with the short's otherwise photorealistic style.

Rating: 3/5

The Very Best of Ub Iwerks

To follow up on this week's previous post, here are ten of some the most renowned shorts that Ub Iwerks directed and/or primarily animated. His diverse career and creation of several iconic characters make him a an unsung hero in animation. Ub's cartoons had many common themes. The bouncy, weightless, and funny way his cartoons moved helped found the foundations of rubber hose animation. He loved to use over the top sight gags and spontaneously bring life to inanimate objects. Ub also had a fondness for pianos, aircraft, and the macabre (dancing skeletons!).

1. Steamboat Willie (1928)

One hardly needs an introduction to Steamboat Willie. (If you haven't heard of it, you have been living under a rock for over eighty years.) It was the first cartoon to make heavy and effective use of synchronized sound and Mickey Mouse's (as well as Minnie Mouses's and Pete's) first public appearance. The short received so much acclaim that it was added to the National Film Registry in 1998 due to its historical importance and lasting impact. The title of the short's name is actually a parody of the Buster Keaton film Steamboat Bill Jr. (1928). In Steamboat Willie, like all early Mickey Mouse shorts, Mickey is far more mischievous than his 'tamer' contemporary counterpart, much akin to Oswald the Lucky Rabbit.

2. The Karnival Kid (1929)

Besides having anamorphic hotdogs, Mickey Mouse's 9th cartoon was notable for using actual dialogue. Mickey speaks for the first time, his first lines being, "Hotdogs! Hotdogs!" and, "It's a bum hootch scam keep your money in your pants!" It is up to some debate wether or not Walt Disney voiced Mickey in this short (Walt would voice Mickey regularly up until 1946, when his lungs began too damaged from smoking to allow him do the mouse's squeaky voice.) Mickey's voice is noticeably rougher, causing some to believe he was actually voiced by the famous animation composer Carl Stalling in this cartoon. The scene were where Mickey tips his ear like a hat also inspired Roy Williams to create the iconic Mickey Mouse ears caps. 

3. The Skeleton Dance (1929)

The Skeleton Dance was the first Silly Symphony cartoon produced and is widely regarded as one of the series's most memorable. It was animated entirely by Ub Iwerks himself, no small feat considering that drawing realistically proportioned skeletons is quite challenging. (Iwerks was a very fast worker, being able to create 700 drawings in a single day if needed!) This Halloween favorite pokes fun at horror tropes, with skeletons dancing to a foxtrot and yowling cats to boot. Extreme closeups, xylophone music, and atmospheric lighting are used to great effect. Although the The Skeleton Dance does not have much to offer plot wise, all of the creative characters and unique animation make up for it. Scary has never been so funny.

4. Spooks (1931)

Ub Iwerks just had a thing for skeletons and hunted houses. Flip the Frog was a short lived cartoon character, but the second half of his career really had some great shorts. The song that skeleton band plays is called, "Mysterious Mose," and was featured prominently in a Betty Boop cartoon, from the year before, of the same name. Spooks is just as well crafted as The Skeleton Dance, and is a lot more 'scary' and has snapper timing. How many other cartoons would dare to feature a host luring in a cartoon animal to add to his taxidermy collection? Oh, and if the only house you see during a storm appears haunted, I advice you don't spend the night there.

6. The Office Boy (1932)

In this Pre-Hays Code cartoon, Flip seeks work as an office assistant only to run into trouble with a destructive mouse and a sexy, young typist. No doubt due to the influence of ex-Fleischer Bros. animators and the fact that Ub no longer worked for the more conservative Disney, The Office Boy has quite a few gags that certainly weren't meant for children. Flip's cheery disposition does not put him below cutting in front of the other boys in line for the office job. The Great Depression made him quite competitive for employment, especially when cute girls were involved! The audience can probably also relate to Flip, who was blamed for many problems he encountered at work by his unforgiving and stern boss. 

7. Room Runners  (1932)

Flip the Frog is out of work (again) and attempts to run away from a hotel he owes money to. However, the lady who owns the hotel calls up the police and Flip also has to help a man with a lose tooth and avoid the distraction of a rather scantly clad lady. The result: a lot of mad, slapstick, and politically incorrect insanity! The score for this cartoon is notable as it was done by Carl Stalling, who also composed the music for other Flip cartoons, early Disney cartoons, and later, most famously, for Looney Tunes. It is also interesting to note that Flip does not get the girl at the end of this short. Like quite a few other cartoons by Iwerks, Room Runners does not have a perfect ending for the protagonist, and ends on somewhat of funny, bittersweet note. (Flip gets slapped by the girl and accidentally wrecks the hotel, but gets away from the police and manages to pay the hotel bill.)

8. Funny Face (1932)

Unlike the other Flip cartoons shown here, Funny Face (not to be confused with the Audrey Hepburn movie of the same name) features our hero as a young, lovestruck boy. When Flip is dumped by his (human) girlfriend for another boy, he decides that he needs to disguise himself with a plastic-surgery mask to cover his 'ugly' face. The best gag in the cartoon involves Flip being teased by the masks at Dr. Skinnum's office. Once being insulted, Flip responds back, in song, "Even though I look like heck, you're as ugly as horse's neck!" When Flip saves his girlfriend from a bully, despite losing his mask, he regains his confidence. Looks are not everything after all.

9. Stratos Fear (1933)

Willie Whooper didn't even survive a year as a theatrical cartoon series. However, Willie's outrageous lies about his nonexistent adventures certainly provided an excellent vehicle for inspired animation. In Stratos-fear, Willie's third cartoon, the titular character was redesigned to look less like a boy version of Flip the Frog and to resemble a pudgy, practically ball shaped, over eager child. Stratos-fear, though still very obscure, is the best remembered cartoon of Willie's short lived career. The reason, no doubt, is for the short's outrageous plot (involving Willie hallucinating from laughing gas that he travels to space) and its rather demented animation of numerous bizarre aliens. This makes this short comparable to many of the early Betty Boop and Popeye cartoons in its imagery.

10. Ballon Land (1935)

Was the last cartoon not strange enough for you? Then give this one a try. While most of Iwerks's Comicolor cartoons were rather dull (but lovingly made), a handful of them could be entertaining. The cartoon is basically a cautionary tale about running away from home. When two young ballon kids disobey the warnings of other people in town, they nearly get popped by the menacing Pincushion Man, voiced by Billy Bletcher (best known for his roles as Pete and the Big Bad Wolf at Disney). The cartoon violence in this short is a bit shocking. When the Pincushion Man is accidentally let into town by Ballon Land's foolish gatekeeper, he goes on a violent rampage popping several of the land's residents before he meets his demise. If this cartoon was about actual people, not balloons, it is highly unlikely that so many on screen deaths would have ever made it past the storyboards. 

*Bonus: The Multiplane Camera

After making amends with Walt, Iwerks returned to Disney and made several groundbreaking innovations. One of the most memorable was the multiplane camera. This video clip, narrated by Walt himself, explains how the invention works and how it allowed for more realism to enter cartoons. Multiplane cameras were used all the way up until the making of The Little Mermaid (1989), after which digital processes replaced the need for this complex invention. Today, only three of the Disney multiplane cameras survive: one at the Walt Disney Animation Studios in Burbank - California, another at the Walt Disney Museum in San Francisco, and a final one at The Art of Disney Animation exhibit in Disney Land Paris.    

Some Animation Related Memes

Memes can be a big waste of time and unfunny, but sometimes they are hilarious or brilliant. Here are several of my favorites. (For those of you who don't get the last one, it's a picture of Osamu Tezuka, the creator of Kimba the White Lion/Jungle Emperor Leo.)