Carnival Capers

Based on the comic strip Happy Hooligan, this cartoon was packaged with the Hearst-Vitagraph News Pictorial and shown before the main features in theaters.

Oswald wants to be a knight. He then seeks the queen to grant him his wish.

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

An Oswald the Lucky Rabbit cartoon.

A Walter Lantz Oswald the Lucky Rabbit cartoon released August 1, 1932.

Disaster ensues when Oswald neglects his day care center. I won't spoil the experience for you; just let this document of one-sided American "history" wash over you like a cool fungus.

A Oswald the Lucky Rabbit cartoon.

The story of how William Tell came to shoot the apple off his son's head is told in this Oswald the Lucky Rabbit cartoon from Walter Lantz.

A recalcitrant thief vies with a duplicitous Mongol ruler for the hand of a beautiful princess.

Oswald the Rabbit puts on a concert for a group of barn animals - but when they discover that he's miming to a record of his idol, Paul Whiteman - they boo and shun him. Oswald wanders off in shame to hang himself from the nearest tree and is stopped by none other than Whiteman himself who happens along in his car. The two begin performing music using parts of the car which leads to some highly surrealistic setpieces (dancing tools - a hood ornament that does an Indian dance, etc.) This rare and whimsical cartoon was used to promote THE KING OF JAZZ and makes reference to same.

In this cartoon, Oswald wears a shirt for the first time, therefore completing his outfit. Some plot elements in the cartoon would be used again in Carnival Capers.

A nobleman vows to avenge the death of his father by the hands of pirates. To this end, he infiltrates the pirate band; Acting in character, he single-handedly captures a merchant vessel, but things are complicated when he finds that there is a beautiful young woman of royal blood aboard.

Don Cesar De Vega crosses swords with a vicious member of the Queen's Guard, and steals the affection of a young heiress. When the officer frames the young upstart for murder, Don Cesar fakes his own death and retreats to the crumbling ruins of the family castle he plots his vengeance.

Oswald is riding on a camel; he defeats an attacking lion, using the camel's humps as cannonballs. In Cairo, he meets a queen and sings her his theme song; the sphinx and a couple pyramids join in, but the king isn't as happy.

The film begins with an obese woman going to the shoe store and insisting she's a size 3 1/2--though she's obviously much larger. Then, out of the blue, a cat and a stick figure appear and make fun of the woman--making fat jokes and the like.

A large-scale revue musical built around Paul Whiteman and his orchestra, presenting a series of musical performances, sketches, and staged tableaux in early two-color Technicolor, emblematic of Hollywood’s early sound-era “all-star” musical productions.