HOLIDAY ENCORE: Toby the Pup in “Hallowe’en” (1931)

Happy Halloween everyone!!

The Toby the Pup cartoons are a favorite elusive thing of mine, and other people for sure! The series, helmed by animator/ fdirector Dick Huemer, has remained elusive in its full form for many, many years. There were 12 in the series all told, and over the years, once in a while, one of the missing ones will peak its head out. I’m always looking myself.

I wrote a little article on the cartoon back in 2018, but it was *after* Halloween by a bit. Now, six years later, Thunderbean Thursday is on the correct day, so it seems like an excellent choice for this year!

Here’s what I wrote back in 2018:

Hallowe’en (1931) is my favorite of the currently available shorts. It feels like several cartoons sort of wrapped into one.

Toby’s behavior is reprehensible at the beginning of the short, kissing everyone and assaulting a friendly looking elephant before being slapped into shame and respect by his girlfriend. His attempt to redeem himself by playing the piano and performing inside a pumpkin seems to win over his all-animal audience, before ‘Hell’s Bells’ send all the guests into a state of fear at the impending ghost and Skeleton invasion. Any and all story sense in thrown out the window in this final section, and, in best Fleischer tradition, that’s a *good* thing. There appears to be a small section missing from the short near the end, leaving us to wonder what gag was excised.

This cartoon is a fitting predecessor to the ‘Scrappy’ shorts, featuring the unmistakable Columbia-esque animals (looking very much like they do in the Krazy Kat shorts from the same period). Even though the cartoon makes very little sense story-wise, it doesn’t really need to; the animation timing and posing puts over the gags just fine. Columbia’s abilities as a studio seem to take pretty big leaps during this period, especially in character personalty and gag timing. I especially enjoy the cartoons that Dick Huemer directed at Columbia through the early 30s.

The cartoon is also unusual in that, near the end, it features the earliest ‘smear’ frame I’ve seen in a sound cartoon, in the sequential frames below. I find the timing of this particular animation in that shot and this film) really fun and interesting:

So, here is Hallowe’en. It is featured on the Grotesqueries Blu-ray, from Thunderbean and Blue Mouse Studios.

Hopefully there will be a complete Toby the Pup Blu-ray some day, and I’ll be properly dressed for the occasion when that happens. Have a good week everyone!