Vitaphone Corporation

A Merrie Melodies short directed by Rudolf Ising, and the first appearance of Goopy Geer, a tall, lanky piano-playing dog who entertains patrons at a nightclub. The cartoon is built around the Herman Hupfeld title song, with gags involving a gorilla waiter, a drunk horse seeing hallucinations in a mirror, and a chicken swimming in soup before it is served. Goopy Geer appeared in only three shorts before fading into obscurity, but the character remains a charming artifact of the early Merrie Melodies era when each cartoon was built around a song. The film is in the public domain.

Animation · Short · Comedy · Music

The very first Looney Tunes cartoon, directed by Hugh Harman and Rudolf Ising for Leon Schlesinger and Warner Bros. Bosko, a cheerful, rubber-limbed character, sings the title song in his bathtub before a series of gags involving his car, his girlfriend Honey, and a goat. The short established the formula for the early Looney Tunes: a song-based cartoon built around Bosko, animated in the round, fluid style that Harman and Ising had developed at Disney. The title tune, "Sinkin' in the Bathtub," was the first of many popular songs the series would showcase. The film is in the public domain.

Animation · Short · Comedy · Music

A Merrie Melodies short directed by Hugh Harman and Rudolf Ising for Leon Schlesinger and Warner Bros. A crowd of animals and humans gathers at a carnival, where gags pile up around a merry-go-round, a sideshow, and a fireworks finale. The title song, like all early Merrie Melodies, is the real point of the cartoon, with the animation built around showcasing the tune. The short is a time capsule of early sound animation, made when Warner Bros. was still finding its footing in the cartoon business. The film is in the public domain.

Animation · Short · Comedy