Van Beuren Studios

Happy sunshine-bottling gnomes battle gloomy swamp-dwellers.

A frontier newspaper editor Kirby battles outlaw Tiger Morris who is causing indian uprisings to drive away settlers so that he will can claim a gold deposit as his own. With the help of General Custer, right wins out. Presented in serial form in 12 episodes.

Molly Moo-Cow washes to shore on an island, the one occupied by Robinson Crusoe. Much of the short is Crusoe extolling the virtues of the solitary life, Molly trying to ingratiate herself to Crusoe and Crusoe trying to get rid of her. He finally succeeds-just before cannibals come ashore, capture Crusoe and dump him in a pot. From the time they grab him Crusoe is yelling for help (from whom is unclear, given that he wants the island to himself).

Felix is handing out relief, thanks to a goose that lays golden eggs. The evil Captain Kidd sees the goose and breaks into Felix's house to get it. He brings the goose to his pirate ship. Felix arrives too late to catch the ship. Goldie won't lay for the pirates. Felix sees a cannon and turns himself into a human cannonball to catch teh ship. With help from Goldie and another cannon, he subdues the crew, wrapping them in the sail and depositing them in the hold. He and Kidd have a swordfight, but their swords melt together. Kidd chases Felix up the mast, then foolishly cuts off his own support. He falls into the hold. They sail for home, where Felix fires off cannonloads of gold coins.

Brownie the Bear as a young, dapper Gaucho and his adventures as a South American cowboy.

Felix the Cat is perched in a tree playing his guitar and serenading himself and a canary with a little ditty called "Nature and Me." It is a beautiful day in cartoon-land but Mother Nature, perhaps not a music lover, whips up a lightning-laden thunderstorm and Felix is soon seeking shelter. He finds it at the castle of King Cole, a boastful, fabricating blow-hard. The King's ancestors, tired of hearing the braggart, come out of their pictures as ghostly specters and take the King to the dungeon and pump the gassy hot-air out of him.

Tom and Jerry are aboard a train making its way up a mountain in the Swiss Alps. When their train breaks down, they're spotted by a very thin St. Bernard, who brings the engine some liquor. The engine zips through the Alps, but leaves the pair behind.

American animal trapper Frank Buck travels with Ali, his "number one boy," on an expedition into the Malayan jungle. From their jungle headquarters just north of Singapore, Frank, Ali and a team of native helpers roam the area from Northern Johore to Perak in search of interesting wild animals, reptiles and birds. Hoping to find a tiger, Buck captures a monitor lizard and a black leopard, while another black leopard narrowly escapes an encounter with a giant python and then battles a bigger and stronger tiger. After trapping a spotted leopard, Frank adopts a baby honey bear and a baby elephant. The team catches an orangutan, but the tiger eludes their camouflaged pit. Meanwhile, Frank visits the "bathing festival" of a local tribe and watches as tribesmen kill an intruding spotted leopard with blow darts. The tiger then meets an enormous regal python, who has just crushed a crocodile, and fights to a draw with it.

The Aesop Sound Fables, while almost forgotten today, produced some of the strangest cartoons during the Depression with dream-like backgrounds, surreal imagery and some of the best cartoon scores.

Felix is feeding his various pets: a bird, two dogs, and a goldfish. But Annabelle the goldfish is unhappy; she's lonely. Felix sets out to catch her a friend. The fish drag him underwater. After a bit of searching, he finds a goldfish, but the fish cries for help, and Felix finds himself on trial before King Neptune. He's accused of wanting to eat the fish, but after he explains himself, Neptune gives him a fish from the fish orphanage, and everyone lives happily.

An Aesop fable installment from Paul Terry and co.

The short starts with a mouse playing some bell-like tulips like musical bells....

Molly rescues a bunch of butterflies after they are captured by a butterfly collector.

In this Van Beuren cartoon, various animals are singing "Let a Smile Be Your Umbrella" before we go to a couple of cats-one male, one female-looking for the gold pot at the end of the rainbow.

In this Van Beuren cartoon a quartet of singers kidnap a girl and the mouse has to try and save the day.

Waffles the Cat and Don Dog find themselves at the mercy of animate skeletons inside an Egyptian tomb.

Dinner Time is noted as the first sound cartoon short made after Warner Bros.' success with The Jazz Singer and produced even before Walt Disney's first sound cartoon, Steamboat Willie (though released after).

On Christmas Eve, the Little King sneaks two tramps into the castle. The next morning, the three men are thrilled by the presents Santa left behind.

Late night in the toy shop. The toymaker goes up to bed, leaving his wind-up policeman to guard the shop, and the other toys come to life. First order of business: throw that pesky cop into the glue pot. The wind-up soldiers march around. They pass a doll, and the lead soldier stops them so he can go woo her. He has some success, until they are threatened by an elephant; he sucks up the other soldiers, and our hero cowers in fear. Then a monkey attacks, and our soldier continues not to be brave.

A wedding in the Aesop's Fables jungle.