The Cobweb Hotel

As we read in the beginning, this hotel is "for flies only." As with a lot of cartoons, you get a lot of puns here, which is fine with me. The lyrics to the spider's song are both sadistic but funny. The first flies visiting the hotel are boxing champion ("flyweight division," of course, and his wife).

This spider is one of the creepiest characters I've seen in animated films, and I've seen probably a thousand. I'll bet he scared little kids watching this in the theater in 1936.

Make no mistake: this is a "dark" cartoon. Yes, it's not untypical with the theme of a bunch of "little people" ganging up and finding clever ways to beat an evil "big guy," but there aren't the usual amount of laughs in here, although it's smart and will keep your attention. Just beware of what you're in for, if you have little kids planning to see this.

The Cobweb Hotel is a cute little cartoon but it doesn't really stand out much. A huge part of the cartoon revolves around a song of the same name that is cute too but not all that memorable. Although I will say that The Cobweb Hotel benefits from the fly newlyweds that are the heroes of the picture. They're kind of fun and have their own personalities, particularly the husband who's a `flyweight champion.' I especially liked his fighting stance every time he felt he or his girl were in danger. It kind of reminded me of Donald Duck whenever he gets mad and is ready to fight. Overall, this is not too shabby of a cartoon.

My IMDb Rating: 6/10

The Cobweb Hotel is a cute, somewhat dated, cartoon with some very good moments. Strange thing is, I keep reading and hearing comments from other people that range from "scary" to "weird and strange", which tells me people haven't seen a whole lot of the output of Fleischer Studios! Though the Fleischers did do some more sedate work than this one, compared to some of the earlier shorts, this one is downright "normal" (whatever that is, anyway).

Part of the Color Classics series (where Max Fleischer tries to out-Walt Disney, instead of being Max hisownself), this is on the DVD release Somewhere In Dreamland, which is an excellent purchase. Try and chase down a copy, if you can. Well worth the effort. Recommended.

A spider who runs an hotel for flies in fact has foreboding, disturbing plans for his unsuspecting fly guests.

This cartoon is mainly focused on adapting the strange little song of the same name which we see the spider singing, adding an ominous curl at certain appropriate moments, as this one opens. The flies though they at first seem to be so much cattle to be harvested eventually prove to be of more substance than we initially thought as they end up putting up quite the fight of resistance indeed.

I have to say I enjoyed this one far more than perhaps many would as it carries out a somewhat morbid real world event (spiders do catch flies in their spider webs) and adds an entertaining, delightful twist to the proceedings. It helps that our spider here comes across as being particularly monstrous. Fun if slightly twisted.

While not among the Fleischer Brother's best or the most innovative, The Cobweb Hotel is fascinating and well worth checking out. The story is on the predictable side and a bit cutesy once you take away the grim content the cartoon has and of the characters they're all good but the only really really compelling personalities come from the flyweight and particularly the spider. The animation is top notch, with the characters ranging from the cute to the grotesque, the backgrounds are rich in detail and it's very atmospheric(very well suited for such a foreboding setting) while still with a good amount of colour. It's also filled with a lot of innovative touches that are distinctive of Fleischer, especially in the opening sequence with the use of animated characters amidst live action sets. The music is lively but with a very haunting vibe, a lot of the scores in Fleischer's films are lusciously and appealingly sentimental but this score had a more ominous edge to it that suited the cartoon well without feeling too different.

It is understandable as to why some would find The Cobweb Hotel weird, the content with the way the spider traps the flies and the lengths he goes into doing so is quite disturbing. But the cartoon is not all grim, because once the flyweight gets more to do it becomes the standard hero vs villain premise that is cute and energetic while also showing the spider at his most sinister. And while The Cobweb Hotel is not a hilarious cartoon or rich with laughs, it's not without funny moments except of the dark kind, the prime example is the lyrics of the spider's song. The characters do engage, while the flyweight is a likable hero that you cheer on in the fight the most interesting is the spider, who is quite a creepy villain and added to my sister's fear of spiders. Other than his design and the freaky imagery shown in his opening song with the flies trapped Jack Mercer's voice work was a large part of the spider's effectiveness as a character, he voices the character with a menacing and quite gravelly hiss and has never sounded creepier. All in all, not quite a Fleischer masterpiece but fascinating. 8/10 Bethany Cox