Newman Laugh-O-Grams

In the 21st century, when the name Disney is associated with a media conglomerate that has become the embodiment of cultural imperialism, it might be a surprise to see "Newman Laugh-O-Grams". This is probably Walt Disney's first credit. The title is based on the theater where it ran. It appears to be based on advertisements that ran in Kansas City, where Walt Disney lived before moving to Hollywood. He made a series of shorts called Laugh-O-Grams, but the studio folded after a year or two due to lack of funds. Once he moved to southern California, the rest is history.

Among the other people who worked at Laugh-O-Gram Studio were Ub Iwerks and Friz Freleng (the latter of whom famously became one of the directors of the Looney Tunes cartoons).

This short is nothing special, just a peek at Disney's early work.

It's Walt Disney at his desk and him drawing various Kansas City based cartoon pictures. First, there are three drawings; Cleaning Up!!?, Dry Goods, and Did you Ever Take A Ride Over Kansas City Streets. Then it's a cartoon called Kansas City's spring clean-up.

This is only interesting for the creator's name. There is nothing compelling story-wise. The drawings are fine. I guess the mannequins are interesting in that Walt is trying something sexy. While it's technically fine, it's not that good by itself without Disney's name attached to it. It is intriguing to see his progression over the years.

If it wasn't for the fact that this short was made by Walt Disney himself, you wouldn't give it a second's notice! It's among his first films, from a series made for local theaters....and no one apparently knows how many of these Laugh-O-Grams he made.

The film is super simple. It mostly consists of Walt drawing comic panels. Later, you see an animated sequence which is fair quality for its time. Nothing particularly noteworthy in what you see.

Walt Disney sits at his drawing board and produces images suitable for editorial cartoons and advertisements. There's a scene of a stereotypical crook being literally kicked out of Kansas City; mannequins wearing hosiery and lingerie; and finally, animated, some policemen walking into the department an d being thrown out.

They were produced for Newman's Theater in Kansas City, and that's where Disney met Carl Stalling, who was musical director of the theater. Walt clearly intended to make Kansas City a center of cartooning, but his early, simple efforts, while well drawn -- and nicely preserved and restored by Tommy Joe Stathes -- had a long ways to go.

I hate to tell whoever wrote the initial description of this film, BUT VIDEO DID NOT EXIST IN 1921!!! It would have happened commercially before 1947, but this little distraction called World War II got in the way.