Cinderella

This very basic animation ('Laugh-o-Matic') was one of Walt Disney's first ventures into the world of animation, and into the fairytale of Cinderella, which he would eventually release as a feature cartoon in 1950.

Crudely drawn, this cartoon still has the hallmarks of Disney - the characters have personality even within the limits of the drawings, the story is funny as well as sentimental, and all of the story is there including the run away at midnight as the spell is broken (which leads to a nice gag involving the Prince which I won't spoil here).

A delight to watch just to see where the seed of the idea for the eventual movie success came from. It can be found on the DVD of Cinderella, Special Edition, as an extra.

Cinderella (1922)

*** (out of 4)

Walt Disney directed this early cartoon from the Laugh-O-Gram. The story is pretty simple as Cinderella wants to go to the Prince's ball but of course her evil stepsisters won't allow that. Thankfully her Fairy Godmother shows up just in time. There's really nothing overly special about this film other than the fact that Disney worked on it. If you took away that interesting bit of history then it's doubtful too many people would be seeking this version out. However, it's impossible to get away from who directed it so if you happen to watch this version you'll see it's nothing too special but it remains mildly entertaining. The animation itself was good for its period but I think the highlight is just seeing how weird it actually is. The Prince is rather dorky to say the least and the entire story is just told in such a way that you can't help but find it weird but interesting.

Nearly 28 years before making the classic feature-length animated version of Cinderella, Walt Disney made a short 7-minute version for the Laugh-O-Grams studio in Kansas City. In this one, the title character is doing dishes with her cat while her stepsisters are lying around reading the papers (there is no evil stepmother here). I better mention that this takes place in the '20s with flappers and cars. Meanwhile, the prince is out hunting for bears (in this sequence, the bears are dancing just before the prince ties them up in one rope!). After he sends his cat with the invitations, that cat gets a little injured but when someone asks if he's all right, he hits him with his stilt! After the stepsisters leave Cinderella and the cat alone in the house, the fairy godmother gets them a car with a flapper dress for the girl. If you know the story you can probably guess what happens at this point on. I will also mention that Cinderella and the prince look similar to the characters in the first cartoon Disney made, Little Red Riding Hood. The animation here is actually an improvement from his first two that I saw on YouTube. So on that note, I highly recommend this first version of the famous fairy tale made by the legendary Walt Disney.