¡Oh, profesor!

When you think of Disney, you most likely think of Mickey Mouse. You might not know that the most famous cartoon character of all was not that studio's first creation. Prior to him, Disney created a character called Oswald the Lucky Rabbit, who looked a bit like Mickey. He starred in a number of shorts but eventually disappeared as Mickey became Disney's number one star.

One of Oswald's shorts was 1927's "Oh Teacher", wherein he has a series of zany adventures on the way to school. By which I mean that this cartoon's idea of physics would give Neil deGrasse Tyson a heart attack. The wackiness in this cartoon makes it all the more surprising that over the next decade, ol' Walt would try to make the cartoons more lifelike. Either way, it's a fairly entertaining short, if nothing special (my favorite cartoon characters are the Looney Tunes).

Available on Wikipedia.

Before I comment on this film, I should probably tell some of you who are unaware of Oswald the Rabbit. He was created by Walt Disney in 1927 before Mickey Mouse. In fact, he may have been the inspiration for Mickey because he has similar physical characteristics. If you take Mickey Mouse, stretch out his ears, and give him a fluffy tail then you'll have Oswald the Rabbit. A year later, however, another animator took him away from Disney and that's when Disney came up with the idea for Mickey.

Anyway, in this short, Oswald is taking his girlfriend to school in his scooter. He runs into Pete who has just missed the schoolbus. They crash into a lake and Pete attempts to save Oswald's girlfriend. At recess, Pete and Oswald get into a fight and Oswald's package that Pete threw up on the roof falls on Pete and knocks him out.

Although Disney had Oswald taken away from him, he still had Pete. Pete is the oldest of the modern Disney characters who started off in the "Alice Comedies."

I have been a fan of Oswald the Lucky Rabbit since I was a child. The majority of the cartoons were not available on VHS or DVD until recently. This is one of the few that had been floating around the internet prior before Disney obtained the rights to distribute these old cartoons again. That version did not have the new musical score that accompanies the DVD version.

The animation is slightly crude pen and ink. This was made in 1927, and it shows. However, I find the style very good for Oswald because it forces the story board to be stronger.

Oh Teacher! (1931 re-release of the 1927 film) was one of the earlier Oswald Cartoons. However, the original was lost. So the re-release by Walter Lantz is the only copy available. As a consequence some scenes have been moved around, and other scenes are deleted altogether. It features the "oldest version of Oswald" and he was more Rabbit features. Some of these features got in the way a bit and for this reason I scored the short 9/10. For example, his whiskers were awkward in the opening scene when he is plucking the petals of the flower off the "She loves me, She loves me not" flower.

The lack of budget shows through a bit. Oswald's style of clothes changes, and the first scene he has whiskers which disappear altogether.

The style is similar to early Mickey Mouse Cartoons that soon followed (such as Plane Crazy and Steamboat Willie). The work of Hugh Harman, Ham Hamilton and others. The chief animator Harman, actually split scenes with Ham. Keep an eye out of the second half of the brick scene between the evil cat and Oswald to see the two styles at work. It was a wonderful partnership which worked well in this film.

This is what makes the short so enjoyable. The story line is thin, but the sight gags are very clever. Watching Oswald stretch out like a Marvel cartoon character. Somehow this style does not appear as unrealistic as one would expect. Other portions, such as when Oswald's head falls off, did give the feeling of unrealism, and it is one of the styles that Disney soon dropped from his cartoons soon after. In this cartoon the humor makes one think "how funny".

The new music by Robert Israel's new score added much to this animated short. However, the changes in scene transition and deletion of scenes from the original were emphasized by the score.

Note: There is one scene in which an evil character is knocked off the school bus and he gets hit with the exhaust, causing black-face. This is missing from this copy. According to the audio commentator, this was removed from the DVD copy. Now, the cat has a mild gray face.

For anyone interested in the history of animated cartoons, this is a fascinating glimpse of early Disney work. It is not a classic, but nevertheless full of clever and amusing moments. Given the fact that there was no sound track (though the version I saw had music and minimal sounds) and very few words written on screen, the story-telling is amazingly clear. The sight gags are delightful, some of them clearly inspired by (or stolen from) Chaplin and other silent-movie comic geniuses. But what Disney understood right from the beginning is how to use the medium of drawn animation to go far beyond what real-life comedians could do on screen. One example: when one character yells "HELP", the letters of the word kick Oswald to get his attention and point toward the damsel in distress to direct him. Even Chaplin couldn't have come up with a sight gag of that kind.

For its time this was an excellent cartoon. It was the second of the Oswald series, and features Black Pete, who later became Peg Leg Pete in Mickey Mouse cartoons.

The version I have seen had music and limited vocal sound added in 1932. I found it more enjoyable to view with the sound turned off.

Entirely black and white with gray in shadowing and, originally, no sound, this cartoon shows the early genius of Walt Disney Studios.

Although the plot is limited, the cartoon is able to rely on the sight gags that made the early Mickey Mouse cartoons famous.

For those not familiar with early Disney Cartoons, a viewing of Oswald will give a good idea of the early history of Mickey.