Buster's Bust-Up

This is the first of many reviews of the Buster Brown shorts, based on Richard F. Outcault's comic strip character who later became the trademark logo of the shoe company of the same name, I'm writing for this site. This seems to be another of the kid series of the silent era inspired by the success of Hal Roach's Rascals, or Our Gang as they were also known as. Anyway, Buster and his dog Tige are riding the town in their toy fire truck hitting pedestrians along the way. For a while they give chase before that ends and the Brown boy then visits his girlfriend Mary Jane. There's also some sequences concerning the smallpox virus (Buster is mistakenly ID'd as having it after some paint dots lined his face) and being up on a contruction site (how much of that is trick photography is hard to tell). I'll just say that I thought this was very funny nearly from beginning to end. I'm guessing director Gus Meins was the reason especially knowing he would later replace Robert F. McGowan on the talkie Our Gang shorts. Speaking of that series, Tige was played by Pal the Wonder Dog who would also join OG as Pete the Pup. So that's my recommendation of Buster's Bust-Up.