Going to Blazes

There's a fire in an apartment building. It's up to the fire company to put it out in this Oswald the Lucky Rabbit cartoon.

This one is a combination of objects coming to life and child-like gags. Structurally, it's almost entirely a synchronized cartoon: silent workings (albeit with a few shouted words and several of the anthropomorphic items laughing) with a brisk, xylophone-dominated score by James Dietrich. It's a style of cartoon making that mirrors the speed of the action.

The characters are fairly childish, in keeping with the current design of Oswald and the effect is that it's all aimed at children. It's not terribly appealing to me, although it does has its moments.

Despite Oswald the Lucky Rabbit and his cartoons being popular and well received at the time, they have been vastly overshadowed over time by succeeding animation characters. It is a shame as, while not cartoon masterpieces, they are fascinating for anybody wanting to see what very old animation looked like.

Oswald in the Disney years saw mostly good to very good cartoons, and while the Winkler years had some duds there were also cartoons as good as the best of the Disney years. The 1929-1930 batches of Walter Lantz-directed Oswald cartoons were a mixed bag, with some good, some forgettable and not much special and a few mediocre. The 1931 batch was mostly underwhelming, with only 6 out of 18 cartoons being above average or more. The 1932 batch had a few not so good, though the cartoons in question were nothing compared to the worst of the previous 3 years, cartoons, but most were decent to good and some even very good.

'Going to Blazes', as far as the 1933 Oswald cartoons go, is not quite as good as the previous two cartoons 'The Plumber' and 'The Shriek', two of the best Oswald cartoons in a while and two of the best of the Lantz years. It is more childish agreed than the previous 1933 cartoons and occasionally feels a little too much of that, while the story is thin and predictable (though admittedly people don't see the Oswald cartoons for their stories, with a few exceptions).

However, the animation is very good. There is the looser and more elaborate look of many of the previous Lantz era Oswald cartoons, but it was surprising and lovely to see parts of the animation reminding one of the animation style of the Disney years in places.

James Dietrich's xylophone-heavy music score is lively and dynamic with the action, and while the gags are not as hilarious or as imaginatively timed as the gags in 'The Plumber' and 'The Shriek', the best of them are still very funny.

Synchronisation is good, both in the animation and how it matches the music and gags. The sound is not as muffled as it could be for an early cartoon. Oswald is likable and fun to watch.

All in all, pretty good if not one of the best. 7/10 Bethany Cox