Spring in the Park

This late Oswald the Lucky Rabbit cartoon was directed by old-timer Bill Nolan and while the animation techniques, including backgrounding are as up-to-date as anything at the time was -- bearing in mind that this was during a transition from the earlier 'rubber tire' style of animation to the later 'egg-based' style -- nonetheless this is a rather tired retread of ideas, executed in the style of Schlesinger's Looney Tunes.

Oswald is making time with a maid out wheeling a baby about the park zoo when Pete cuts in. There is a setting song, there are various hard-knock gags, but there is little in the way of advancement over the live-action antics under Mack Sennett's Keystone banner from twenty years before.

Clearly no one had any particularly interesting ideas for Oswald at the moment and the series would end within another couple of years.

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. The 1933 batch is one of the most consistent, with the weakest 'Beau Best' still being decent.

'Spring in the Park' is really not one of the best Oswald cartoons and one of the weakest of the 1934 cartoons. Instead it's an average cartoon in a mostly nicely decent if unexceptional year for Oswald, with the only very good one being 'Sky Larks', the others ranging between average to decent.

The best thing about 'Spring in the Park' is the animation, once again it is terrific. is elaborate, beautifully and cleverly drawn and rich in detail in the backgrounds, some of it in the gags is quite imaginative too.

Love the music too, which is very characterful and beautifully orchestrated and performed. Oswald is endearing and some of 'Spring in the Park' is amusing.

However, the story is thin and it is agreed it is tired and like old ideas recycled, with some of the pacing less lively than it ought.

A few amusing gags, but they are never hilarious and too far and between. Some of it is too over-familiar, it is more restrained than chaotic and it's a bit too cutesy like most the 1934 cartoons.

In conclusion, average. 5/10 Bethany Cox