Sunny South (1931) Online

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.

'Sunny South' is better than 'China', 'College' and 'The Fireman', which were lacklustre, forgettable cartoons. It however doesn't fare as well as 'The Farmer', which was surprisingly pretty good and one of the best of the 1931 batch of Lantz Oswald cartoons. It is not exactly good however, it is only just average in execution but at least has some amusing moments, something that 'China', 'College' and 'The Fireman' didn't really have.

The best asset again is the animation, for what it lacks in occasional refinement it more than makes up for in a lot of detail, the drawings not being as crude mostly as they can be (a good deal of it is pretty smooth) and how Oswald's gestures, expressions and movements are animated which are remarkably natural.

Oswald himself is a likable character, while the synchronisation is decent and the gags in the first half revolving around Oswald on a train are amusing. The music has energy and the musical interludes of the second half are catchy.

'Sunny South' doesn't fare so strongly in the more song-and-dance oriented second half, focusing on the minstrel show. There is not much that is funny or inventive here, the pacing not as energetic, but the music itself and the way things are choreographed do fare better.

There are racial stereotypes here and even those who are not usually so sensitive to them may find it doesn't bode well with them, there were occasions where it was questionable to and wouldn't hold up today while serving perhaps of historical interest. The story is not much of one at all, non-existent even and the inconsistent pacing and variable laughs don't make that so forgivable.

In summary, very uneven if not awful cartoon. 5/10 Bethany Cox

Oswald drives a train into the sunny south, where he cakewalks with Kitty and fronts a minstrel-show inspired revue on the street in this mediocre Oswald the Lucky Rabbit from Walter Lantz' studio.

This cartoon is divided into two parts. In the first, Oswald drives the train and it's mostly gags involving the train doing gags that are amusing because of their impossibility. The second half is the revue segment, as Oswald and Kitty do a cakewalk, play musical instruments, and various animals do routines that involve a lot of watermelons. It won't please the modern audience because of the racism. It shouldn't have pleased the contemporary audience because few of the gags were particularly novel. If you cut this one off at the halfway mark, you'll have some fun.