From Ryan Kilpatrick at The Disney Film Project : The final Laugh O Gram film completed by Walt Disney’s fledgling company was Cinderella, a modern take on the old fairy tale. You’ll remember the characters from the previous fairy tale short, Puss in Boots. They play similar roles here.

We open on a title card telling us about a girl who lives on her own with her friend the cat. Yes, my friends, the cat has returned again. The same little black cat from all of the Laugh O Gram films so far is back again for Cinderella. I know, there was no cat in the original story, but you can probably get the sense already that Disney has a thing for animals.

Cinderella is the same girl from Puss in Boots that was the object of the young boy’s affections. The roles are reversed this time. We open with Cinderella and the cat doing dishes – Cindy scrubs, the cat dries – while her stepsisters lounge in the backyard. The stepsisters are an interesting design – one fat, one thin. This is an interesting contrast to the later animated film, that we can discuss when we get there in about 30 years of Disney time.

The scene cuts over to the prince, who is played by the boy from Puss in Boots. He is chasing a bear while riding a horse and shooting, which takes quite a bit of talent. Riding a horse alone would be a feat for me, but this guy is shooting a gun and hitting a bear in the rear end while riding the horse. No wonder the card that introduced him as the prince called him “a wonderful fellow.” The dog from Puss in Boots is running along behind him as they chase the bear.

Ahead of them, several bears are having a little dance party, with one in particular dancing around in the middle while the others play music. That sequence involves some fun animation, with the main bear removing his tail to play as well. But when the bears see the prince coming, they flee into a nearby cavern to escape. It doesn’t work. The prince follows them into the cave, horse and all, and ends up dragging all the bears out with a rope.

In celebration, the prince has an invitation made for a ball, to be held “Tuesday, Friday the 13th.” I really don’t know what that gag means, but I’ll admit that it made me laugh. The prince loads the dog up with his invitations and sends the dog out to disperse them. This leads to my favorite sequence in the short, where the dog hops on a bike to deliver the invitations like a paper boy. He hits a rock and tumbles down a hill, emerging from a cloud of dust with a bandaged head and a crutch. A bystander comes by and says via word balloon “Are you hurt?” The dog simply looks at him, then bashes the man over the head with his crutch. I laughed out loud. It’s just the sort of thing that you don’t expect from a Disney cartoon, but it’s totally what would happen.

From there, you probably can guess the story. The stepsisters go to the ball, Cinderella wishes that she could, her fairy godmother shows up and bestows a flapper dress and a Model T on her, then she heads to the ball. Cinderella is the bell of the ball, which is a very contemporary (for the 20s) affair, with flapper dancing all over the place. The prince and she get together, but, as expected, at midnight she flees and her clothes turn to rags, but she leaves behind a shoe. The prince follows the shoe tracks the next morning, down on all fours sniffing the ground, only to find that the other shoe had fallen off as well and was now on a duck. However, he soon finds Cinderella, fits her foot to the shoe, and they live happily ever after.

This short was good, but compared to Puss in Boots or The Four Musicians of Bremen, it’s not nearly as inventive. This short is fairly straightforward in its storytelling, not offering new or different perspectives or innovative sequences like you see in the earlier shorts. It’s very interesting to me that this story is the only one from the Laugh O Grams that Walt chose to come back to later. Did he feel this was not done properly? Or did he just want to do a big grandiose fairy tale and didn’t care what the specific tale was?

Being the last of the Laugh O Grams seems to have hurt this short, because the cool little inside gags like the Cinderella poster in Puss in Boots are not here, nor are the extended sequences like the house being barraged with fire in the Musicians short. It is definitely entertaining, and the dog hitting the guy with his crutch is laugh out loud funny, but overall, this is the weakest of the shorts besides Little Red Riding Hood.

From Per Nilsson : It was great fun to see the original version of a Cinderella. The setting for this cartoon is the 20's in America, not some fairytale country that was used in the later version. The people dress in typical clothes for that time and live in normal houses, even the prince.

This short have a good plot which I believe is not so common in cartoons from this age. Of course there is a lot of 'cycles' used but it doesn't matter so much. And doesn't the prince resemble Walt a lot?

Here is a short summary:

The first scene is showing Cinderella washing the dishes with 'her only friend the cat'.

Next there is a view of her lazy stepsisters, one tall and thin and one short and fat. But none is very ugly.

And then a switch to the prince, who is chasing a bear. He riding on a horse or a donkey, perhaps a horse with long ears? (The chase goes on for a rather long time, considering that the prince doesn't normally get so much attention.) The prince stumbles on a group of a bears and follows them into a cave and after a while comes out pulling them all tied together on a string!

Next comes the invitation to the ball, The ball will be held on Friday the 13th! The prince and his dog packs all the invitation letters. The dog delivers all the letters 'paperboy style' riding a bicycle.

On the ball night, Cinderella's sisters inform her they will go but she can not come. When Cinderella sits down to sulk, the fairy godmother pops out. She dresses her up in a typical 1920's clothes and provides a car for her. (Still indoors!)

Next scene the prince is dancing with the fat sister, he's really not enjoying it! When he finds Cinderella he proclaim love at first sight! The dancing continues and even the cat and the dog is dancing.

The prince and Cinderella is enjoying themselves, when she discovers the time is almost midnight. She rushes away and drops one shoe. The shoe knocks down the prince.

Next morning the prince is following the some tracks, but they turn out to be made by a duck!

Later on, the sisters are discussing the ball, and saying that the mysterious girl had a wonderful dress. Then comes the prince, and he wants the sisters to try out the shoe he found. Not so surprisingly it fits Cinderella and they live happily ever after!

From Ryan : I really enjoy this updated version of the old fairy tale. The animation is a little primitive, but this is of course the early 20's and I believe this short was animated by Walt himself, who was a rather poor animator. Disney was to make the famous animated movie about 30 years later.

From Margos : I saw this short on YouTube recently. I don't know, it was charming in a way but there was just something about it that was extremely bizarre. Although I did find it sort of funny that it said "There was a prince who was a wonderful fellow," and then simply cut to a (rather over-long, but somewhat amusing) sequence of him trying to kill a bear.

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Cinderella

A Laugh-o-Gram Cartoon

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Animation

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DVD

United States

Germany

France

Italy

United Kingdom

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United States

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Released by The Laugh-O-Gram Company

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