There is no copy today of Ride ’em Plowboy, an Oswald the Lucky Rabbit cartoon released on this day in 1928, but fortunately production materials and storyboards survive. We turned to animation expert and Oswald enthusiast expert David Gerstein for his analysis of the short. “Ride ’em Plowboy is a classic farmyard story with Oswald …

As an inhabitant of the silent era, the mischievous Oswald the Lucky Rabbit didn’t, as animation scholar and frequent D23 contributor David Gerstein notes, have to “stop everything to play music on barrels and lily pads twice a minute.” To Gerstein, the silence was golden, giving animators more time to spend on gags and story. …

It was on this day in 1928 that the Oswald the Lucky Rabbit cartoon short Neck ‘n’ Neck was released in theaters. When Oswald takes a lovely lady rabbit out for a ride in his old jalopy, he soon finds himself racing a chasing police car. When the film was released, Walt didn’t own Oswald …

Although it didn’t happen on a mountaintop in Tennessee, it was on this day in 1927 that Fess Parker was born in Fort Worth, Texas, a man who would become synonymous with the “king of the wild frontier.” And incidentally, tomorrow marks the birthday of the real-life Davy Crockett, whom Fess portrayed beginning in 1954. …

A year before the debut of Mickey Mouse, Walt Disney had another series of animated shorts whose characters had already become audience favorites. Walt Disney’s series of silent Alice Comedies featured the title character Alice, a live-action actress who experienced all types of adventures in an animated world. Often joining Alice were the animated characters …

Released between 1924 and 1927, Alice Comedies are a series of 56 silent, black and white cartoons that feature a live girl, Alice, acting in Cartoonland. Walt sent out the unfinished pilot film, Alice’s Wonderland, to various cartoon distributors in New York, and one of them, Margaret Winkler, agreed to distribute the series with payment …

The Alice Comedies are a series of 56 silent cartoons made between 1924 and 1927 that imagine the adventures that a live girl—Alice—has in a make-believe Cartoonland. Several young girls portrayed the role of Alice throughout the series’ run, including Virginia Davis, Dawn O’ Day, and Lois Hardwick, with child actress Margie Gay acting in …

Yee haw! It was on this day that the cartoon short Alice at the Rodeo galloped into theaters in 1927. In this installment of the Alice Comedies, Julius the cat wins a bucking bronco contest at the rodeo. When his money is stolen, a wild-west chase ensues. As usual, the heroine of these cartoons is …

A year after Lon Chaney starred in the silent film The Phantom of the Opera, Disney animated villain Pete also became infatuated with his own angel of music and he, too, decided to kidnap her. Rather than a Paris opera house as in the horror film, Disney set his film in a Spanish café, with …