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SYNOPSIS:Ub Iwerks was one of the greatest animators of the silent and early sound eras: he animated "Steamboat Willie" and other early Disney shorts virtually by himself. But the films he produced at his own studio after breaking with Walt Disney in 1930 lack the vitality of his earlier work. During the '30s, the animators with Disney, the Fleischers, Warner Bros., and MGM developed a new style of cartoon humor that centered on characters with strong, recognizable personalities. Iwerks's first recurring character, Flip the Frog, who appears in more than half the cartoons in this collection, never developed into a wholesome good guy or a sarcastic antihero. He remained an observer, rather than someone who initiated the action, as Mickey Mouse and Bugs Bunny did. The rambling plots further weaken these films. Flip stumbles into a haunted house in "Spooks" (1932), but the artists can't decide if they're trying to be funny or scary, and the film falls between two chairs. The garish colors and bizarre designs in "Balloon Land" (1935) have a camp appeal, but the inflatable hero and heroine and the spiny villain simply aren't very interesting. Iwerks's cartoons unfortunately remain less than the sum of their parts, but this disc (in unison with Vol. 1) offers an interesting historical perspective on the development of popular animation. --Charles Solomon
Circus
Flip the Frog is working as a hot dog vendor at a circus. A thief steals a woman's purse and it's up to Flip to stop him.
Balloon Land
The inhabitants, including the trees and rocks, of Balloon Land are made entirely of balloons. They come under attack from the evil Pincushion Man. With the help of a quickly inflated army, they manage to fend off the attack.
The Headless Horseman
Jack Frost
A young grizzly bear, undaunted by his mother's warnings of the coming winter, runs away from home only to be confronted by Old Man Winter himself.
Bully
Funny Face
Soda Squirt
School Days
The Office Boy
Flip schemes to get himself hired as an office boy at the Screwy Nuts & Bolts factory, especially because of the attractive typist. He starts well, using a cat's tongue to lick a stack of envelopes. Before long, the cat starts chasing a mouse around the office and causing more trouble than Flip or the secretary can handle. Her dress gets caught in the duplicating machine and removed. In all the confusion, the boss arrives, and even though Flip kills the mouse (after it lands on his head), he gets fired.
Hell's Fire
The Goal Rush
The Milkman
Flip, the owner of a dairy farm, wakes up one morning and goes to milk his cow. He has problems with a pesky fly who is eventually swatted by the cow's tail. Flip then takes the milk into town to deliver it. While in town, he encounters a bratty little kid who just won't leave him alone. Eventually Flip and the kid make up and become friends.
Spooks
While riding through a rainstorm on his horse, Flip spots a house. He goes in to seek shelter and meets a friendly skeleton who wants to add Flip to his collection of skeletons. Flip and the skeleton eat supper and dance. When Flip goes to up to bed, he soon finds out what's going on and runs out of the house and off into the distance.
Techno-Cracked
Coo Coo the Magician
Chinaman's Chance
Laughing Gas
Flip is a dentist. A walrus in the waiting room is apprehensive when he hears the screams of earlier patients, but he is wrestled into the chair. Flip tries to pull the bad tooth, but keeps getting laundry, small cars, etc. He drills, but the bit breaks. Finally, he uses gas (a skunk) to put the walrus out. The walrus comes to just in time to find that Flip has put a lit stick of dynamite in his mouth; walrus removes his dentures and the dynamite, and puts them under Flip. The whole office blows sky high.
Room Runners
Stratos-Fear
Cuckoo Murder Case
The Cuckoo Bird residing in an old clock in a creepy old mansion is shot dead by an unknown assailant; Flip the Frog is called in to investigate (and finds more than he bargained for).
Nurse Maid
The New Car
Movie Mad
Ragtime Romeo
Stormy Seas
What a Life
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