This Trolley is Out of Control

“If the first of these new cartoon comedies for Universal release is an indication of what is to come,” declared Chester J. Smith in the Motion Picture News, “then this series is destined to win much popular favor. They are cleverly drawn, well executed, brimful of action and fairly abounding in humorous situations.”

The “new cartoon comedies” being referred to were Walt Disney’s shorts starring Oswald the rabbit, the first being Trolley Troubles, released on September 5, 1927. It’s still amusing after all these years.

There are a number of scenes with cycle animation, including a neat one that opens the cartoon where 55 drawings of child rabbits and a cat move around the trolley while Oswald (in a separate layer of animation) dusts it off. A simpler one is eight drawings of Oswald’s out-of-control trolley rolling down a hill.



Put the cycle together and it looks like this:



From what I gather, Ub Iwerks, Hugh Harman and Friz Freleng were among the animators of this cartoon.