Senorita of the Rubber Hose

Rubber hose animation abounds in The Terrible Toreador, a 1929 Silly Symphony, which was an attempt by animator Ub Iwerks and composer Carl Stalling to set a cartoon to snippets of music from “Carmen.”

Look at the garden hose arms and legs.



Not all Disney artists were adept at drawing hands. Check out these two consecutive shots. No, they don’t match, but the first version has basically a ball for a hand.



The evil Don keeps pulling the rubber arm and kissing it. When he’s surprised by the good guy toreador, he lets go of the senorita’s arm and it snaps back, smacking her in the face. It’s timed (and drawn) very much like a cartoon at Iwerks’ own studio a few years later.

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The bullfight is pretty good, with more rubber hose, and the ferocious bull turning, um, fey for an extended scene after being smacked on the butt, and the usual Disney-character-zooms-at-the-camera shots.