The Crook Jumped Over the Moon

You know a gag is coming but what’s it going to be?

Disappointing, it turns out.

In the climax scene of the ComiColor short The Brementown Musicians (1935), the animals tossed out by a farmer return to save him from burglars. In some cycle animation, the donkey kicks the identical crooks out the door and into the night sky.



The first couple sail over the moon. You get the feeling a gag is being set up. Why would it be happening otherwise?



Here it is. The moon swallows one of the burglars, then spits him out. That’s the gag.



Iwerks must have decreed his cartoons be filled with radiating lines. They all have them. The moon sprouts them in this scene.



Iwerks and musician Carl Stalling are the only ones with credits on this cartoon, which has could have had whimsy, but didn’t.