The King and Santa

The Van Beuren cartoon studio made a handful of cartoons involving winter, and Santa Claus appeared at the beginning of the Cubby Bear debut Opening Night (1933), but the studio made only one true Christmas cartoon—The Little King’s Pals (1933).

The king reads a sign in a department store window (note the spiked fingers).



He goes inside. You can’t see them very well in this murky print but there are radiation lines of glee around his head as he sees Jolly Old St. Nick. A little girl and her satisfied mother are frozen while the lines do their thing for several seconds of footage.



Santa is the only one who speaks in the cartoon. He tells the Little King to run along and he’ll bring some toys. He pats His Majesty on the head and then the two exchange a coy wave.



The cartoon stops when the Little King and one of his “pals” (he picked up a couple of hobos) crash into each other in the toy vehicles Santa brought.

This is the last Little King cartoon where Jim Tyer gets an animation credit. The style of his you’re used to at Terrytoons with shrinking heads and bodies that turn into weird shapes isn’t evident yet, but Tyer diehards seem to be able to pick out his work here.