Cartoon a Day: Lonesome Ghosts

Lonesome Ghosts
1937
Directed by Burt Gillett
Available on: Walt Disney Treasures - Mickey Mouse in Living Color Vol. 1

It didn't occur to me until last night while reviewing "Hell's Bells" that I should've been doing Halloween appropriate toons all week. Oh, well, I'll try and continue the theme through the weekend.

"Lonesome Ghosts" is a cartoon I have fond memories of. When I in around kindergarten age, a friend who lived a few doors down has this toy that was kind of like a View-Master, except it played movies. You'd turn the crank and look through the hole to see the movie. It was cool! One of the cartridges I remember them having was of a few scenes from "Lonesome Ghosts." I loved watching that thing, not to mention turning the crank backwards so you could watch the film in reverse.

In this short, Mickey, Donald, and Goofy are the original Ghostbusters (Goofy even utters the line "I ain't afraid of no ghosts"). They have a ghost exterminator business which isn't doing too well, until a bunch of bored ghosts call and send them off to their haunted house so they can have some fun.

The sequence in which Mickey opens a door to find a flood of water coming at him is a favorite. The ghosts floating through on surfboards is funny and the animation is pretty amazing. Goofy's Harpo Marx style mirror sequence with one of the ghosts is also a stand-out. My only real beef with this cartoon is the voices of the ghosts. They sound like the actors were speaking into soup cans and are almost unintelligible at times.



That little movie machine my friend had when I was a kid also allowed you to watch the movie frame by frame, which I did many times. This is a great cartoon to watch frame by frame. There's a alot of skillful animation going on here. Then remind yourself this was made in 1937, still pretty early in the grand scheme of things.