User Reviews

I can imagine the shocked faces of the Disney fans reading this review, thinking what a philistine this reviewer is. In no way whatsoever am I insulting Mickey Mouse or Disney. There are many things by Disney that I prefer to these sort of cartoons and there are many of these sort of cartoons that I prefer to Disney ones. It is not because I am stupid or am saying that Walt Disney was not good enough in his time.

Anhow, this is one of a few Toby the Pup cartoons, created three years after the first sound cartoon. Toby is a dog who is welcoming passengers onto a ferry boat and has to keep smiling, which is very hard for him. A few cartoon capers follow, all with very old fashioned animation humour, which I personally really like (but not everyone will appreciate it).

I recommend this old cartoon to old cartoon buffs (old cartoons, not necessarilly old buffs) and to people who are interested in seeing a remake of Steamboat Willie. Enjoy "Down South"! :-) 7 and a half out of ten.

I just saw this Toby the Pup cartoon mistakenly identified as an Aesop Fables short from Van Beuren on YouTube. Down South seems to have been inspired by Walt Disney's Steamboat Willie which isn't surprising since the lead character seems to be a Mickey Mouse ripoff developed by Walt's former boss, Charles Mintz. Of course, Mickey himself is a steal from Oswald the Lucky Rabbit that Walt created for Mintz. Oswald by this time was given to Walter Lantz by the studio that owned the character, Universal. Moving on, Toby is a steamboat captain who has to keep smiling when welcoming passengers. A monkey with a long tail on a tightrope helps keep that smile coming! His girlfriend, Cathy, keeps things entertaining when she does her rendition of "Mississippi Mud", a song I learned for a musical play about the south as a kid. Many wonderfully surreal gags abound that kept me amused if not laughing. Worth a look for anyone interested in early animation.

The copy I found of "Down South" was from archive.org and bears the French title "Toby Voyage" and has a few French intertitle cards. However, this should make no difference to the viewer as it doesn't matter what language you speak with this one.

This is the first Toby cartoon I've seen and I can understand why he never became a major force in the animation industry. For the most part, better stuff was being made in 1931 and the cartoon is obviously meant to be a 'homage' (a nice way of saying 'ripoff') to Disney's "Steamboat Willie". The cartoon is set on a steamboat and even one of the characters (a mouse in a row boat) looks an awful lot like Mickey Mouse. HOWEVER, I really doubted if Disney cared, as the animation quality of this one isn't all that good and much of the cartoon consists of an annoying song that is sure to make you want to shoot yourself! Not good by any standard.