User Reviews

Despite Oswald the Lucky Rabbit and his cartoons being popular and well received at the time, they have been vastly overshadowed over time by succeeding animation characters. It is a shame as, while not cartoon masterpieces, they are fascinating for anybody wanting to see what very old animation looked like.

The 1932 batch of Oswald cartoons, despite being of an uneven overall standard, has generally been far better than the 1931 group, of which only six were above average or more and the rest were average at best and a few less than that. Of the 1932 batch, 'Wins Out' and 'Let's Eat' were mediocre and 'The Winged Horse' was on the forgettable side, but 'Grandma's Pet', 'Beau and Arrows', 'Mechanical Man' and 'Day Nurse' were good, and 'Cat Nipped' and 'A Wet Knight' very good.

Even though a loose, though with the same premise and set-up, remake of one of the best and funniest cartoons to come out of the Winkler era, 1929's 'Yanky Clippers', 'The Busy Barber' is one of the very good cartoons of 1932 featuring Oswald and one of Walter Lantz's better Oswald cartoons (which were a very mixed bag in quality, some good, others weak and a lot somewhere in between).

Perhaps, 'The Busy Barber' takes too long for the action to properly get going, as funny and interesting as the first half of the cartoon is it is basically set-up until the tiger appears and there's more of a story (which is pretty thin at this point).

However, that there is a music score here is a plus, and it is a witty and pleasantly orchestrated one that is dynamic with the action. 'The Busy Barber' is one of the more creative and funniest 1932 Oswald cartoons (and Lantz's Oswald cartoons in general), all the gags work, are never less than amusing and the timing is suitably sharp.

'The Busy Barber' continues with the slap-sticky nature of 'Day Nurse', but in a way that is more elaborate but without being overdone.

Animation is very good, with a looser and more elaborate style than seen in 'Yanky Clippers' and other pre-Lantz Oswald cartoons. It's crisp and fluid enough with some nice detail especially with animation techniques still in early days. Oswald is a likable enough protagonist, nice personality and does nothing to infuriate the viewer. The tiger serves as a good antagonist, if a little underused.

Overall, very nice 1932 Oswald cartoon. 8/10 Bethany Cox

A sleeping tiger has his tail stolen to serve as a barber pole in this decent but unremarkable entry in the OSWALD THE LUCKY RABBIT series from Walter Lantz' studio.

It take about four and a half minutes for the tiger to wake up after the ugly deed is done, and meanwhile Oswald is back in his barber shop, dealing with customers and his animated barber chair and cash register. This was a period when the 'rubber tube' style of animation of the 1920s and early 1930s was growing stale, and the 'everything is alive!' style of gag was very popular. There is, however, something so bizarre about these two bits of animation that they seem mildly disturbing. Still, Oswald's manner of dealing wit his customers' beards is fairly classic slapstick adapted to cartoon animals, and makes for a worthwhile time waster.

It doesn't get better than this. After some improvements a year earlier, Oswald's image has reached its peak. During his early days on screen, the rabbit wore nothing other than his trademark shorts. But overtime, Walter Lantz made Oswald more decent by putting on more outfit. It should be noted that the inclusion of things like gloves and shoes are a Disney influence, considering Mickey was among the first characters to wear such stuff.

As for the film, the gags are adequately humorous. Also, the soundtrack composed by James Dietrich is pretty catchy. Although the big predator loses something in the beginning, things still ended up good for both Oswald and that huge animal.

Disney may have left Oswald in 1928 but his influence on the character would live on for the next seven years.