User Reviews

Despite being made in the sound era in the US, "The Museum" has no voices--just some sound effects and some music. It begins with the janitor, Toby, goofing off. Soon he begins to dance about and the exhibits in the museum (such as statues) come to life and dance as well. Eventually, the boss arrives and does not look pleased. Maybe it's because he saw this cartoon! "The Museum" is the sort of cartoon that I thoroughly despise. There really is no plot and it's full of characters dancing about...and that's it!!! Really, couldn't the Mintz Studio folks have done any better than this? No wonder their Toby the Pup character didn't last very long with pablum like this! I give it a 2 simply because the animation is not horrible. Otherwise, I see nothing about this that I liked in the least.

Toby is the night janitor at a museum, and he polishes and cleans all the statues. The latter come to life, of course, and the results can be humorous. I mean, seeing a dinosaur gargle with mouthwash, Rodin's "The Thinker" doing a Russian dance, etc., is pretty wild.

Toby has fun brushing a statues' teeth, or clipping the toenails on another, etc. His mop then turns into a harp and he plays music for them. It's typical early '30 imaginative animation with sights you don't often see.

The print is so-so but I am just grateful we are still able to see some of these early animated short. Hey, this one is 77 years old, and was made just around the time sound was introduced to movies.

The Museum is a Toby the Pup cartoon from Charles Mintz that I just saw on Google Video. This is one of those many typical musical cartoons made in the wake of the success of Steamboat Wille, the first successful sound cartoon that made Mickey Mouse a star and Walt Disney famous. By comparison, Toby is one of the many Mickey-inspired impostors now forgotten likewise Mintz who's most famous for taking away Disney's Oswald the Lucky Rabbit character after Disney asked for more money allowing him to create The Most Famous Mouse of All. Anyway, this cartoon has Toby working as a janitor in a museum with (literally) a lion of a boss watching over him. As the cartoon goes on, the statues come to life dancing up a storm while the pup plays a harp made from a rake head which was originally a mop head. (Animators were so creative at this time!) Pretty entertaining and certainly worth a look for any animation fan.

The only reason I thought of watching this great cartoon is because it was the first to be directed by Arthur Davis, who would later go on to direct a few good Looney Tunes cartoons. As a whole, this cartoon is very interesting as it has a great deal of old fashioned humour and the music and animation (in the version I watched at least) is in good enough condition to fully enjoy the cartoon. Find it on the internet as "The Museum (1930).

Anyhow, this cartoon is basically about a little dog who is a rather bad and cheeky museum cleaner. Not surprisingly, his boss is very impatient with him and urges him to keep cleaning. As the cleaner cleans, some of the things in the museum come to life...

I recommend this to people who are interested in old cartoons and to people who like Mickey Mouse-type characters, with moving statues. Enjoy "The Museum"! :-) 7 and a half.