1937 was the high water mark for Walt Disney. SNOW WHITE AND THE SEVEN Dwarfs came out to great reviews and amazing box offices, Fleischer had been ravaged by the Production Code. Iwerks had lost his studio and Walter Lantz had closed down Oswald the Lucky Rabbit.
To Charles Mintz, running his cartoon unit for Columbia release, there seemed no way out but to go the Disney route, with a more realistic look to his one star, Scrappy, and to produce a cartoon modeled on Disney's THE BAND CONCERT. The result is a pretty good cartoon, with the usual well-timed gags. But it is still pretty startling to anyone used to the earlier, more stylized Scrappy.
Mintz would continue on in the same vein, his own high-water mark being THE LITTLE MATCH GIRL. But it would take the rise of Termite Terrace and Mickey Mouse and rise of UPA with its stylized -- and cheaper -- animation techniques to finally dislodge Disney from his lone perch atop the animation world.
To Charles Mintz, running his cartoon unit for Columbia release, there seemed no way out but to go the Disney route, with a more realistic look to his one star, Scrappy, and to produce a cartoon modeled on Disney's THE BAND CONCERT. The result is a pretty good cartoon, with the usual well-timed gags. But it is still pretty startling to anyone used to the earlier, more stylized Scrappy.
Mintz would continue on in the same vein, his own high-water mark being THE LITTLE MATCH GIRL. But it would take the rise of Termite Terrace and Mickey Mouse and rise of UPA with its stylized -- and cheaper -- animation techniques to finally dislodge Disney from his lone perch atop the animation world.
