User Reviews

The peg-legged hippopotamus captain of a pirate ship crewed by peg-legged cats abducts the lady mouse in this early Terrytoon operetta.

Terry would make a bit of a specialty of operetta by the 1940s, with Mighty Mouse warbling "Here I come to save the day" to rescue Pearl Pureheart from Oil Can Harry. This one is stylistically a bit earlier, with its Rudolf Friml declamatory singing.

The gags quickly become redundant, but clearly Terry meant this to be a big cartoon for the season, with unusually elaborate and detailed background work. While this cartoon's age has definitely dimmed its appeal, its technical superiority for the era makes it eminently watchable today.

The Terrytoons are oddly interesting, mainly for anybody wanting to see (generally) older cartoons made by lesser known and lower-budget studios. They are a mixed bag in quality, with some better than others, often with outstanding music and with some mild amusement and charm and variable in animation, characterisation and content.

Like as was said by me with 'Noah's Outing', 'Peg Leg Pete' is neither among the best or worst Terrytoons. Somewhere around average middle more like, and that is true also ranking it with the other Terrytoons batch from 1932. It is nonetheless a worthwhile enough outing. Its main reason for viewing is mainly for anybody striving to see every Terrytoons available like me. Again though that is not the sole reason.

Best asset is the music, which predictably is incredible. It is so beautifully and cleverly orchestrated and arranged, is great fun to listen to and full of lively energy, doing so well with enhancing the action. There is some nice detail and ambition in the backgrounds that are more elaborate than one expects for very early non-big budget animation.

Pacing is neither too hectic or dull in the first half, there is a natural charm and there are some fun and well-timed gags in the first half. Once you figure out who he is, Pete is amusing and menacing conflict with a big personality.

However, as is the case with a lot of the Terrytoons cartoons, the character designs are crude and simplistic.

The story is very flimsy and formulaic, the supporting characters lack Pete's big personality and are not very memorable. The second half isn't as strong, the pace doesn't have quite the amount of pizzazz the first half had and the gags are fewer and not as funny or imaginative.

Concluding, another worthwhile cartoon with not an awful lot that's exceptional. 6/10 Bethany Cox