The Horse's Mouth

There’s not a lot to like in the Walter Lantz cartoons starting some time in the 1950s, though some will suggest the studio produced some good shorts into the mid-‘60s. Still, you can still poke around through the ‘50s and find something worthwhile.

“Jittery Jester” (1958) features a horse with a standard design and a standard Dal McKennon voice. Whoever’s animating him here has decided to go for some exaggerated mouth movements on the standard line “Oooh, I hate him.” Here are some of the poses.



The animation caps one of Homer Brightman’s gags which makes absolutely no sense. Horse-riding Dooley says “Lower the drawbridge!” The drawbridge is lowered. But then the drawbridge is raised and Dooley and the horse crash through. Why was it raised? Who knows. It just goes up. I guess everyone was so distracted laughing at Happy Homer’s performance in the storyboard meeting they didn’t notice there’s no reason for it.

Bob Bentley, Don Patterson and Les Kline are the credited animators.