Let’s All Dance!

Dinky Doodle and Weakheart get “Dinky Doodle and Red Riding Hood” off to a rollicking start by dancing on top of a turntable (warping the record as it turns). An orchestra appears in the horn of the gramophone for a bit.



The scene cuts away from the animation to show an exuberant dancer.



Let’s look a little closer. Say, it’s none other than Walter “Jazz-Hands” Lantz!



This is a silent cartoon from 1925, released by Bray. Whether it’s the first cartoon spoofing Red Riding Hood, I don’t know, but it’s an early one. Lantz did it several more times in the sound era, the last being “The Three Little Woodpeckers” 40 years later.

(My thanks to Tom Stathes for a copy of this short)