Series: Laugh-O-Grams
Release Date: March 20, 1921
Director: Walt Disney
Animator: Walt Disney
Home Media Availability: none
Synopsis: A cartoonist (Walt Disney) draws a few humorous illustrations, with some pertaining to life in Kansas City at the time.
Pre-Watch:
UPDATE (2/14/2026): A while back, I received a better copy of this cartoon, as well as several others recorded straight from TCM (there's some surprises in there for you readers, stay tuned!). Some of the text will be updated to give more clarifying information, but some sentences and overall grammar will be improved as well. Otherwise, this article will remain mostly untouched.
Before we start, let me give a huge shoutout to FoxInAFix for giving me the initial copy to review, and also Tom Stathes for making a better copy able to circulate!
Well, here we are, exactly where it all began. I'm personally excited to finally be able to get into this, hopefully this blog will be thriving.
For some backstory, Walt rented out a garage owned by his father to create this. Recent evidence shows that this is the fifth in a series of 12 cartoons that producer Milton Feld had contracted Walt to create. But as is the case with many silent cartoons, all but one are lost. Let's only hope more of them pop up.
While I don't know if this short has ever gotten an official home media release, some clips are shown in the introduction of the first Mickey Mouse in Black and White DVD set.
Anyway, since I got nothing else to say, let's dive on into this!
Analysis:
We open with a visibly frustrated Walt Disney, who takes a drag on his pipe, then gets back to his drawing. Right away, we see the well-known fact that Walt was a smoker on full display.
The first drawing that Walt does, entitled "Cleaning Up!!?", shows a criminal (symbolizing crime in general) being thrown out of Kansas City with a sign that reads "Get Out + Stay Out".
(Update: A good friend of mine (TheKrazyStew) pointed out that he believes that the sign is in actuality a brick, meaning this could be a Krazy Kat reference. Looking into it, this observation makes way more sense.)
An intertitle then appears stating the following:
For unfamiliar readers, Petticoat Lane is a street in Kansas City that was famous for its fashion, and also where the city's first modern department store was built.
Walt then draws another illustration showing a dry goods store with stockings marked as a "hose special", but two ladies' torsos marked as "waist specials". The scene irises out on the stockings, likely to accentuate them.
The next illustration asks the question, "Did You Ever Take a Ride Over Kansas City Streets 'in a Fliver'". The actual drawing is just advertised, two men riding over the bumpy Kansas City roads in a "fliver" (Fliver is 1920s slang for an automobile).
The final illustration marked as "Kansas City's Spring Clean-Up", doesn't contains Walt drawing an illustration, but rather the very first (surviving) piece of animation in a Disney cartoon!
We see a bunch of cops walking into their headquarters, only to get fired, with the text "YOUR FIRED" blasting out the door. Yep, Walt really did misspell it!
The cops are then booted out through the door (and two of them even go through the metal bars!). A man then places up a sign stating, "Cops Wanted", then walking back inside.
This is in reference to the corruption in the Kansas City police department that its residents would have been familiar with at the time.
Iris out.
Thoughts:
Overall, going into this, I wasn't expecting a lot out of this, and as expected, I was right. Hopefully the Laugh-O-Grams will be an overall improvement. But since we have to start somewhere, I might as well give my thoughts.
When judging this with historical significance, this cartoon is honestly a pretty good effort from Walt. It's his first cartoon, so I can't dog on him too much. After all, not even Tex Avery's first cartoon was perfect!
Some of the gags are actually decent, and even if I didn't live during the time where they would have made the most sense, I still got a bit of a kick out of them. Not exactly laugh-out-loud funny, but I still found them still somewhat amusing, nonetheless.
In summary, I'd say to give this one a watch if you're interested in knowing just exactly where Walt got his start.
Anyway, sorry for the short post. The next posts will be longer, I swear!
Coming up next: The first ACTUAL animated cartoon from Walt, 1922's Little Red Riding Hood! We also meet a then-unnamed Julius the Cat!
Sources for some of the information here:
