Synopsis

In the early 1920s, the Felix the Cat cartoons were about the best and most popular cartoon shorts you could find. However, by the early 1930s, the series was dead. Why? Well, the biggest reason is that the films were very original and creative in the early versions–far ahead of their time. But the quality of the films didn’t improve and the competition sure did. With the creation of Disney’s first shorts using the Disney name, the quality clearly was better than Felix and instead of retooling the character dramatically to catch up to Mickey Mouse, the studio and its creator kept making the same sort of pictures. Here in “Felix the Cat in False Vases” they FINALLY did something creative–but it was much too little much too late. While Mickey was a talking mouse, here Felix and the rest of the characters have weird sound effects for voices and they were added post-production…and the results are pretty dreadful compared to the competition. Other than a few cute sight gags (such as having the dog dig to China so Felix could replace the broken vase), the character is pretty tame and less fun than his early 20s version. Sad to watch…mostly because it’s not all that funny and Felix COULD be tremendously funny.