Van Beuren Studios

Felix the Cat is perched in a tree playing his guitar and serenading himself and a canary with a little ditty called "Nature and Me." It is a beautiful day in cartoon-land but Mother Nature, perhaps not a music lover, whips up a lightning-laden thunderstorm and Felix is soon seeking shelter. He finds it at the castle of King Cole, a boastful, fabricating blow-hard. The King's ancestors, tired of hearing the braggart, come out of their pictures as ghostly specters and take the King to the dungeon and pump the gassy hot-air out of him.

An Oil-can-Harry radio announcer presents Cubby Bear the Crooner as the star of his own radio program over station R-K-O and, while Cubby is crooning away, Slick also advises that Kitty Schmidt (Kate Smith), Cal Jolson (Al Jolson)and Sol Rightman (Paul Whiteman) will be Cubby's guest stars. Then a 100-year-old Western-Union 'boy' delivers a telegram informing that none of the guests will appear. So Cubby has to do the whole program by himself. Cubby comes through.

Mercury, the winged messenger, drops his sandals off with a centaur to be repaired. The centaur, who has coveted wings to the extent that he's used a couple ducks to help him fly, takes the sandals for a spin, and fails to finish the repair job on time. Mercury returns; in a panic, the centaur strips the wings from a couple birds and nails them to some plain sandals, but Mercury is not fooled. He turns the centaur into a pretzel.

This pre-code entry in Van-Buren's "Aesop's Sound Fables" series finds a Brooklyn-cat in a bowler hat, hanging out in the New Jersey meadow-lands (or somewhere in the wild),who traps a canary and then eats it. Actually, he swallows it and it is flying around in his ribcage. Now, instead of meowing, visual musical notes emerge every time he opens his mouth.

An Aesop's Fables cartoon about a musical fly.

Molly Moo-Cow washes to shore on an island, the one occupied by Robinson Crusoe. Much of the short is Crusoe extolling the virtues of the solitary life, Molly trying to ingratiate herself to Crusoe and Crusoe trying to get rid of her. He finally succeeds-just before cannibals come ashore, capture Crusoe and dump him in a pot. From the time they grab him Crusoe is yelling for help (from whom is unclear, given that he wants the island to himself).

The short starts with a mouse playing some bell-like tulips like musical bells....

Bert Lahr is a big city boy hung up on tales of the Old West. When his playing cowboys and Indians causes a ruckus, he's brought before a judge who prescribes him rest and relaxation...out West.

A sassy cat visits a cartoon studio and learns the mysteries of animation.

The annoying animal antics- combined with the collapse of his porch- finally get to Farmer Al Falfa, so he sells his house to odd-looking twins. But their money bag is filled with mice who chase Al Falfa into the lake. Drawn into a whirlpool, he magically travels through a faucet back into his house. The mice also pour out and chase him- and the loony twins- down the road.

The Aesop Sound Fables, while almost forgotten today, produced some of the strangest cartoons during the Depression with dream-like backgrounds, surreal imagery and some of the best cartoon scores.

Tom and Jerry have fun at the circus and then show their acrobatic talents on a tightrope. They get into trouble with an ornery lion and are chased from the Big Top by the feline's friends. When the defend themselves by spraying the lions away with an elephant's trunk, they accidentally flood the circus but are able to float away unscathed.

A cat and mouse nonchalantly dance on roller skates and comically harass Farmer Gray.

Tom and Jerry (the human versions, not the cat and mouse) are on a raft in the ocean. After being attacked by an octopus and losing their raft, they wash up on the shores of Spain. After harassing the waitresses at a local sidewalk café, they insult the owner and wind up in a bull ring as punishment. In the midst of fighting dozens of bulls, they receive a telegram that Prohibition has been repealed back in the U.S. They immediately leave Spain headed back to the U.S. for a drink.

An Aesop’s Film Fables cartoon.

Oscar the mouse invites his girl friend to the toy store where they have to outwit a cat.

Tom and Jerry go fishing, where they encounter an affectionate but annoying fish who won't leave them alone. They hear a piano-playing octopus (with twelve arms!) and have a run-in with a sword fish who cuts their boat in half. Other hijinks ensue, and the two eventually catch a tiny fish, which is in turn swallowed by a larger fish, and this process continues until they've caught a veritable whale. They row ashore triumphant, but when one of them puts their reel (still holding the fish) over their shoulder, the larger fish slip off, unbeknownst to them, leaving them with the runt they started with.

A look into the whole cupid operation; we see how the process is supposed to work, with cupids practicing their archery, and the couples handed off to the stork. But there's one particularly resistant couple (the man is a W.C. Fields caricature) who takes the whole crew to finally corral.

Tom and Jerry are captured by cannibals while dancing and engaging in musical hi-jinx in the jungle. Can Jerry save their lives by impressing the chief with his yodeling skills?

Tom and Jerry are plumbers who spend more time singing and dancing than fixing leaky pipes.