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The Henpecked Duck 1941
Not that Termite Terrace was ever free of easy misogyny, but this goes beyond "ha-ha, women DO hit their husbands with rolling pins!" into some deep-seated issue that Bob Clampett and/or Warren Foster had about matrimony. Not just hatred, either--the fear of losing your marriage, however wretched it is, hangs just as high over everything. It certainly gives the cartoon a weird jolt, though it's also incredibly repetitive--it seems like we hear "I WANT A DIVORCE!" about five hundred times…
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Sport Chumpions 1941
Friz Freleng dips into doing Tex Avery's "blackout" cartoon subgenre, and does it with reliable workmanship, but little inspiration. Nearly all of the gags feel like leftovers from previous blackout cartoons, though Robert C. Bruce tries his hardest to elevate them with his narration. Weirdly, it has an incredibly good "cartoon realism" aesthetic for its humans.
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Bosko at the Beach 1932
There's plagiarism and then there's plagiarism. The idea of this short's finale is taken directly from the Mickey Mouse cartoon Wild Waves. It gives an unpleasant ending feeling to an otherwise decent-ish cartoon.
Edited as of April 24 2023: I might have spoken a little rashly about the "plagiarism" thing, or at least put it in the wrong place. The idea of the finale goes back even further than Wild Waves to the Oswald cartoon All Wet--and Hugh Harman was…
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Birds of a Feather 1931
I'm still waiting for the Silly Symphonies to move beyond "dancing critters with third act danger." But as such things go, this one is near the top--we actually get to spend a little time with the chick who gets captured by the hawk, so I actually cared about the third act's stakes. And the character designs have struck the finest balance yet between "realistic animals" and "rubber-hose cartoons."
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