Horst in Translation (filmreviews@web.de) "Sky Scrappers" is a 5.5-minute black-and-white cartoon from over 85 years ago and another early work by Disney, in which he still was the director as well. Not soon here until his Mickey Mouse character started becoming popular. You could certainly see some parallels in Oswald and the early Mickey cartoons in terms of the character's behavior. Here, Oswald is paid a visit by his sweetheart (looks a bit like early Minnie) and she brings him a nice meal. Unfortunately, Oswald is not the only one who has a crush on her. The scenes when he peeks when we may see her underwear and she is slightly angry at him are cute just like the other "in love" scenes, for example when she wants to kiss him. The fight sequences with the other guy, who is (unluckily for Oswald) three times his size, weren't that great. All in all, a fairly forgettable Disney short film.

MissSimonetta Though the 1933 remake "Building a Building" is much better, "Sky Scrappers" is still an enjoyable cartoon, retaining the basic elements of the later version. Oswald is a construction worker and his girlfriend Sadie/Ortensia is selling boxed lunches. Hijinks ensue, especially after Oswald's boss Pete takes a shining to his girl and attempts to have his way with her.This is pretty much a typical cartoon of the period. It's well animated for the time and provides enough humor to make it worth at least one watch. It's very fascinating to compare Oswald and Mickey's shorts, especially since several contain similar gags, characters, and plot elements. You can definitely see some echoes of Harold Lloyd in there too.

boblipton While I have no issue with Mr. MacIntyre's review of this animated short, he does make an error in his description of the history of Mickey Mouse and Oswald the Lucky Rabbit. Disney did not decide to stop creating Oswald so he could develop Mickey. In actual fact, Disney lost control of Oswald through a rather complicated path: he was releasing through Mary Jane Winkler, doing business as M.J. Winkler out of New York City. She was, at the time, the leading cartoon distributor, as she also distributed Felix the Cat, but needed something to hold over the head of Pat Sullivan, who owned Felix. She was also married to Charles Mintz, who claimed that the contract gave control of Oswald to him and he enforced it. Disney's old Kansas City crew -- Harman, Ising and Friz Freleng -- went over to Mintz before striking out on their own the next year. Only Ub Iwerks and Carl Stalling stayed with Disney.The story as I have it -- always difficult to be sure of, since Uncle Walt always made sure that his version, as the creator and originator of all things animated, was out there -- is that Walt roughed out Mickey on the train trip back to Los Angeles, Iwerks cleaned it to make it easier to animate and they produced them in short order -- with Iwerks doing almost all the work on the short singlehandedly.It was with the third short, STEAMBOAT WILLIE, which included synchronized sound effects that the crowds took notice.Mickey, in his early shorts, is clearly a variation on Oswald -- with round 'globe' ears instead of Oswald's long floppy ones.Mintz soon lost control of Oswald to Universal pictures. Oswald continued on in moderate health under Walter Lantz for a total of almost two hundred cartoons, the series petering out in 1938, with a one-shot reappearance in 1943. Mintz wound up producing cartoons for Columbia through the end of the 1930s.Harman, Ising and Freleng invented Bosko the Talk-Ink Kid, got a contract with Leon Schlesinger releasing through Warner Brothers until they tried to renegotiate without the middle man, whereupon Schlesinger raided their shop -- grabbing Freleng -- and left Harman and Ising out in the cold, whereupon they started releasing through MGM until Metro raided Schlesinger and Harman-Ising and they gradually lost all their production capabilities around the end of the Second World War.And what about the Disney loyalists, Iwerks and Stalling? They left Disney in 1930 when Disney refused to grant them what they considered proper credit or a piece of the profits. Instead they set up shop under Pat Powers and began to release through Metro. When that collapsed in the mid-thirties, they both went to Schlesinger, where Stalling stayed for the rest of his career. Iwerks went to Columbia, then back to Disney, where he was relegated to the back room. he spent the rest of his career making great advances in multiplaning techniques. And Uncle Walt died in 1966, rich, respected and credited with being the first in everything in animation, even, or perhaps especially, when he wasn't.And Mary Jane Winkler? After she married Mintz in 1924, she seems to have given up her job and concentrated on raising children.If this were about the early series of Aesop's Fables, I would have a rather flip (the frog?) moral for this tangled web, but that was another tangled set of animators and producers. Draw your own conclusions.

F Gwynplaine MacIntyre Before Walt Disney and Ub Iwerks made history with Mickey Mouse, Disney made some very similar cartoons featuring a character named Oswald the Lucky Rabbit. Oswald and Mickey were both drawn in the same stark black-on-white style, and had similar adventures. In both cases, the most distinctive feature of the character was his ears: Mickey's were two black discs, whilst Oswald's were like long black exclamation points. The success of Mickey Mouse is largely down to the character's longevity, developing a distinct personality over the course of years and decades. Oswald never developed (artistically, nor as a character) to anything like Mickey's extent, but he was simply never given a chance to do so, as Disney dumped the Oswald character when Mickey made his debut.SPOILING ONE GAG NOW. 'Sky Scrappers' finds three characters -- Oswald, a Big Pete-style bully and a Minnie-ish female character -- all engaged in knockabout humour on a building site. The most startling gag occurs when Oswald's black skin is torn off, revealing his whitish outline underneath. Disney's crude animation hasn't bothered to include shadows for any of the characters. But in this set-up -- and only this one -- Oswald has suddenly acquired a shadow. So, of course we know what's going to happen: Oswald detaches his own shadow and then steps into it, giving himself a form-fitting black skin once again.I'll rate 'Sky Scrappers' -- and most of the other Oswald toons -- only 3 points out of 10. The 'Flip the Frog' cartoons that Ub Iwerks did without Disney are much better-drawn and funnier than the cartoons that Disney did without Iwerks.