A Cartoonist’s Nightmare Review

A Cartoonist’s Nightmare a 1935 animated short film from the Looney Tunes series directed by Jack King. It is a truly phenomenal entry.

Finally we get a truly great Looney Tunes entry after quite a while now. A cartoonist (anonymous) draws Beans and a monster but falls asleep and has a dream where the monster escapes along with other monstrous creations of his and other animators and throws him into a pit. Beans arrives and saves him and after waking up, he rewards him with ice cream. This plot is, needless to say, incredibly original and inventive and unlike anything I’ve seen thus far in cartoons.

It can be understood to be some sort of criticism of animation conditions during the period, but whether or not it has any deeper meaning to it, it remains a great cartoon owing to its inventive, one of a kind storytelling. I thought that it could have been even more inventive in execution and somehow the dream twist didn’t work for me, but it did lead to that great finale with ice cream. Beans is quite likable here and I am looking forward to seeing more from him. The action is great and the animation is fantastic here with a superb cave-like imagery and excellent atmosphere evoked.

A Cartoonist’s Nightmare is one of the best Looney Tunes so far owing to excellent animation, atmosphere and most importantly such an authentic plot.