The Mad Hatter (1948)

The Mad Hatter Review

The Mad Hatter is a 1948 animated short film from the Woody Woodpecker series. It is a pretty forgettable cartoon.

Woody has to go to a Hollywood studio for a role that he was offered, but he needs a top hat for it, so he goes to Wally Walrus to get it. A lot of hat shenanigans quickly occurs. First off, I have to comment them for actually doing something different with Woody’s character. Here, he isn’t a hunger-crazed psychopath, but a guy obsessed with making it big in Hollywood. It was a fresh change of pace.

But the movie still wasn’t great due to the gags being rather subpar and repetitive. Wally is interestingly used here, but their antagonistic dynamic was certainly missing in the story. The animation is very nice and polished and some scenes focusing on physics-type gags with the hat worked, but most were only okay with the middle section seriously dragging.

The Mad Hatter was a nice change of pace with a different story and goal for Woody, but the gags were thoroughly lacking here as was the pacing.

My Rating – 3.5