Hungry Hoboes

Hungry Hoboes (alternate spelling: Hungry Hobos)^[1] is a silent animated short released from Universal studios back in May of 1928.In the 5 minute and 21 second black and white animated short Oswald the Lucky Rabbit and Peg Leg Pete are hungry hobos wandering around and riding the rails, with some other animal characters, for food and other sustenance until they upon a nearby schoolyard.^[2] This short is also one of the few pre Disney works of Ubbe Iwerks. Iwerks, was one of the few animators to work directly with Disney when it came to the early cartoons, worked on before leaving Universal and going on to create Mickey Mouse with Disney. He is most notably credited for partnering with Disney on the early Oswald the Luck Rabbit Shorts from the late 1920s.^[3] Yet after World War Two, the public believed the film to have been destroyed or decayed due to the Disney’s original film process he created the Oswald shorts with. But in November of 2011 the film, once thought to be lost, was discovered in the Huntley Film Archives, in Hereford, United Kingdom. Since no one had seen the copy since World War Two, multiple news sites and periodicals have published articles covering the story of how it was rediscovered. UK news forum the “Telegraph” was one of the first to report on the film in their article, written on November 28, 2011, “Lost Disney cartoon shows how Mickey Mouse was originally Oswald the Lucky Rabbit”.^[4] The Walt Disney later bought back the film at an auction for $31,250 US dollars. In 2013 LA Times writer Rebecca Keegan wrote “Walt Disney's 'lost' short, 'Hungry Hobos,' to screen at UCLA”, in the article she covers the story of how as part of LA’s Chamber Orchestra's 24th annual Silent Film Event, UCLA will be screening the recently discovered Disney short “Hungry Hoboes”. ^[4] In November of 2015 almost 4 years after “Hungry Hoboes” was found Ed Mazza reported how another lost short from the late 1920s, starring Oswald the Lucky Rabbit “Sleigh Bells” was recently discovered in the UK Huffington Post, “Long-Lost Walt Disney Cartoon Featuring Oswald The Lucky Rabbit Found In Britain.”^[4] In the quote from that year Andrew Millstein, president of Walt Disney Animation Studios stated that "The Oswald shorts are an important part of our Studios’ history, and we have been working with film archives and private collectors all around the world to research the missing titles," At the release of “Sleigh Bells” Robin Baker, head curator of the BFI National Archive, referenced it and Hungry Hoboes in the quote "The restoration of this film will introduce many audiences to Disney’s work in the silent period," On January 25, 2016 Rotoscoper’s interviewer Blake Taylor sat down with animation historian David Gerstein to discuss Oswald the Lucky Rabbit’s past with Disney as one of it’s first animated characters put to film. Throughout the interview Blake and Gerstein talk about the differences between Oswald and his successor Mickey Mouse, how many other lost shorts from the 1920s are left still undiscovered, and what the discovery of Hungry Hoboes means to him, animation historians like him, and to the average person who loves Disney animation.^[5] Disney has also recently decided to add the “Hungry Hoboes” to its Disney Signature Diamond edition of Snow White and the Seven Dwarves.^[6] A reference to Oswald the Lucky Rabbit and his shorts include J.P. Telotte’s Disney TV, in which he examines the history of the Disney work in the television business while also looking at it in the context of the film industry's reaction to television in the post-World War II era.^[4] Another book that references Oswald is Donald Crafton’s work Before Mickey: The Animated Film 1898-1928. In the book Crafton discusses about how there was animation before Walt Disney and his corporation and about the thirty years of creativity and experimentation flourishing in such extraordinary work as Girdie the Dinosaur and Felix the Cat. Before Mickey, is also the only in depth of animation from 1898-1928, including “accounts of mechanical ingenuity, marketing and art.”^[4]

References

External links

• Hungry Hoboes at the Internet Movie Database
• Hungry Hoboes at the Big Cartoon DataBase