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Snow-White

Director: Dave Fleischer
Year: 1933
Run-time: 7 min
Source: Youtube

Notable For: This is not the Disney feature film that would premiere four years later - this is a Betty Boop cartoon from Max Fleischer's studios.   (This is the second of the three animated shorts from 1933 to anticipate a Disney classic.) Betty Boop was in her prime here, two years after her debut and one before the Hays Code would force her animators to tone down her sexuality.  Betty's not really the main draw here - it's the nonstop craziness happening all around her.  This is probably the most dynamic and energetic cartoon I've ever seen - certainly it does more in seven minutes than most modern cartoons with a full feature length.  All this and a Cab Calloway song to boot.

Verdict: This is my favorite of the three animated shorts in a row, and being on Youtube in HD, there's no reason not to watch it right now.  After the game Cuphead came out last year, there was a lot of talk about how it white-washed over the racism of early cartoons.  Certainly that's true, but Snow-White is almost entirely free of stereotypes, if only because it's so bizarre and free-form. I think it's manic energy was almost certainly an influence on the game.

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