The Egg Cracker Suite (1943)

The performances transcend the film's tropes, grounding it in characters that feel more complete than this subgenre often produces.

It's entirely possible that sending the audience out feeling lousy was intentional

The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

Despite Oswald the Lucky Rabbit and his cartoons being popular and well received at the time, they have been vastly overshadowed over time by succeeding animation characters. It is a shame as, while not cartoon masterpieces, they are fascinating for anybody wanting to see what very old animation looked like.Oswald in the Disney years saw mostly good to very good cartoons, and while the Winkler years had some duds there were also cartoons as good as the best of the Disney years. The Walter Lantz cartoons were more of a mixed bag, the best of them were actually very good but there were also some weak ones and the later ones did suffer from being too cutesy and saccharine and in some Oswald being too much of a supporting character.'The Egg Cracker Suite' is his swan song, and a reasonably worthy one. Story-wise, it's best to forget it as the set up is somewhat of a familiar one and structurally it's flimsy. It is agreed too that the cartoon is a little too sugary sweet at times, though not always uncomfortably so.At least Oswald is not too much of a supporting character here, but he is on the bland side and seems to have been stripped of what made him so memorable.However, the animation is great. As well as being one of the few colour Oswald cartoons, and oh my the colours are gorgeous, it's fast and elaborate with lots of attention to detail and care. No, the goof with the bows didn't bother me and didn't really notice it until IMDb pointed it out actually.It is also easy to be swept up by the energetic and beautifully orchestrated music, the sweet likable characters and the cute and amusing sight gags. The Easter atmosphere has a real bright and breezy feel to it, and while there is a little too much of an overdose of cutesy sweetness it is difficult to be too hard on a cartoon that is very well made and does a good job uplifting the viewer.Overall, a decent swan-song for Oswald even though he did better in his early years. 7/10 Bethany Cox

This is enjoyable, but overwhelmingly cute. Well animated and quite well done in all other respects, but my tastes run more towards Tex Avery and Bambi Meets Godzilla. It is, however, an Oswald short and Oswald is one of the classic old time characters, one sadly neglected today because the Lantz material is largely unavailable. Worth watching, particularly if you like Cute. Recommended with that caveat.