Ozzie and Pete are bums, riding the rails. They obviously need food. They grab a chicken and try to force her to lay eggs. When they finally manage to pull off her head and take her eggs, their efforts to cook them fall short. The rest of the film is a wiener dog sheriff chasing them. The animation is pretty primitive.
2 Reviews
Okay overall, good news it reappeared
Horst_In_Translation20 May 2024
Warning: Spoilers
"Hungry Hoboes" or also "Hungry Hobos" without the "e" is an American animated short film, in other words a cartoon, from 1928, so this one is pretty close now to its 100th anniversary. Maybe it happened already depending on when you get here to read this review of mine. To put it into a perspective of time, this came out almost the exact same day that the first Mickey Mouse cartoon was release. But today we shall speak about this one here. The director was the young Walt Disney and he was born at the very beginning of the new century back then, so he was still considerably under the age of 30 when he worked on these under six minutes. The protagonists are Oswald, a rabbit, and his buddy Pete, although I am not sure you can call them buddies with what happens in this film. It is maybe a bit of a love-hate relationship. I mean they are on the same page when it comes to playing a game of checkers, being ready to eat some delicious eggs and also when the police is chasing them, but there are also moments of confrontations, some playful at the very beginning, but looking at how Pete uses Oswald to make a fire is pretty rough, not to say violent. Oh and I said Oswald is a rabbit, which is also true, but in the second half here he transformed into a monkey. All is possible in the world of animation, also was back in the 1920s clearly. Disney's creativity shines and his vision exceeds the medium at that point for sure. It is still a black-and-white film and I think also a silent movie, so if you wanna see it the way it was released back then, you may wanna disable sound completely. If you don't, you will hear some really fast and catchy music including a handful famous tunes that are also associated to country music and western music and just children's songs.
If we look at the plot, there is a bit of a clean cut halfway into the film. The first half takes place on the train and I thought it was the funnier half with the milk attack, the way Oswald uses a chicken as if it was some mechanical device and also does not care about the head being on the wrong side at the end. But the chicken also seems to cope with it after some initial shock and confusion, so all is good. And of course the way how Pete makes fire there to cook the chicken was also on the more memorable side. In the second half, there is nothing really on the same level, maybe how the police officer is depicted as an actual sausage dog. The film also ends when the two protagonists are back on a train and the officer is trying to shoot them from afar, but misses. So it is a bit of an open ending and Oswald is in trouble again. He is definitely no superior, almost invincible bunny like Bugs or Roger Rabbit, but literally inferior to every other character here, at least physically. We must not forget he is the one who is getting the eggs for his mate and himself. Overall, it is a solid little film and worth watching if you like cartoons. What is maybe most interesting about it is that it was considered lost until way into the 21st century, but eventually a copy showed up ad now we have the joy to see Oswald in one more film. You will also not find this one on recent Oswalt collections. Maybe this will change as more time goes by. For now, it is maybe one of the better cartoons from the Oswalt series and, thanks to the first 2.5 to 3 minutes, I give the outcome a thumbs-up and a positive recommendation.
If we look at the plot, there is a bit of a clean cut halfway into the film. The first half takes place on the train and I thought it was the funnier half with the milk attack, the way Oswald uses a chicken as if it was some mechanical device and also does not care about the head being on the wrong side at the end. But the chicken also seems to cope with it after some initial shock and confusion, so all is good. And of course the way how Pete makes fire there to cook the chicken was also on the more memorable side. In the second half, there is nothing really on the same level, maybe how the police officer is depicted as an actual sausage dog. The film also ends when the two protagonists are back on a train and the officer is trying to shoot them from afar, but misses. So it is a bit of an open ending and Oswald is in trouble again. He is definitely no superior, almost invincible bunny like Bugs or Roger Rabbit, but literally inferior to every other character here, at least physically. We must not forget he is the one who is getting the eggs for his mate and himself. Overall, it is a solid little film and worth watching if you like cartoons. What is maybe most interesting about it is that it was considered lost until way into the 21st century, but eventually a copy showed up ad now we have the joy to see Oswald in one more film. You will also not find this one on recent Oswalt collections. Maybe this will change as more time goes by. For now, it is maybe one of the better cartoons from the Oswalt series and, thanks to the first 2.5 to 3 minutes, I give the outcome a thumbs-up and a positive recommendation.
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