A fine example of why Felix the Cat was the most popular silent cartoon series. While there were other excellent cartoons, most of the series, such as "Oswald the Lucky Rabbit" -- which started out with Disney, then went to Hugh Harman, and then to someone else -- used gags about motion, in which any item might turn around and assume anthropomorphic features, as appropriate for an "animated" film. Here, however, series director Otto Messmer used light and darkness as his medium: Felix's black tail might change suddenly into a black walking stick, since both were no more than thick black lines.
That sort of joke starts out this movie: night falls. Night falls on the light daytime sky in viscous, fat drops that darken the world. That's only the first gag, but it sure sets the stage.
And then Felix gets to play with shadows. No one else did cartoons this way. Try one and see.