Trolley Troubles (1927)

Trolley Troubles (1927) sits at a genuinely significant moment in American animation history, even if the film itself is a modest six-minute comic short. It was the debut outing for Oswald the Lucky Rabbit, a character created by Walt Disney and his team at the Walt Disney Studio for Universal Pictures. Oswald predates Mickey Mouse by a year or so, and for a brief period he was Disney's headline property, appearing in a run of shorts throughout 1927 and into 1928. The character's backstory has a certain bittersweet quality to it: Disney would eventually lose the rights to Oswald in a dispute with Universal, an episode that, by most accounts, pushed him towards developing the mouse who would go on to define the studio entirely. Oswald himself largely disappeared from public view for decades before Universal and Disney reached an agreement in 2006 that brought the rabbit back into the fold. So the short carries a bit of extra weight as a historical artefact, even if you wouldn't necessarily guess that from watching it.

The premise is simple enough: Oswald is a trolley conductor whose working day goes from bad to worse, first when a stubborn cow plants itself on the tracks and refuses to budge, then when the trolley faces a punishing hill, and finally when the whole thing careers downhill at a speed nobody asked for. It is the kind of escalating, slapstick-friendly scenario that suited the silent short format well, borrowing from the physical comedy traditions that were thriving in live-action cinema at the same time (fans of that era might find it interesting alongside something like The General, another 1920s film built around a runaway vehicle). Walt Disney directed, and at this point in his career he was still very much learning his craft, producing these Oswald films at a relatively quick pace as contractual obligations rather than personal passion projects. The animation style is energetic if unpolished, with rubber-hose limbs and the kind of loose, anything-goes character physics that defined the era. For context on where Disney's work was heading in this same period, it is worth looking at Steamboat Willie, made just a year later, which marked a turning point in what the studio was capable of. Earlier in the same year as Trolley Troubles, Disney also produced All Wet, another Oswald short that gives a reasonable sense of how consistent (for better or worse) this run of films was.

The principal cast is, in the nature of silent animation, uncredited and largely unidentifiable at this distance. What we have is essentially a one-character piece built around Oswald's reactions to an increasingly chaotic situation, with the comedy relying on visual gags and timing rather than performance in any traditional sense. Whether those gags land is very much a matter of personal tolerance for the conventions of 1920s animation humour, and opinions on that, even among people who enjoy the period, tend to vary quite a bit.

Another 1927 Oswald short. I know they're nearly 100 years old and I SHOULD probably judge them by that standard but they're just not very good.

I keep coming back to these early Disney shorts hoping something will click, and I find myself in much the same place every time. The historical context is genuinely interesting, and I do not want to be the person who dismisses everything that came before colour and synchronised sound, but appreciation for what something represents and enjoyment of it as a viewing experience are two different things. There is only so far "well, it was 1927" gets you when the jokes feel flat on their own terms. If you want early Disney that actually has some life in it, I would honestly point you first towards The Skeleton Dance. As for Oswald, charming enough as a character, but perhaps better suited to a museum display than a film night.

Rating: ★½  | Year: 1927  | Watched: 2025-09-07

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Related on Movies With Macca

More from Walt Disney: All Wet (1927) · The Skeleton Dance (1929) · The Barn Dance (1929) · Steamboat Willie (1928)
More from the 1920s: The Eagle (1925) · The General (1926) · The Docks of New York (1928) · A Throw of Dice (1929)
More animation: Fantastic Planet (1973) · Alice in Wonderland (1951) · Mononoke the Movie: The Phantom in the Rain (2024) · Mononoke the Movie: Chapter II - The Ashes of Rage (2025)
More comedy: The Eagle (1925) · The General (1926) · Americana (2023) · The Naked Gun: From the Files of Police Squad! (1988)