Genre Animation

Trolley Troubles (1927)

Item: Trolley Troubles
Rating: 1.5
Author: Ross McLaren

★½ — Trolley Troubles (1927)

Look, I'll be honest with you: I wanted to like this more than I did. There's a part of me that feels almost guilty sitting here in 2025 being sniffy about a cartoon that was made nearly a century ago, and I get that the argument for generosity is right there, ready to be made. But good intentions don't make a short funny, and Trolley Troubles just isn't very funny.

This is another Oswald the Lucky Rabbit outing from 1927, and if you've been following my slow crawl through this era of animation you'll know I reviewed All Wet not long ago. That one left me similarly cold. There's a pattern forming, and I don't think it's me being uncharitable. I'm genuinely trying to meet these films on their own terms. The problem is that their own terms are just a bit thin.

The premise here is simple enough: Oswald is driving a runaway trolley and various anarchic gags unfold around that central idea. Fine. That's all you need for a short. But the gags themselves feel mechanical in a way that the best of this era absolutely doesn't. When it works, early animation has this manic, almost surreal energy, a sense that anything can happen and the rules of physics exist purely to be broken in the most delightful way possible. Trolley Troubles goes through the motions of that without quite capturing the spirit.

I keep thinking about what separates this from the stuff that genuinely holds up. Buster Keaton's The General, made just the year before, uses a runaway vehicle as the backbone of an entire feature and wrings breathtaking comedy from it at every turn. Obviously that's a different art form and a wildly different scale, but the comparison is instructive. The gags in The General feel inevitable and surprising at the same time, which is the magic trick. The gags here feel inevitable and that's it. You can see them coming, they arrive, and then they're gone, and nothing about them lodges in your memory.

Oswald himself is a reasonably charming creation. He's got personality, or at least the suggestion of personality, and I understand why he was popular. There's a looseness to the character design that suits animation well. But charm only gets you so far when the material isn't supporting it.

I've said it before and I'll say it again: the historical context matters, and I don't want to be the person who just dismisses the pioneering work of early animation out of hand. These shorts were made at speed, churned out for theatres that needed fresh product constantly, and they weren't designed to be pored over by someone nearly a hundred years later with far too many opinions. I know all of that. I'm holding it in mind as I write this.

But I also think being genuinely interested in this period of film history means being honest about which things worked and which things didn't, rather than just applauding everything because it's old. And Trolley Troubles, for me, sits in the didn't-quite-work column. It's not painful to watch. It passes its few minutes without causing any real offence. It just doesn't leave you with anything.

One and a half stars. Worth a look if you're doing a deep dive into Oswald's filmography or the history of animation, but don't expect to come away charmed.

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

View on Letterboxd →

Where to watch

Watch in the US
Stream: Disney Plus
Physical: Amazon US

Affiliate disclosure: Movies With Macca may earn a small commission on purchases or subscriptions started via these links. It costs you nothing extra.

Related on Movies With Macca

Trolley Troubles (1927)

Read more

American Beauty (1999)

The Spiral Staircase (1946)

The Babadook (2014)

The Peanuts Movie (2015)

The films worth your time, once a week.