User Reviews

There is a $25,000 prize for anyone flying over the ocean to Paris, so in this Oswald cartoon, lots of goofy flying machines compete. However, a chubby jerk cheats so that the others cannot get the prize. This is odd, as he did seem to have the best plane. As for Oswald, he flies a weinerdog across the ocean! It's all very silly and surreal--exactly the sort of stuff that made these Oswald cartoons so popular. Well done and fun.

By the way, if you see this film chances are it will look and sound like the version I saw. Originally, it was silent--no sound effects or music. But with the success of "Steamboat Willie", a lot of cartoons made before it were re-released with added sound effects and music.

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 characters like Mickey, Donald and Goofy for Disney and the likes of Bugs and Daffy for Looney Tunes.

It is a shame as, while not cartoon masterpieces, they are fascinating for anybody wanting to see what very old animation looked like and what Disney animation (so the late 1920s, before the Winkler and Lantz eras began from the latter half of 1928 onward) was like before Mickey arrived on the scene. There are better Oswald cartoons than 'The Ocean Hop' that are funnier and more inventive. With that being said, there are also far worse that are not funny, completely lack any story, are very unimaginative and sometimes have issues with pacing and even animation, a few only worth seeing for historical interest.

'The Ocean Hop' has been compared to the 1929 Mickey Mouse cartoon 'Plane Crazy'. While it is interesting to see an earlier cartoon from a pre-Mickey Mouse Disney character, 'Plane Crazy' is far superior, being consistently funnier and richer in imagination. There is certainly far more of a story in 'The Ocean Hop' than in especially most Lantz cartoons, though it is a predictable one.

The cartoon is also more amusing than hilarious (a couple could have been better timed) and rarely gets more than that. The scene with the dachshund comes off best.

Animation is not bad at all for a cartoon so old and techniques still in early days, it's crisp and fluid enough with some nice detail, sure there are some rough spots understandably especially with Disney animation becoming much more refined later. The added soundtrack and sound effects add a lot rather than distract, actually improving the cartoon's impact and making things easier to understand.

While rarely hilarious, 'The Ocean Hop' still amuses, while the whole plane setting is interesting to see and quite entertaining and Oswald has the endearment factor at least.

In summary, decent if not great and not quite Oswald at his best (not his worst either). 7/10 Bethany Cox