User Reviews

The setup of this fun and rather twisted short cartoon is absolutely brilliant, it's about an evil slobbery spider who has set up a death trap hotel that's "For Flies Only", and he's been busy snapping up any unwary young flies who are dumb enough to actually book into such an establishment! Normally once flies check in they don't check out, but this time the spider picks the wrong couple to chow down on and his murderous premises are shut down for good by a scrappy little turn-of- the-century take on all newcomers kinda fly guy! I like the see-sawing rhythm of the spider's song. He looks something more like an ape crossed with a hunchback than an actual arachnid, but I found that cartoony rubber-limbed form to be more creepy, especially when he looms up to the camera whilst swinging. His scratchy voice sounded a bit like the Cryptkeeper. I can do a dead-on impression! The artwork is a bit rough but very well detailed and rich in the special way that only Fleischer animations could ever be. I love all the small details in the 'hotel', and how as you look a little closer you can make out what everything's really made out of, like how the entire thing's a desk and there's matchsticks for bedposts, stuff like that. It's really visually clever and fascinating, and they come up with some creative gags out of it. There was an aspirin Gatling gun,which was certainly a new one to me! And it's probably the only time ever that you'll get to see a fly engage a spider in a sword fight, a very cool and random wow moment! When they would later make the motion picture classic "The Incredible Shrinking Man", when it gets to the part where the man slays the terrifying spider with the pin, I can't help but wonder if this is where they got the inspiration from! It's quite dark at points, as it shows all the fly victims trapped in their phony rooms, stuck to cobweb beds and flypaper rugs, squealing in terror, it's like they're in little torture chambers, it has an element of horror in it. The idea of the spider's hotel is eerie enough by itself without needing any of the dancing demons or warping craziness that made the best Betty Boop shorts stand out. I've seen a thousand of these old vintage cartoons but I haven't seen that many with as much suspense as this one, or any at all where the girl helps to save the day! And there's totally a moral in it, beware of strangers. And especially strange spiders! Thank you Fleishers, god bless ya!

"The Cobweb Hotel" is an American color cartoon from 1936, so this one has its 80th anniversary. To show you how old this cartoon is you need to imagine it is from the very same time that Hitler held the Olympic Games in Berlin. Sounds ages ago, doesn't it? Well, it is. It runs for 8 minutes almost and is a Fleischer Studios production directed by Dave Fleischer himself and the one voicing the character is Jack Mercer, maybe the best thing about this one. Looking at what year this is from, the animation is decent too I guess as the Golden Age of Animation was moving closer. But story-wise, it is a bit meh as this is the story of a big scary spider running a hotel and as all the guests are flies, you know the spider's plan. But these spies are very resilient, which turns this into a David vs. Goliath film sort of, with many tiny Davids in fact. The weakest aspect here is really the comedy. It's all about slapstick, never really about wit, which is a bit of a pity and not to my liking at all. This film has some strengths as I described, but story/comedy is king here and especially from that perspective it wasn't a satisfying watch. I suggest you skip this one.