The Dog and the Bone (1937) watch online HD

The Terrytoons are oddly interesting, mainly for anybody wanting to see (generally) older cartoons made by lesser known and lower-budget studios. They are a mixed bag in quality, with some better than others, often with outstanding music and with some mild amusement and charm and variable in animation, characterisation and content.

1937, like all the other years for Terrytoons, saw a hit and miss batch, more so than the other years even. Of which 'The Dog and the Bone' is one of the middling ones ranking it in correlation with the rest of the Terrytoons and one of the middling 1937 cartoons. It is an unexceptional, nothing exactly special cartoon and has the same amount of problems as it has the amount of strengths. 'The Dog and the Bone' is also watchable, completest sake is the main reason to see it but it's not the only reason.

Best asset is the music, which predictably is incredible. It is so beautifully and cleverly orchestrated and arranged, is great fun to listen to and full of lively energy, doing so well with enhancing the action. The ambitious, elaborate detail in the backgrounds is still great to see, as is the comparatively improved fluidity of drawing and movement, and some synchronisation is neat.

A few amusing moments, some imaginative and there is some zest and natural charm, and parts of it and the basic set up are nicely done.

Outside of the backgrounds and more fluidity than seen previously however, the animation is primitive and crude sometimes. Puddy is watchable enough as a support character but he doesn't have enough of a strong personality as a lead.

Likewise, the story is paper thin and formulaic with not an awful lot to it (like the cartoon in general). Gags aren't enough, they are not always very organised (fairly scattershot), and there is not much especially memorable about some and some don't serve much point. The cartoon tends to veer towards being too cute and a lot of it is pretty predictable. Some choppiness too and the cartoon feels very old fashioned with not all the characters being particularly memorable.

Overall, watchable if unexceptional. 5/10 Bethany Cox

Puddy the Pup loses a bone while crossing over a stream; Paul Terry's studio liked to run variations on classic children's stories. He spends the rest of this solid Terrytoon trying to get it back.

With this cartoon, George Gordon makes it clear that he intended to position Puddy as Paul Terry's answer to Disney's Pluto. Puddy is clearly a dog, with a dog's personality, just as Pluto was. The question then became "Is the market large enough to support two dog stars of this type?" Particularly when Disney demonstrated again and again that he was quite willing to spend every cent his cartoons made and borrow more to produce better cartoons, while Paul Terry was willing to let a cartoon be good enough, so long as it came in on or under budget.

In the end, it would never be enough to produce another Pluto. Terry needed original stars who were not simply imitations of other stars. That search would begin the following year.