Toby Tortoise Returns (1936) Online

After watching The Tortoise and the Hare on YouTube, I quickly watched the sequel right after on there and I found this one more hilarious than the predecessor. Actually, I thought Toby Tortoise Returns was very funny while TTATH was only amusing. Especially since the competition is now in the boxing ring and there are cameos from other stars of other Walt Disney Silly Symphonies cartoons. I was especially very amused by the Mae West bird caricature Jenny Wren and the Harpo Marx rooster (whose hair is red as opposed to the more familiar blonde) from Who Killed Cock Robin? (whose scenes I'm familiar with from seeing them in Alfred Hitchcock's Sabotage) There's dynamite, Mexican music, a couple of hospital orderlies, and plenty other hilarious stuff that I don't want to spoil for you. Needless to say, I very much recommend Toby Tortoise Returns.

This sequel to the Tortoise and the Hare is a little amusing - a very nice throwback to the previous story.

The two animals takes boxing to a whole new level and the cartoon has some special cameos from past Silly Symphony characters. However, I think the Tortoise and the Hare take the sport a little too over-the-top, in the league of the over-imagination of the anti-wolf machines in the Three Little Pigs sequels.

Crazy stuff here, but definitely doesn't surprise the original story.

Grade C+

. . . which was certainly the case in the 1900s when Warner Bros. was forced to create a Looney Tunes Department to save America from its Great Depression brought on by such unsavory Disney cartoon fare as TOBY TORTOISE RETURNS. Comparing ANY Looney Tune with Trash like TOBY is akin to juxtaposing a three-year-old's finger painting against Vincent van Gogh's "Starry, Starry Night." Lacking any semblance of nuance, TOBY will strike any viewer who's enjoyed Bugs Bunny's tussles with the tortoise as a scribbled two-dimensional stick figure. As is the case with most Disney offerings of this "Silly Symphony" ilk, everything about TOBY seems cheap, static, repetitive, and totally lacking in vision. It's as if Old Walt ordered each of his animators to write "I will NOT have an original thought" 100 times on a blackboard! Some people (like the creators of SOUTH PARK and THE SIMPSONS) obviously grew up on Looney Tunes. It's safe to say that the Proliferators of BARNEY and TELETUBBIES were weaned on Disney's "Silly Symphonies"!

I have always loved Disney Silly Symphonies, and I always found The Tortoise and the Hare to be one of their best. Toby Tortoise Returns is just as great. The animation doesn't quite have the stylistic touches of Tortoise and the Hare, but is still of the colourful and fluid quality, and the music has much energy and helps to enhance the action. The story is interesting and constantly entertains whether you are a boxing fan or not, and of the scenes making up Toby Tortoise Returns the standouts were Toby's dream sequence showing Jenny Wren lookalikes, showing what Toby would rather be doing instead, and the gag where Max Hare(still a conceited bully) puts the fireworks in Toby's shell and it backfires. Toby Tortoise Returns is also worth watching not just for Max and Toby's contrasting personalities but also the cameos the Mae West caricature of Jenny Wren(from Who Killed Cock Robin?), the Three Little Pigs and the ambulance driver from Pluto's Judgement Day. The referee reminds me very much of Droopy Dog. Overall, just as good a sequel to one of Disney's best. 9/10 Bethany Cox

A Walt Disney SILLY SYMPHONY Cartoon Short.

TOBY TORTOISE RETURNS to compete once more with Max Hare, this time in the boxing ring. What's needed now is some fancy footwork, but all Toby has to offer is 'slow and steady'...

This little film, a follow-up to THE TORTOISE AND THE HARE (1935), is enjoyable & entertaining, but not on the same stylistic level as its Oscar-winning predecessor. Several characters from other SILLY SYMPHONIES make cameo appearances, including the Three Little Pigs and Jenny Wren.

The SILLY SYMPHONIES, which Walt Disney produced for a ten year period beginning in 1929, are among the most fascinating of all animated series. Unlike the Mickey Mouse cartoons in which action was paramount, with the Symphonies the action was made to fit the music. There was little plot in the early Symphonies, which featured lively inanimate objects and anthropomorphic plants & animals, all moving frantically to the soundtrack. Gradually, however, the Symphonies became the school where Walt's animators learned to work with color and began to experiment with plot, characterization & photographic special effects. The pages of Fable & Fairy Tale, Myth & Mother Goose were all mined to provide story lines and even Hollywood's musicals & celebrities were effectively spoofed. It was from this rich soil that Disney's feature-length animation was to spring. In 1939, with SNOW WHITE successfully behind him and PINOCCHIO & FANTASIA on the near horizon, Walt phased out the SILLY SYMPHONIES; they had run their course & served their purpose.

Toby Tortoise is back dueling with the hare. But this time they are not racing, but boxing. As you would expect Toby is slow and incapable while the hare is loud and overconfident. It's quite uneventful and boring for the most part. Toby is not a good character as his cartoons move as slow as he does.

I'm not sure what kind of boxing match allows the various forms of humiliation and torture used by the hare, but one of gags involves fireworks and backfires on him, thus allowing Toby to win by default.

Subliming message of the cartoon: if you lack the skill to win honestly - cheat.

One thing you can say about the Disney shorts from the 1930s is that they were artistically the best cartoons available. So, even if the plots were occasionally limp (especially with their all-singing cartoons), the art work is still very, very impressive. "Toby Tortoise Returns" is beautifully animated. The colors are very vibrant and the backgrounds lovely.

The story picks up after the story of "The Tortoise and the Hare" (also a prior Disney cartoon). The same characters are now involved in a boxing match. Toby is fighting against 'Max Hare' (a play on the name of the champion Max Baer). And, while Max cheats and the odds are clearly against Toby, the ending is pretty much what you'd expect. As for the rest, the cartoon is only fair but I did enjoy seeing it for all the Disney character cameos--such as the industrious pig from "The Three Little Pigs", Donald and Goofy. There also are characters that are caricatures of Mae West and Harpo Marx. The cartoon is more interesting than funny but is still worth your time.