Rough On Rats
- Studio
- Van Beuren Studios
- Distributor
- RKO Radio Pictures
Credits
Directing
- Director
- Harry Bailey
Producing
- Producer
- Amadee J. Van Beuren
Sound
- Sound Recording
- RCA Photophone System
Crew
- Synchronization
- Gene Rodemich
Production notes
A series of animated short subjects created by Paul Terry and actor-turned-writer Howard Estabrook. Estabrook suggested making a series of cartoons based on Aesop's Fables. Although Terry claimed he had never heard of Aesop, he felt that Estabrook's idea was something worthwhile. Terry immediately began to set up a new studio called Fables Studios and received backing from the Keith-Albee Theatre circuit.
The earliest films were loose adaptations of the actual fables. Later entries usually revolved around cats, mice, and the disgruntled Farmer Al Falfa. Each short concluded with a "moral" that usually had nothing to do with the actual cartoon itself.
In 1929, Terry quit to start his own TerryToons Studios and John Foster took over the series under Amadee J. Van Beuren's brand new Van Beuren Corporation, a renamed Fable Studios. The series finally came to a close in 1933.
The earliest films were loose adaptations of the actual fables. Later entries usually revolved around cats, mice, and the disgruntled Farmer Al Falfa. Each short concluded with a "moral" that usually had nothing to do with the actual cartoon itself.
In 1929, Terry quit to start his own TerryToons Studios and John Foster took over the series under Amadee J. Van Beuren's brand new Van Beuren Corporation, a renamed Fable Studios. The series finally came to a close in 1933.
Pictures
Reviews
Rough on Rats! Scary Fun for Little Ones...
Wow! I remember this cartoon as a child in the early 50's watching on B/W TV in Washington, DC. All of the neighborhood kids would choose to be one of the kittens who played in a store with no humans around. Later a HUGE Rat attacks them. The scariest part was when the rat puts one of the kittens in a bread slicing machine and turns it on! EEEK! But the other kittens rescue the captured one by dropping the rat on flypaper then finishing him off by dropping a big shoe on him. Happy ending!! Pretty violent stuff, I guess. But cartoons made in the early days (this was made in 1933) weren't for kids anyway.