You get to tour the city this cartoon short, lead by Morty Citymouse. He takes his cousin Abner all around the city, resulting in some outrageous adventures and moments. A few laughs here and some nicely done animation.

This film is the Oscar winner for Best Animated Short for 1937 and when seen today you might be tempted, like me, to marvel at it being the pick. It's not that this is a bad cartoon--it isn't. It's just that the story is awfully familiar and the animation style is more akin to a non-Disney production than a film by the greatest animation studio of the day. As for me, I'd much rather see a cartoon featuring the OTHER Disney mouse instead of this one.The story is from Aesop and has been done a bazillion times before by various cartoon studios--probably because they didn't have to pay royalties and because the story has already written itself! A bumpkin mouse from 'Podunk' comes to visit his supposedly sophisticated cousin in the city. At first, the bumpkin in impressed by all the marvels of big city life. However, by the end of the film he comes to realize that cities suck and he's better off being happy with his lot in life.The animation quality is good but not exactly inspired or a thing of great beauty. When I think about several other Silly Symphony cartoons from Disney (such as THE FLOWERS AND THE TREES or FERDINAND THE BULL), it comes up very short. In other words, it's awfully ordinary yet took the Oscar. While I am not a huge fan of Popeye, I have seen POPEYE THE SAILOR MEETS SINBAD THE SAILOR (also nominated this same year) and it was significantly prettier and better animated--with finer line drawings and an amazing 3-D sort of look to it. The other nominee was OLD MILL POND by Harmon-Ising but I just can't bring myself to watch any more of these ultra-cutesy cartoons, though I can just about guarantee it was insipid and that THE COUNTRY COUSIN was better!

So what if this is, as another reviewer noted, the stuff of a hundred Tom and Jerry cartoons to come? The character animation is the real attraction here, and it's excellent. This is some of the best drunken mouse animation I've ever seen, and that's saying something.It's true, they've turned the actual storyline into a goofy succession of tabletop gags with a chaotic climax tacked on (much like the one to appear at the end of the Pink Elephants sequence in Dumbo), and so the short as a whole is somewhat less satisfying than it could be, but the individual sequences are all nice - I particularly liked the bit with the sliced bread, and the mirror routine straight out of Duck Soup. Monty just sort of disappears at the end, doesn't he? Oh well, so maybe it's not the most memorable thing ever, but it's still a polished piece of cartoonery, to be sure.

This Disney short is well-executed visually (as you might expect from Disney in the 1930s) but isn't really all that memorable or impressive for all that. I'm frankly somewhat puzzled at its nomination for an Academy Award and more puzzled that it won. Perhaps it was more impressive in 1936 than it is today. It isn't a bad cartoon-there just isn't anything exceptional about it that struck me other than the visuals. It runs from time to time on the Ink and Paint Club.