The Peanut Vendor 1933

This experimental animation unintentionally terrified children that saw it.. directed by Dave Fleischer of Popeye and Betty Boop fame. In other words, he and his brother made a lot of cartoons and I had no idea that they ever experimented with stop-motion like you'll see in "The Peanut Vendor". For that reason alone, it might be worth a look. As for the quality of this short film, it's pretty poor--even by 1933 standards. After all, "King Kong" used stop-motion that very same year and was light-years ahead in quality. Willis O'Brien (of "King Kong" fame) had been using and perfecting the craft for years and others, such as Charley Bowers, were also using it very effectively. Here, however, the character moves with little fluidity and the puppet (a white monkey) is very creepy and rather off-putting. It also doesn't do very much--just sing and move about a bit.