Horst in Translation ([email protected]) Yes I had to go there. "Alice's Egg Plant" is an 8.5-minute cartoon from 1925 and as always with Walt Disney's series about this young girl, the only live action character in this animated world is Alice. As the title already says, she and her pal Julius operate an egg plant here (which means a chicken farm, not a biological plant) and I felt that this little movie here had more of a story and plot than they usually do. of course, it also goes for comedy, but there is a touch of union talk and maybe even a slight ounce pf politics in here. Unfortunately, it still stays a fairly absurd watch and neither the characters nor the animation are good enough to really say this is an enjoyable little film, even if it's among the most known from the Alice series. The title character here is played by Anne Shirley and this is her only performance as Alice. She went on to become an Oscar nominee later on. But here she cannot show us her talent yet. I don't recommend the watch.

MartinHafer Before Walt Disney branched off on his own, he produced shorts for several different companies. One type were his Oswald the Lucky Rabbit cartoons and the other were his Alice films. Alice was an unusual concept. Most of the film was traditional black & white cartoon, but the central character, Alice, was a live action little girl. By today's standards, they're really crude but back in the mid-1920s, they were pretty exciting stuff.If you watch this film, you might just assume it's another cute little Alice film and you would be wrong! The cartoon is actually very, very political as it's a bit of propaganda against the I.W.W. (Industrial Workers of the World), also known as 'the Wobblies'. No one is sure why they're called this but they were by far the most radical union in America and their principles were very pro-Marxist. They believed that the workers must own the means of production--a prime tenant of Marxism and true Communism. During the early 20th Century, many people were worried about this union and there was a lot of propaganda against them during WWI--especially since they protested against American involvement in it (not a bad idea, actually). Obviously Walt Disney, a political conservative, was against the I.W.W..The film begins with a scene that actually might tend to validate the I.W.W., as a cat is on the farm behaving rather brutally towards the chickens to get them to lay eggs. However, soon a Bolshevik (Russian Communist) chicken who represents the I.W.W. arrives and stirs up trouble. Now the chickens won't lay eggs and are even hostile to Alice and her nasty cat. So, Alice thinks up a clever way to defeat the dreaded Wobblies.I can guarantee that most won't understand all this symbolism, but it was meant to be very obvious and very political back in 1925--even though it was supposedly a kids' cartoon! Sometimes being a history teacher does have its advantages!

tavm Since there's a summary the tells the whole story, I'll just mention a couple of gags. Since the fight's admission is one egg, Julius refuses to let someone who's not a chicken (I think he's a bear) come in. This bear proves he can lay an egg by, when Julius is not looking, takes one from the hanging scale above the cat and removes it from under him as Julius looks back puzzled! As the puzzled cat looks back inside the entrance, a snake balances an egg on his head before eating one. He then eats two more before the cat catches him and squeezes the eggs out of the snake! Highly amusing animated cartoon. Worth seeing if you're an enthusiast of early Walt Disney.

Damon Fordham This very early Walt Disney effort from 1925 is a real knee-slapper, especially for pop-culture historians.It starts off as a typically amusing 1920s style cartoon, with funny gags involving the animals' anatomy doing improbable and crazy things (the cat using his tail as a whip to get the lazy hens back to work). But things get REALLY wild when a Communist Rooster (yeah, you're reading this right) called "The Little Red Henski of Moscow, USSR" comes to town. The Bolshevik Bird then gets (literally) on his soap box and agitates the chickens to go on strike against Alice and her cat! How does it all end? Trust me, it's even more bizarre than what I've described so far! If this all sounds crazy and outrageous in print, wait til you see it on film! You will pound the floor laughing at this one!