Barnyard Melody (1929) *

In 1929, cartoon pioneer Paul Terry (whose Aesop's Fables Studio was taken over by Amadee Van Beuren's Keith-Albee vaudeville circuit) was fired by his boss for refusing to produce fully synchronized sound cartoons. Eventually, Terry was able to claim Aesop's Fable star Farmer Al Falfa as his own creation, but in the meantime Van Beuren managed to produce a few cartoons with that character, among them "Barnyard Melody". The film opens with a cat and a mouse riding together on roller-skates and ends with the chubby Farmer Al Falfa being hit on the head with a load of bricks. Everything in between is perfectly forgetteable. Directed by J.Foster.