Studio: Walter Lantz Productions
Distributor: Universal Pictures
Produced by: Walter Lantz
Short Synopsis
Oswald is a cheerful farmer, and his farm is thriving, until a dark, shadowy figure appears: the Depression itself. It drifts across the countryside, and wherever it passes, gloom sets in. The animals lose heart, and a miserable bird sits hunched on a fence post under a grey sky. Oswald tries everything to lift their spirits and fails. Determined to find a cure, he builds a makeshift flying machine and flies to Washington, D.C., to ask President Franklin D. Roosevelt for help. Roosevelt's answer is the film's title: what the country needs is confidence. Oswald flies home with that prescription and spreads it around the farm until the gloom lifts.
Why It Matters
- It is a rare piece of openly political cartooning from a Hollywood studio. The Depression is drawn as a literal, creeping phantom, and the cure comes from the newly inaugurated President in person, a vivid record of how Roosevelt's message of restoring public confidence in 1933 reached ordinary cinema audiences, even through a rabbit cartoon.
- The animation credits include Fred "Tex" Avery, who also provided voices, two years before he moved to Warner Bros. and helped reshape American cartoon comedy. It shows the Lantz studio in the busy early-1930s period when many future stars were learning their trade there.
Notes and Trivia
- Oswald is voiced by more than one actor in the film, according to voice historian Keith Scott's research.
- The cartoon was released in the summer of Roosevelt's first hundred days in office, when "confidence" was the watchword of his radio fireside chats.
- It is included in The Woody Woodpecker and Friends Classic Cartoon Collection DVD set.
- See also: Ham and Eggs (1933).