Uncle Tom's Crabbin' (1927) | Felix The Cat On A Plantation

UNCLE TOM'S CRABBIN' is a silent short film featuring Felix the Cat. It was directed by Otto Messmer who also did the animation. It was released on November 13, 1927.
Felix hangs out with Uncle Tom and Topsy, dancing to Tom's banjo music. However, the evil Simon Legree keeps showing up to break up their good time. Time and time again, however, Felix gets the best of him. Note - Legree's whip turns into a dog. It's a little hard to see it because it gets cut off.
Uncle Tom and Topsy are drawn in a very demeaning style---with giant lips and looking not quite human. However they are portrayed as good folks and Felix is being nice to them and helping them.
Some of the cartoon doesn't make sense either. Who's that character at the beginning walking towards the camera in the snow? What was up with the sun? What happened to Felix's stick and knapsack he had at the beginning? Why is Felix suddenly in the snow at the end?
The creation of Felix has been disputed and both Pat Sullivan and Otto Messmer are credited as Felix’s creators. Messmer was an American cartoonist and the lead animator at Sullivan’s studio, which produced the Felix cartoons.
This film is in the public domain meaning it has been identified as being free of known restrictions under copyright law, including all related and neighboring rights. You can copy, modify, distribute and perform the work, even for commercial purposes, all without asking permission. Corporations lobbied Congress to get U.S. copyright laws extended by 20 years, twice! Because of that, it allows published works to be under copyright for almost a century and corporations to squeeze every last ounce of profit from them even long after the profitability has past. It keeps people from enjoying art, which is the purpose of art.
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