![\"\"](\"https:\/\/cartoonresearch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/Animation-Trails-logo.jpg\"){kind=logo}
<\/p>\nToday\u2019s line-up takes us from 1932 into mid-1937. It\u2019s almost a little surprising that there weren\u2019t more appearances of baseball in cartoons during this period. Some studios (such as Fleischer) seem to have avoided delving into it for many years. Even Disney in the sound era oddly never found an opportunity for Mickey Mouse to play baseball \u2013 though he would be triple-threat at football, polo, and Olympic events). Nevertheless, every so often, the sport would be remembered for a subject, and its appearances in animation would begin to increase toward the later part of the decade and into the \u201840\u2019s. There is also not that much name-dropping or caricature during this period to reference real-life ball players, with the exception, of course, of two impersonations of the home run king, in intimidating fashion.<\/p>\n
The sides change. A centipede is next at bat \u2013 with five bats to swing. Four of them miss another wildly-curving ball, but the fifth bat connects \u2013 without the other four swings being counted as strikes. He passes first base, but gets caught up between first and second by two fly basemen. After some back-and-forth tosses, the centipede escapes the trap in his own unique way \u2013 by separating into segments, which scatter to run in helter-skelter directions all over the place, confusing the basemen and leaving them slightly dizzy, while all the segments wend their way to second base and reassemble as the centipede. The frustrated first baseman kicks the second baseman in the rear for his incompetence. <\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/cartoonresearch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/Ball-Game-title-300x186.jpg\")
The Ball Game<\/strong> (Van Beuren\/Pathe, Aesop\u2019s Fables<\/em>, 7\/30\/32 \u2013 John Foster\/George Rufle, dir.) \u2013 A pretty commonplace Aesop\u2019s installment \u2013 one of the first I was ever exposed to via PBS\u2019s \u201cMatinee at the Bijou\u201d, where it failed to impress. The usual parade to the staduim (set to the recent Warner hit, \u201cI Love a Parade\u201d, marginally included in only the credits of Winnie Lightner\u2019s \u201cManhattan Parade\u201d) announces a baseball match-up between the Big Bugs and the Little Bugs. All variety of large insects populate the former team, while the latter seems to consist of a swarm of identical-looking flies. Insects travel to the event via trolley cars, but some depend on their own transportation, the right field bleachers filling by a fly-in of insects in a swarm cloud. Old habits die hard, and the first two pitches of the game are again \u201cHeeza Liar\u201d zig-zag curves, brought on by the pitcher spiraling his fingers around the ball as in Van Beuren\u2019s earlier production, \u201cPlay Ball\u201d. The third pitch results in a hit. A long-nosed mosquito waits in the outfield to make the catch, bit has the ball get skewered directly upon his nose. Another fielder tries to pry it off, but no use. So, the second fielder grabs the feet of the mosquito, swings him around in a circle, then flings him bodily toward home plate. A race for the plate ensues between the running fly batter and the mosquito soaring in air behind him, and the mosquito scores a sting upon the fly\u2019s rear end, accomplishing a tag at the same time, for an out at the plate.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/cartoonresearch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/BALL-GAME-at-bat.jpg\")
A winged beetle, the power-hitter of the big bugs (with a build and face resembling Babe Ruth), steps up to the plate. A couple of the usual curve balls, and there are two strikes on the batter. Then, the batter reveals his additional secret weapons \u2013 six arms under his wings, loaded with bats. The pitcher begins to sweat, and whistles to the field for his teammates to join him on the mound. With that many arms to pitch to, the entire team begins throwing baseballs at the mound, all at once. The batter is like a well-oiled machine, and begins socking hits into the field, three at a time, over and over again, not letting a ball go by. The flies desperately spread out over the field, but trying to catch up with all the balls landing on the green is more than they can handle, and soon the only contact they are making with the balls is to get clobbered by them as they fall from the sky like rain. The batter finally tires of swinging, and begins a slow, confident trot around the bases, doffing his cap right and left to acknowledge the cheers of the crowd. All the balls finally conclude landing in the field, and the flies frantically start picking them up in every direction, flinging them back toward the advancing runner. The beetle has his victory lap spoiled by being conked in the head by a first ball, knocking him down. Another hits him, then another, then another. We\u2019ll never know how the play is being scored, because the rest of the balls start raining down upon the grandstand. The throws from the field are endless, and in a pair of repeated cycles of animation that look primitive enough to have been lifted from a Terry Aesop from 1923 (and for all we know, might have been at that), the spectators exit the stadium in panicked droves, amidst the continuing deluge of baseballs, for the iris out.<\/p>\n