The Ol' Swimmin' Hole

The Ol' Swimmin' Hole is an Oswald the Lucky Rabbit animated short released on February 6, 1928. Dave Bossert, the author of the book Oswald the Lucky Rabbit: The Search for the Lost Disney Cartoons, has reported that the short has been found and uploaded an image of the short to his instagram. The short has been found in a film print in the Royal Belgian Film Archive, with Disney having a deal to get a 4K scan of the print.
==Synopsis==
A pastoral outing as Oswald and his friends take in the delights of a swimming hole.
==Plot==
The film begins with Oswald riding through the woods atop the head of a galloping donkey, with four other animal characters on the donkey's back, all bouncing along. The kitten, comes running in and grabs hold of the donkey's tail, letting it tow him along like a water-skier behind a boat.
Cutting in on a close-up of the donkey's head, we find Oswald bouncing around in a circle, then on his back and finally holding himself up in midair rubbing his sore bottom-for this is a bumpy ride! But Oswald gets an idea, takes hold of the donkey's ears, and attaches their tips together to create a leaf spring that keeps him stationary and comfortable as the donkey's head continues to bounce up and down underneath him.
We cut back to a wide shot of the donkey, with all the characters looking at the kitten still hanging on to the tail and "waterskiing" behind. Two characters are bouncing up and down on the donkey's back, inadvertently pushing the donkey's body lower and lower to the ground. The donkey's body bends so low that it becomes "U"-shaped; its feet are no longer touching the ground at this point and the ride comes to a stop.
Oswald and the other characters jump off, survey the situation, and think for a moment. Then Oswald gets an idea: turning the donkey's tail into a crank, he rotates the donkey upside down so the animal is hovering in midair with its feet and head facing upward, and its bent body inverted from a "U" into a hump. In this position, the donkey is again rideable; Oswald simply rotates the legs down to touch the ground, and the rest of the characters pile back on the hump-shaped body.
As the donkey starts galloping again, Oswald rotates the donkey's head to face the ground as well. Breaking the fourth wall, Oswald smiles and waves at the movie audience.
They all arrive at the edge of a watering hole. On a nearby tree is a sign that states, No Swimmin'. But Oswald defies the warning, using the donkey's cary as a diving board to dive into the pond. The donkey lowers ts head and raises its hind legs, creating an incline shape that the other characters use as a slide to head into the water
Ar another tree with a sign reading No SWIMMIN Aloud a small bear who in design and behavior resembles a character later called Toby Bear and his Inend, a rotund-looking fox, are getting ready for a swim The bear grabs a gob of mud from the ground and throws It at the word SWIMMIN, blotting out the "S" to create boys-only joke: No WIMMIN ALOUD. Then the bear takes his pants off to swim and jumps up and down with excitement. But the rotund fox is having trouble getting his clothes off, and the bear steps in to help. The bear grabs on to the fox's shirt and starts pulling off a seemingly endlessly long shirt-revealing a very skinny fox underneath, who steps out of a final pair of pants and runs off to swim.
At a diving board, the recurring dachshund character, later named Wienie, does a comical dive into the water, snaking around himself in midair while a group of cheering characters watch. Then Oswald walks onto the diving board carrying an umbrella. He takes a running jump onto the end of the board making it bounce wildly and catapulting him up out of frame. He comes back in slowly, gently dropping in with the umbrella acting as a parachute, before he sinks under the water, Oswald pops back up above the water's surface, waves to the adoring crowd cheering on the shore, and swims off.
The donkey stretches its neck out and creates a loop. lowering his head to the ground and extending his ears together as the end of the loop. One of three little cat characters grabs the donkey's tail, which acts as a lift up and then a slide into the loop the loop, which slides each little cat into the pond, after which each swims back to shore, gets out, and cycles through the same process again.
Back at the diving board, the dachshund does another comical dive into the water, this time in a wacky squarish formation, and swims off. Then a tough bully cat, last seen in Oh, Teacher steps onto the diving board and plays to the crowd. First he spits into the water; then he gestures for the crowd to wait and watch as he bounces on his tail numerous times, springlike, before diving into the water. The cat's dive creates a splash that Oswald dives onto and rides out of the top of the frame. Oswald then comes spiraling down the shaft of the splash before disappearing into the water.
The bully cat surfaces and swims to shore, getting out and striking a pompous ta-da pose as the crowd cheers. Oswald pops his bead above the surface, wirns to shore, and gets out of the water. He stands next to the cat, looking at him being full of himself. Oswald then grabs hold of the bully's tail, wiggling it like a limp noodle and seeing that the cat is too self-absored to notice or react. Oswald ponders over things and gets an idea, taking the top of his head off, ears attached, so an idea bubble can float out with the word IDEA in it.
The word IDEA dissolves into a bucket of stanch, which Oswald grabs out of the thought bubble and pours it onto the cat's tail, making it as stiff as a board. The cat, all puffed up and self-infatuated, still doesn't notice. After turning and bragging to Oswald, who nods with a knowing smirk, the cat goes back onto the diving board to bounce on his tall again. This time, due to the starch in it, his tail is no longer springlike, instead, when he lands on the diving board, his body sinks down over his tail, making his neck grow the length of his tail. The cat attempts to bring his head back down to his body only for his neck to bounce back up and swing frupt side to side. Frustrated, he stands up, reaches behind, and pulls his tail back out his bottom. Angry, the cat jumps up and down, demanding to know who did this to him.
An intertitle card then appears that reads SHERIFF CRABB - THE TERROR OF PESKY HOLLER! and displays an image of the mean-looking sheriff on a bike riding towards some kids next to a NO SWIMMIN sign. Then we see an animated Sheriff Crabb riding his bike in profile, chewing tobacco as he goes and spitting tobacco juice out in front of him; the juice sails back past him as he pedals the bike. He spits again and this time it flies back in his face, making him angry.
Composing himself, the sheriff continues to ride his bike, bouncing over small rocks and then hitting and going over a large rock, which causes his bike wheels to transform from round to elongated. Riding the bike, which now has bent-up wheels, causes the sheriff to soon lose control and fall on top of it as he skids into a cloud of smoke. Emerging from the smoke, the sheriff is now shown riding a miniature bike-seemingly compressed in the fall.
All the various characters that have been at the swimming hole see Sheriff Crabb coming and run offscreen as he enters. He hits a rock and does a somersault, landing on his head. He jumps back up on his feet, frustrated; then he throws his hat down on the ground and starts jumping up and down angrily.
Oswald runs behind a thin tree trunk and disappears along with eight other characters in a classic gag: even though the tree is very thin, everyone can somehow hide behind it at once! The sheriff, still angry, points to the NO SWIMMIN sign on a thick tree nearby. The kitten comes out from a foreground shrub and tiptoes under the sheriff's legs in an attempt to sneak away. The sheriff does a cartoon "take"-with his hat flying off and then uses an outstretched foot to stop the kitten from leaving.
Despite being caught by the sheriff's foot, the kitten manages to break free, thumbing his nose at the sheriff and running off. The sheriff tries to kick the kitten, but misses; instead, the sheriff's foot extends in a large circle over his own head and kicks him in the butt. The grumpy sheriff grabs his excessively long leg and throws it to the ground like a hose.
As we cut back to Oswald's hiding place, a large pig character runs into the frame and hurries behind the thin tree trunk, disappearing there like the other characters. Then the kitten comes in and runs past the tree, only to have a hand reach out to grab him and pull him in behind the trunk.
The sheriff, still dealing with his excessively long leg, places his foot up against the thick tree and hops inward towards it, squashing his leg back to normal. Oswald and his gang all peek out from behind the thin tree's trunk and branches to see what the sheriff is up to. He shakes his fist at them all angrily
Scratching his head and thinking, the sheriff feigns an exaggerated yawn and sits down against the large tree's trunk, pretending to take a nap. Oswald conveys to his friends that he'll tiptoe over and check out the napping sheriff to see if he is really asleep. In the process, Oswald unsnaps the sheriff's suspender strap and stretches it out antil-with a sudden jolt-it completely detaches, causing Oswald to fall on the ground.
Oswald then attaches the suspenders to a tree branch creating a bouncy swing. He gets into it and starts bouncing up and down until a friend comes in and stretches Oswald down and lets go, causing him to snap up and hit the bottom of the branch forcing his head into his torso. Falling to the ground, Oswald stands up, pulls his head out of his body, and strikes an angry pose, rubbing his head.
The large pig character runs over to ask if he can try the swing and Oswald agrees. The pig gets into the swing; Oswald pushes him back into the distance and lets go. The pig swings so far into the camera-multiple times in a cycle that the screen goes black as his open mouth consumes the screen. Cutting to a wider shot with the sheriff still snoozing in the foreground, we see the pig swing again but this time the suspenders break, causing him to land in the swimming hole with a huge splash of mud covering the entire frame.
As the frame clears, the water hole is empty with the pig sitting on the bottom and the sheriff-still by the tree-awake now and covered in mud. Oswald and the other characters on the distant shore see that the sheriff has awakened and do a cartoon "take," running off over the horizon as the sheriff shakes the mud off himself The pig looks on, concerned, until the sheriff jumps op and chases him off after the others.
The enraged sheriff doesn't notice, but unknowingly deprived of his suspender strap he has jumped right out of his pants! He's wearing only his speckled BVDs a he rushes off after the kids, leaving his pants to get up and follow him over the hill as the picture irises out to black.
==Characters==
*Oswald the Lucky Rabbit
*Cat
*Sheriff Crabb
==Trivia==
*The ending of the cartoon is lost, with the ending being that Crabb takes the mud off himself as everyone else runs off.
*The cat has a similar appearance and personality as the cat from Oh Teacher.
*A surviving pre-production script has the details of other scenes.
**Furthermore, the film print of The Ole Swimmin' Hole located in Belgium is missing the final sequence of Sheriff Crabb losing his pants, as well as the earlier scene of the bear turning NO SWIMMIN into NO WIMMIN.
**It is possible that the scenes were intentionally removed for international markets. In a letter dated May 26, 1928, Charles Mintz warns Disney of using English language titles and gags with animated words as they would be lost on overseas audiences.
==Gallery==
The Ol' Swimmin' Hole 1.jpeg
The Ol' Swimmin' Hole 2.jpg
The Ol' Swimmin' Hole 3.jpg
The Ol' Swimmin' Hole 4.jpeg
File:TheOl'SwimminHole2.jpg
File:TheOl'SwimminHole1.jpg
==References==
Category:Animated shorts
Category:Oswald the Lucky Rabbit shorts
Category:1928 shorts
Category:Public domain cartoons