4.4/10
Senior Film Conservator
A definitive 4.4/10 rating for a film that redefined the boundaries of cult cinema. College remains a cornerstone of transgressive art.
If you like old-school, rubber-hose animation, absolutely. It’s perfect for anyone who enjoys seeing how early animators played with perspective before computers did all the heavy lifting.
If you need a coherent story or find high-pitched 1930s vocal effects grating? You’ll probably want to skip this one. 🐰
So, College is basically a sports movie condensed into a fever dream. Oswald and Pete are at it, running hurdles and pole vaulting, but they’re also just beating the absolute tar out of each other.
There’s this moment during the track sequence where the animation shifts into a point-of-view shot as Oswald runs. It’s genuinely jarring. Most shorts back then were super static, just flat backgrounds, but this actually makes you feel like you're tripping over the hurdles right along with him.
It’s not perfect, though. The pacing is frantic, which is fine, but sometimes you lose track of who is supposed to be winning. Not that it matters, really.
The gags are exactly what you’d expect from the Walter Lantz crew. Lots of stretching limbs and characters getting flattened like pancakes. It feels a lot more kinetic than something like Double Reward, which feels like it’s standing still by comparison.
Also, the ending? It’s a total classic cartoon cop-out. It’s funny, but it makes you realize the plot was never really the point. They just wanted to draw things getting smashed.
Odd details I noticed:
It’s not as polished as the later stuff, but it’s got grit. You can tell they were trying to push the boundaries of what a drawing could do on screen. Definitely worth a watch if you’re curious about how cartoons used to be made before everything got so clean and shiny.
Just don't go in expecting a sports drama. It’s just two guys being jerks to each other for seven minutes, and sometimes, that’s plenty.
