Peg Leg Pete: A weird, scratchy trip down memory lane

Is this thing worth your time?

If you have a soft spot for 1920s animation that feels like it was drawn by someone running on pure adrenaline and bad coffee, sure. You’ll probably hate it if you need a coherent story or if the sound of early, scratchy audio tracks gives you a headache. It’s barely a movie, really. It’s more like a rhythmic experiment that never quite stops moving.

Frank Moser is steering the ship here, and you can tell. The movement is jerky in that way that feels like the paper might catch fire if it moves any faster. There’s a scene where Pete is just hopping around, and the loop timing is so aggressive it starts to feel like a hypnotist’s trick. Seriously, I think I watched him jump for thirty seconds straight.

It’s not as polished as The Wagon Master, but that’s the point, isn't it? Everything feels like it’s vibrating. The background art is just barely there, mostly just lines suggesting a floor or a wall, but who cares. The character designs are all sharp edges and giant, exaggerated gestures. 🤡

Cinematic perspective: Exploring the visual vocabulary of Peg Leg Pete (1932) through its definitive frames.

Tiny, weird things I noticed:

• Pete’s leg isn't even a wooden peg half the time; it just turns into a stick.
• The blink rate on the character is way too high. It’s almost frantic.
• There’s a specific frame where the ink looks like it smudged, but it stays for like five frames.

I caught this right after watching Seein' Things, and the contrast is wild. While that one tries to build a scene, Peg Leg Pete is just throwing paint at the wall to see what sticks. It’s not trying to teach you a lesson or make you cry. It’s just trying to be loud and visible.

The pacing is non-existent. It just stops, then starts, then stops again. It’s like the animator was getting bored and just decided to move on to the next gag without finishing the first one. I kind of love that about it. It’s honest in its own messy way.

Is it better than Better Movies? That’s a stretch. But it’s definitely a better way to spend five minutes than staring at a blank wall. Just don't expect to walk away feeling like you've changed as a person. You'll just walk away feeling like you’ve seen a lot of ink move around in a circle.

It's raw, it's dated, and it's very loud in its silence. Exactly what I wanted on a rainy Tuesday. ⚓️