The Hobo Hero review: Genuinely weird old-school cartoon chaos

If you have ten minutes to spare today and love things that are just plain weird, yes, The Hobo Hero is absolutely worth your time. But if you need things like "sense" or "normal physics" in your cartoons, you will probably want to throw your screen out the window. 🚂

It starts on a train, obviously. Our main guy is this scruffy hobo who looks like he hasn't slept since 1920, voiced or at least squeaked by Piccolo Pete.

He is just chilling on top of a speeding train car when he sees a dog fall onto the tracks. The physics here make zero sense.

He saves the dog, who belongs to this lady voiced by Tillie Twitch. She has the most piercing, glass-shattering voice you have ever heard.

As a reward, she invites him to her parents' house for a fancy dinner. This is where things get truly uncomfortable.

The parents look like they were drawn by someone who had only heard descriptions of humans through a bad telephone line. They just stare at him with these dead, unblinking eyes.

I noticed a small detail in the background during the dinner scene. There is a painting of a fish on the wall that seems to change direction between shots. Why? Who knows.

It reminds me a bit of the odd pacing in Mickey's Pals, though that one had slightly better music.

Or maybe Chili and Chills, which also had that greasy, sweaty old-school animation look. This one feels even cruder though.

The hobo tries to eat soup but his spoon has a hole in it. It is a classic gag but the way his face stretches when he gets frustrated is genuinely nightmare fuel.

The weird stuff I wrote down:

• The dog looks more like a wet loaf of bread than a canine.
• The mom's collar is so stiff it doesn't move even when she nods.
• The sound of the train at the start sounds like someone blowing into a empty soda bottle.

The ending just sort of... happens. He gets kicked out or leaves, I am not even sure, and he's back on the train. 🤷

It has that same abrupt "well, we ran out of paper" ending you see in Here Comes Cookie.

I kind of love it for how ugly and unapologetic it is. It doesn't care about being cute.

If you want a polished masterpiece, go watch something else. But if you want to see a cartoon character eat soup with a broken spoon while a dog barks in a key that doesn't exist, this is your goldmine.