The Tuba Tooter (1932) Review - Weird, Rubbery, and Loud

If you have eight minutes to spare and love old-school, rubber-hose animation where physics don't exist, The Tuba Tooter is absolutely worth a quick watch. But if you need things like 'plot logic' or characters who actually look like humans, you will probably hate this with a passion. 🎺

It is basically just a fever dream set to German brass music.

The Setup (If You Can Call It That)

So, we start with three guys in lederhosen who are desperately waiting for their fourth band member to arrive on a boat. When the guy finally shows up, his tuba is so massive it basically has its own gravity pull.

The animation here is incredibly bouncy. Like, the characters' limbs look like they are made of warm spaghetti, which is pretty typical for these John Foster cartoons but still hilarious to watch today.

Honestly, it reminds me a bit of the frantic energy in Apeing Hollywood, where the gags just keep coming whether they make sense or not.

The Part Where Things Get Weird

Once the quartet is complete, they start playing, and the whole town just loses its mind. We are talking about dogs dancing on their hind legs and actual buildings swaying to the beat.

My favorite part is this random dog who is drinking beer out of a mug with his tail. It is a tiny detail in the background, but I had to rewind it just to make sure I actually saw it.

The music is loud, repetitive, and will absolutely get stuck in your head for the rest of the day. You have been warned.

A Few Things I Noticed:

• The main character has teeth that seem to appear and disappear depending on how wide he opens his mouth.
• A horse in the background does a dance that looks suspiciously like a modern TikTok trend.
• The gravity in this town is completely optional.

The Sudden Buzzkill Ending

Just when the party is at its peak, the police show up and drag the tuba player off to jail. There is no explanation given for why he is being arrested.

Did he steal the tuba? Is playing oompah music illegal in this town? We will never know, because the cartoon just... ends.

It is definitely not a masterpiece like Luck and Pluck, but it has this raw, unpolished energy that you just don't see anymore. It feels like the animators were just making it up as they went along, and honestly? I kind of respect that.