What a Knight: A Surreal Trip to the Dentist

Is it worth your time?

If you have about seven minutes to spare and a high tolerance for old-school, rubber-hose animation weirdness, sure. You’ll probably dig this if you enjoy the chaotic, logic-defying rhythm of early cartoons. If you need a story that actually makes sense from start to finish, you are going to hate this. It’s not meant to be analyzed; it’s meant to be felt.

The whole thing starts in a dentist's chair, which is already a nightmare scenario for most of us. Then the gas hits. The shift from the sterile office to the kingdom of Camelot is so jarring it almost feels like a mistake in the editing room. But that’s the charm, right? It just leans into the madness.

I found myself staring at the background art more than the characters. There’s this one sequence where the architecture just starts melting and reshaping itself that felt surprisingly modern. It’s the kind of visual gag that makes you wonder what the animators were actually looking at when they drew it. Maybe they were hanging out with the same dentist.

Cinematic perspective: Exploring the visual vocabulary of What a Knight (1932) through its definitive frames.

Krazy Kat is the perfect vessel for this kind of nonsense. He doesn't need to be a complex hero. He just needs to exist in a space where physics are optional. It reminded me a bit of the frantic energy in Some Judge, where you just accept that characters are going to do impossible things because the script said so.

There is a moment involving a dragon that goes on for a few beats too long, and honestly? I loved it. It’s awkward, the timing is a bit mushy, but it feels human. It feels like someone sitting at a desk with a pencil, just trying to make themselves laugh.

The pacing is all over the place. It jumps from a jousting scene to a weird musical number without a single breath in between. It’s not smooth, but it’s never boring. It’s the cinematic equivalent of a sugar crash.

Some random notes I scribbled down:

• The dentist’s face is terrifyingly blank. I couldn't stop looking at it.
• The armor sound effects are just random clanging. It’s hilarious.
• Is the king supposed to be a cat? It’s hard to tell with the animation style, but I’m going with yes.
• The transition back to reality is incredibly abrupt. You wake up, the tooth is gone, and that’s it. No moral, no lesson. Just done.

If you're into this kind of thing, you might also find the weird charm of Honest Injun to be in the same ballpark. It’s all about that loose, anything-goes spirit. Don’t overthink it. Just watch the ink move around the screen.