Aesop's Fables: The 1920s Volume 1 Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		3.5
Video		4.0
Audio		4.0
Extras		2.0
Overall		3.5

Aesop's Fables: The 1920s Volume 1 Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman November 1, 2025

Quick! Name an animator who built his brand at least partially on cartoons featuring on a mouse. Easy, right? Well, while the "default" answer of Walt Disney is technically correct, in the case of this particular release, the real solution is actually one Paul Terry. Terry's name has not withstood the vagaries of time and tide as well as Disney's has (arguably for some good reasons), but his contributions to the art of animation actually pre-date Walt's by a good decade or so. In fact, Terry's early successes were an inspiration for Disney, though somewhat comically it was only after Walt started offering Mickey Mouse that Terry introduced what has probably become his best remembered character, Mighty Mouse (there's little doubt Terry got to "animated mouse" land first, though, as several shorts in this collection admirably prove). Before that august (?) premiere, though, Terry had churned out an incredible number of shorts, including what were in the 1920s weekly installments of Aesop's Fables. Terry was kind of the Hanna Barbera of his day, emphasizing speed and quantity over any perceived artistic merits, which indeed may have contributed to his later lack of renown.

Boomers in particular will no doubt remember the slightly gonzo Aesop and Son segments that used to be part of Rocky & Bullwinkle & Friends: The Complete Series* (note that the link points to a DVD since we sadly don't have Blu-rays of the series yet). Terry's takes on the ostensible work of Aesop (the series departs pretty radically from any actual connection to Aesop after a while) are considerably less snarky than their midcentury counterparts, and they're also more basic in terms of animation, in black and white and (mostly) silent (new piano scores by co- commentator Charlie Judkins and some arguably needless ending voiceover delivering the ostensible "moral of the story" by Keith Scott are included). The "newest" short in this first collection, 1928's Dinner Time, has early synchronized sound.

The set includes:

• Mice in Council (1921)
• The Fable of the Ant and the Grasshopper (1921)
• The Fable of the Fox and Crow (1921)
• The Spendthrift (1922)
• The Fable of a Raisin and a Cake of Yeast (1923)
• The Pearl Divers (1923)
• Do Women Pay? (1923)
• Herman the Great Mouse (1924)
• Wine, Women and Song (1925)
• The Ugly Duckling (1925)
• Hungry Hounds (1925)
• Her Ben (1926)
• Anti-Fat (1927)
• When the Snow Flies (1927)
• Hard Cider (1927)
• Subway Sally (1927)
• Small Town Sheriff (1927)
• The Spider's Lair (1928)
• Jungle Days (1928)
• Dinner Time (1928)

*Trivia fans may know that Keith Scott, who provides the (latter day interpolated) closing narration on many of these shorts was the voice of Bullwinkle.

Aesop's Fables: The 1920s Volume 1 Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Aesop's Fables The 1920s Volume 1 is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Cartoon Logic, Blackhawk Films and ClassicFlix with AVC encoded 1080p transfers in 1.33:1. The disc boots to an informational text card announcing that while some of the shorts are incomplete, Cartoon Logic has reconstructed them to the most extant versions available. As the "fine print" on the keepcase insert inner print discloses (along with several of the commentary tracks), there's a pretty wide variety of source elements that were utilized for this collection, including everything from 16mm prints to 35mm prints to 35mm fine grains to even an occasional 35mm original negative. As such, there is a concomitant variance in image quality throughout, though on the whole things look amazingly good for shorts that are in many cases over a century old and which evidently weren't always curated extremely carefully. There are still manifest signs of age related wear and tear, including the usual suspects like scratches, jumpy frames and other blemishes, but the general lack of extreme damage is commendable and probably points to restorative efforts. Clarity is also highly variable, with the early 1921 shorts in particular looking a bit hazy when stacked up against the later entries in this collection. Contrast and black levels are quite good. Grain resolves without any issues.

Aesop's Fables: The 1920s Volume 1 Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Most of the shorts on this disc have piano scores by Charlie Judkins offered in LPCM 2.0 (along with brief closing narration by Keith Scott). Fidelity is great and the scores are often quite jaunty and winning. As mentioned above, the "newest" film in the set has synchronized sound, as do the bonus shorts, all in LPCM 2.0 Mono and showing pretty significant age issues like hiss and occasional pops and crackles.

Aesop's Fables: The 1920s Volume 1 Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Commentaries by Thad Komorowski and Charlie Judkins are available on all the shorts, and provide some good background information.


• Charlie in Carmen (HD; 5:54) is a fragment of an unrestored short from 1916 by John Terry and Jerry Shields.


• Charlie in Cuckoo Land (HD; 6:34) is another 1916 riff on Charlie Chaplin, though with some "broad racial caricatures" that warrant a warning text card. Take a hint, Disney, you can release Song of the South.


• Dinner Time (Commonwealth Version) (HD; 6:40) is the first cartoon with synchronized sound ever released. This version offers a separate soundtrack done by distributor Commonwealth.


• Credits (HD; 1:24)

The keepcase's insert has an inner print listing the shorts with release dates and information about the source elements.

Aesop's Fables: The 1920s Volume 1 Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

It's understandable that in an "assembly line" production ethos like the one Terry fostered that quality between shorts may ebb and flow, but this is a captivating collection of early shorts that should be enjoyed by history buffs in general and lovers of nascent animation techniques in particular. The commentaries provide some background information that a separate supplement on Terry and his history might have more felicitously handled in what may be one niggling complaint about the release. With an understanding that these shorts have been sourced from widely disparate elements, technical merits are generally solid, and the commentaries and other bonus shorts very enjoyable. Recommended.