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Synopsis

Characters

Oswald, the Lucky Rabbit Pete Ortensia the Cat ("Kitty")

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Distributor(s)

Universal Pictures

Animation Type: Standard (Hand-drawn-Cel) Animation

Aspect Ratio: 1.37 : 1

Cinematographic Format: Spherical

Color Type: Black and White

Negative Type: 35mm

Original Country: United States

Original Language: English

Print Type: 35mm

Sound Type: Silent

Reviews and Comments

From Ryan :

Although I have not seen this cartoon (and I doubt anyone alive today has) as it is considered to be lost, I did see some animation segments of it on the Oswald DVD set. The drawings feature Oswald trying to rescue Sagebrush Sadie on the mesa from her breaking buckboard.

From Ryan Kilpatrick at The Disney Film Project :

In between Rival Romeos and the next full short we’ll review, Ozzie of the Mounted, there were two more shorts that are not around. On the Walt Disney Treasures DVD, we get a glimpse at one of them – Sagebrush Sadie. Although the full short no longer survives, these pencil drawings from the Walt Disney Animation Library gives us a little peek at what it was like.

The main thing that strikes me from this short fragment (less than a minute) is the kinetic energy in the pure pencil animation. Once the black ink is applied to these tests, there is still an energy, but here, the drawings seem to leap off the page.

This was a common complaint in later years, as animators always said that the inkers distorted their lines and might dampen the motion that they had put into the original work. It was Ub Iwerks’ process of “Xeroxing” the original pencils that changed this, most notably on 101 Dalmatians. Looking at these pencils for Sagebrush Sadie, I can see the animators’ point.

The story of this short is that Oswald and his sweetheart are traveling the mountain road, and somehow, her horse cart gets away, and she is chased by Oswald and Pete, vying to rescue her. It seems very promising, and that makes me regret the fact that there are so many of the shorts that no longer survive.

It’s a different story all together, but it’s also a shame that Universal/Lantz chose to recut and reissue these shorts, meaning that even the surviving shorts are not in the same shape as their original release. Ozzie of the Mounted, for example has several cuts, as does Bright Lights.