Dud Leaves Home

Director: Wallace Carlson
Release Date: January 9, 1919
Stars: Us Fellers
Rating: ★★★

Wallace Carlson (1894-1967) was a comic strip artist, who had a brief career as an animator from 1914 to 1921. Carlson joined the Bray studio in 1917, for which he created the ‘Us Fellers’ series. The series stars a boy character called Dreamy Dud, whom Carlson had conceived earlier.

Dud is a boy who breaks his bank (and unfortunately the one coin therein) to buy his girlfriend Mamie some ice cream. But instead he’s punished and sent to bed without supper. At night Dud sneaks out and first imagines how his mother gets filled with remorse, while he finds a treasure. But then the figments of his imagination turn into scary monsters, and he runs home, only to get spanked.

‘Dud Leaves Home’ is a well-told film, with great attention to the child’s world and imagination. The night scenes show some pretty background art. The animation, on the other hand, is rather stiff and robotic, especially when compared to Earl Hurd’s or Raoul Barré’s animation from the same era.

Carlson left animation in 1921 to concentrate on comic strips again, creating the highly successful comic strip series ‘The Nebbs’ in 1923.

Watch ‘Dud Leaves Home’ yourself and tell me what you think:

‘Dud Leaves Home’ is available on the DVD ‘Before Walt’