Bonzo No. 5

1925
Silent
6m

Dreams of a Rarebit Hound, as the loveable cartoon pup Bonzo discovers that a late night sausage feast can lead to some disturbing dreams

Bonzo the Dog, the adorable cartoon star of the 1920s was very fond of a sausage or two. But here his bursting belly inspires fevered dreams in which his dinner bites back... Though slowly paced to modern eyes, stick with it as the action gets more delightfully surreal as the cartoon progresses.

After a heavy meal, Bonzo falls asleep and has a nightmare in which he is pursued by large cats and thrust into a sausage machine.

Creatures Great and Small

Fur, feathers, bugs or beaks: from the start animators have cast the whole natural world in their human comedies and dramas

Would you know Mickey was a mouse if you didn’t know his surname? Many of the most famous animated characters are drawn from the animal kingdom, but they rarely behave quite as nature intended. Anthropomorphism has a long history in storytelling - going back to Aesop and beyond - and animation has imported it into film. But whether it's Bonzo the Dog or Charley the Cat, these characters are really studies in human nature.