A Strange Way to Shoe a Horse…

BY GARY SCOTT BEATTY, PUBLISHER AND EDITOR, MUSKEGONONLINE.NET

Flip the Frog works as a blacksmith and barber in this month's classic cartoons.

This is a good opportunity to show kids how these professions were done in the 1930s -- sort of! I don't think many barbers were as crazy with their straight razors as Flip.

The Village Smitty (1931) -- Horses needed horseshoes to protect their hooves, and blacksmiths shaped horseshoes by heating them in a forge and hammering them into shape. Horseshoes were nailed into the hoof without hurting the horse -- a horse's hoof is much like a large, thick toenail. Kids outside are playing the tossing game horseshoes.

The Village Barber (1930) -- Striped pole signs used to let people know a business was a barber shop. Barbers used straight edged razors, and sharpened them by running them along strips of leather. Also seen: a player piano and a coal burning heat stove. The singing at the end refers to barbershop quartets, harmony singing that actually began in real barber shops.

Cartoons can be found at Muskegon County's online magazine, http://muskegononline.net/

Ub Iwerks was a two-time Academy Award winning animator who co-created Mickey Mouse with Walt Disney and was Walt Disney's collaborator in the formative years of Disney's studio (Steamboat Willie, Plane Crazy). Iwerks opened his own studio in 1930, producing Flip the Frog shorts and more.

These Works are in Public Domain and not Derivative as specified by U.S. copyright law (title 17 of the U.S. Code).