Hey, how were animated cartoons made in the thirties? This is an episode of a travelogue-type series done back then narrated by the great broadcaster, Lowell Thomas. He takes us to the Walter Lantz cartoon studio where, for some reason, Mr. Lantz is doing about four different jobs that he probably did not all do when no newsreel was being made. The cartoon in progress is one that starred Oswald the Lucky Rabbit called Soft Ball, which came out in 1936.
Many animation scholars believe Mr. Lantz just made a couple of scenes for the documentary, then went back later and built an entire cartoon around them. That was so he wouldn't be wasting that material. Some of the process depicted seems to have been altered to look more interesting on camera. For instance, I doubt the voice actors did their work simultaneous with the laying-in of sound effects, and sound effects were actually done by a smaller team. Nevertheless, most of this is accurate. (I believe, by the way, the vocal actress you'll see is Berneice Hansen, who was also heard in a number of Warner Brothers and Disney cartoons. Wish someone could identify all the other people in this…)