In the 21st century, we know Disney as the media conglomerate that makes "family" cartoons. But the man for whom the studio is named had to start somewhere. Walt Disney got his start with Laugh-O-Gram Studio in Kansas City, Missouri. In 1921 he released "Newman Laugh-O-Gram", which looked like drawings of advertisements. But his first "real" cartoon was 1922's "Little Red Riding Hood". Despite the poster, it doesn't follow the story that closely. It starts with Little Red's mother making donuts, and then the wolf is actually a lecherous human who goes after Little Red (grandma's house is shown shaking, so he probably tries to rape her, but we don't see anything). I understand that the cat featured in this cartoon is named Julius, and he became Walt Disney's first recurring character. I haven't seen most of Disney's early works, so I can't comment on that.Laugh-O-Gram Studio closed not long after this due to lack of funds. Walt Disney moved to southern California, and the rest is history. Other employees of Laugh-O-Gram Studios were Ub Iwerks and Friz Freleng.A really entertaining version of the story is the 1977 Soviet movie "About Little Red Riding Hood" ("Pro Krasnuyu Shapochku" in Russian). It's one of the wackiest movies that I've ever seen.

"Little Red Riding Hood" is a 6-minute black-and-white silent cartoon from 1922, so it will have its 95th anniversary next year. It is a very early career effort from Walt Disney and his lack of experience is the only thing I can somewhat think of to justify how bad this little film is. or I could say "how inaccurate". If I had not seen the title, I would not have considered this as a "Red Riding Hood" version at all. I am pretty sure Perrault would not have enjoyed this one. It was as bizarre and off the mark as Disney's other early films that are based on fairy tales (suchas Brothers Grimm for example). This one here is certainly one of Disney's worst, but hey at least he got considerably better in later years. Don't watch.

This cartoon is best known to be one of Walt Disney's first animated cartoons. It's very very old and sound hasn't come to use yet. I suppose back then, people didn't care all that much for plot and wanted to show the magic of how "animated characters can do what we can't do" so there's lots of magical things going on in this one, such as shrinking down a car and putting it in your pocket, and a cat shooting holes in bread.There's no Big Bad Wolf in this story, instead there's a Big Bad Rich Man. I couldn't quite comprehend what was going on, but as far as I could tell, Little Red Riding Hood was delivering treats to grannie's house, and not knowing that grandma has gone away, goes in and finds the rich man she met earlier in the story, they get into a fight, then this young man goes in a plane with a dog that was with Red, and moves the house away, and chases after the rich man in his car, and probably kills him.Now, I may have gotten this plot completely wrong, but that doesn't even matter. This movie was alright, but I can't say it would top the charts for anything. At best it's a revolutionary strange-fest that helped Walt Disney set the tracks for the future, and at worst it's a mediocre confusion that can baffle even the smartest viewers. That's not to say I didn't like this, but it's gonna be lower than most movies I've seen.

According to IMDb, this is the first cartoon made by Walt Disney. Also, until recently, it was thought to be lost.Although the title says "Little Red Riding Hood", the story seems to have very little to do with the classic Perrault fairy tale. Aside from mentioning a few things from the original story, it's mostly a lot of silly nonsense and some bits are WAY overlong (such as the doughnut bit). Now compared to other cartoons of the day, it's about average, but just a short time later, Disney's cartoons improved dramatically--such as "Cinderella" which came out just after "Little Red Riding Hood". And, if you do see one, you should also see the other so you can see the many similarities--such as the characters and style. Overall, a cartoon that hasn't aged tremendously well but it's worth a look for Disneyphiles.