Dave Fleischer was responsible for many gems. Ones that were amusing and charming, though over-cuteness did come through in some efforts and the stories were always pretty thin, with appealing characters, outstanding music and visuals that were inventive and with innovative animation techniques.Ko-Ko similarly was an always amiable character to watch and among the better recurring characters in Fleischer's early work. Likewise, his series of Out of the Inkwell cartoons were among the best early efforts of Fleischer and silent cartoons in general. Fleischer may not be at his very finest and 'The Cure' is not quite one of the best Ko-Ko cartoons. It is high up though and it is very hard to dislike it.Story may be on the slight and old fashioned side but all the antics revolving around the tooth is very funny and often inventive. Word of warning, don't even try to attempt any of the methods yourself regardless of place and whether you have anybody with you, your mouth won't thank you if you do.The character interplay is truly delightful and the mix of animation and live action and how they blend is seamless.One expects the animation to be primitive and very low quality, judging by that it's the 20s when animation techniques were not as many, as refined, as ambitious and in their infancy. While Fleischer became more refined and inventive later certainly, the animation is surprisingly good with some nice visual wackiness and wit. The live action also looks good.It all goes at a bright and breezy pace, while there are a fair share of funny and suitably wild, well-timed and clever moments, also some of the most imaginative and cleverest of the early Ko-Ko cartoons. The atmosphere is similarly suitably charming and at times entertainingly nuts.Ko-Ko as ever is very likeable and amusing and Max is terrific fun. The chemistry between the two is one of the cartoon's biggest pleasures.On the whole, very good. 8/10 Bethany Cox

This is a cartoon in the Koko the Clown series produced by the Fleischer studio. There will be spoilers ahead:This is an early silent short starring Koko the Clown. In this one, Max Fleischer draws Koko and a white rabbit in a clearing. Koko immediately realizes he's been drawn with a toothache. It turns out that Max also has a toothache.The rabbit (who all but steals the short) acts as a dentist, trying to resolve Koko's problem. When he takes Koko's pulse, it shifts locations repeatedly. Then Max draws a pair of pliers when asked to provide help. As the rabbit tries to pull the tooth, the bulge in Koko's cheek also shifts repeatedly, finally resulting in a funny and unexpected resolution to Koko's toothache.Max then asks Koko to help with his tooth. He ties a string to his tooth and then tells Koko and the rabbit to pull his tooth after "Laughing Gas" puts him asleep. But Max just gets silly and plays a trick on the two, by drawing a lion with a bad tooth onto the end of the string.The next sequence is basically a series of sight gags, including a series of puns arising from Koko and the rabbit treating patients. Max then runs the gas tube into the cartoon portion and gets everyone high on nitrous oxide. Even the buildings in the live action segment get high.Koko returns to the live action portion and devises an intricate (and ultimately painful to Max) method of pulling Max's tooth. Koko and the rabbit then go into a fountain pen and Max puts the ink back in the inkwell.This cartoon should be more widely known. Most highly recommended.

Max Fleischer's cartoons in the 1920s centered around the antics of a clown named Koko. The clown was seen to emerge from the ink in a freshly dipped pen being applied by Fleischer to the pad on his easel. Hence the name of the series: "OUT OF THE INKWELL". Then, with a total ease of control, Fleischer would put Koko through his paces in an escalating series of problems based on some normal situation that grew out-of-hand.In THE CURE (1924), Koko is drawn walking his pet rabbit. Suddenly we see he has a bulge in his mouth, which we realizes is some type of tooth ache. He asks (using a title card) why Fleischer drew him with a tooth ache, and we see Fleischer also has one. The rabbit soon is examining Koko's mouth and manages to push the bulb about into his head and neck before removing it - it turns out to be a large apple. They now concentrate on Fleischer, and tie a rope to the latter's bad tooth. They give Fleischer some laughing gas, and return to their pad to pull the tooth out.What follows is Koko and the rabbit finding they have a dentist office complete with waiting room, patients, and dentist chair. The cartoon follows Dr. Koko taking care of patients (one of whom, a lion, keeps knocking off Koko's temporary "Doctor's eyeglasses"). A series of site gags involving the use of a miniature Brooklyn Bridge and other similar objects as visual puns (for a "bridge" in that particular gag) occur. Fleischer also turns on the laughing gas to affect the drawn cartoon figures. And in the end his own tooth is removed as well. Finally, at the end of the cartoon Koko and the rabbit and other figures return back to the inkwell.There are better cartoons, even better in this series, but this one is not a bad one to start off with. Fleischer never got into the habit of building up a story (like Disney eventually did) that led naturally into realistic situations or into situations based on a source (like Disney would find in say Collodi's PINOCCHIO), until his later full length cartoons like GULLIVER'S TRAVELS. Most of his cartoons would concentrate on a simple situation that sight gags can be built into. It was not a bad formula, and would be honed by Koko, and later used more successfully with Betty Boop and then Popeye. Only after GULLIVER did Fleischer's studios look at short cartoons with an integrated story line dominating - the SUPERMAN series.

As Ko-Ko and a rabbit are drawn in a forest, Ko-Ko has a toothache. When he asks why, Max says, "Shut up!" as we see him also have one. The rabbit then tries to pull the tooth manually before he asks for help. Max obliges by drawing an instrument that pulls teeth. When the rabbit uses it as he pulls, he notices a big bump form on the top of Ko-Ko's head. He pushes it back only to form on the clown's back. Then he pushes it only to form on the clown's face where his lips are! Finally, he pulls a whole apple out of the mouth curing Ko-Ko. They then turn to Max who is using laughing gas on his mouth as they tie a rope to the bad tooth. Max doesn't want them to do it till he's asleep so as Ko-Ko and the rabbit pull, Max draws on his paper that, when the clown and rabbit are in the dentist's office, is revealed to be a lion they've been pulling into! The lion wants his tooth pulled out. As Ko-Ko looks on, the rabbit goes to the waiting room where a worm asks to be next. He changes his mind, however, when he hears gunshots! Turns out Ko-Ko killed the lion and made him into a rug when the lion threatened to eat him! Next, comes a dog whose weak eyetooth gets glasses and a cap, a bird who gets an actual plate on his beak, a clam who gets some dismembered teeth, a walrus that gets an actual miniature bridge between his two teeth, and a rhino that gets a small actual crown on the spot where Ko-Ko pulled his nose tooth down! Max, watching all this, puts the laughing gas in the drawing where everyone laughs uncontrollably. Ko-Ko then comes out of the board and goes with the hose inside Max's suit sleeve and points it at Max as he is now laughing along with the furniture, his car outside, and the building he inhabits! Before his employees come back to work, Ko-Ko pulls the rope on Max's tooth with him attached as he's being moved through the floor until he bumps at a wall and finally gets his tooth out! Ko-Ko and the rabbit now go back in the pen which Max closes...Pretty amusing excuse to put gags that have double meanings, The Cure is probably old hat for today. Still, it's worth a look for anyone interested in seeing the early stages of mixing live-action and animation in the early 20th century.