This sequel to the Tortoise and the Hare is a little amusing - a very nice throwback to the previous story. The two animals takes boxing to a whole new level and the cartoon has some special cameos from past Silly Symphony characters. However, I think the Tortoise and the Hare take the sport a little too over-the-top, in the league of the over-imagination of the anti-wolf machines in the Three Little Pigs sequels.Crazy stuff here, but definitely doesn't surprise the original story.Grade C+

. . . which was certainly the case in the 1900s when Warner Bros. was forced to create a Looney Tunes Department to save America from its Great Depression brought on by such unsavory Disney cartoon fare as TOBY TORTOISE RETURNS. Comparing ANY Looney Tune with Trash like TOBY is akin to juxtaposing a three-year-old's finger painting against Vincent van Gogh's "Starry, Starry Night." Lacking any semblance of nuance, TOBY will strike any viewer who's enjoyed Bugs Bunny's tussles with the tortoise as a scribbled two-dimensional stick figure. As is the case with most Disney offerings of this "Silly Symphony" ilk, everything about TOBY seems cheap, static, repetitive, and totally lacking in vision. It's as if Old Walt ordered each of his animators to write "I will NOT have an original thought" 100 times on a blackboard! Some people (like the creators of SOUTH PARK and THE SIMPSONS) obviously grew up on Looney Tunes. It's safe to say that the Proliferators of BARNEY and TELETUBBIES were weaned on Disney's "Silly Symphonies"!

One thing you can say about the Disney shorts from the 1930s is that they were artistically the best cartoons available. So, even if the plots were occasionally limp (especially with their all-singing cartoons), the art work is still very, very impressive. "Toby Tortoise Returns" is beautifully animated. The colors are very vibrant and the backgrounds lovely.The story picks up after the story of "The Tortoise and the Hare" (also a prior Disney cartoon). The same characters are now involved in a boxing match. Toby is fighting against 'Max Hare' (a play on the name of the champion Max Baer). And, while Max cheats and the odds are clearly against Toby, the ending is pretty much what you'd expect. As for the rest, the cartoon is only fair but I did enjoy seeing it for all the Disney character cameos--such as the industrious pig from "The Three Little Pigs", Donald and Goofy. There also are characters that are caricatures of Mae West and Harpo Marx. The cartoon is more interesting than funny but is still worth your time.

Toby Tortoise is back dueling with the hare. But this time they are not racing, but boxing. As you would expect Toby is slow and incapable while the hare is loud and overconfident. It's quite uneventful and boring for the most part. Toby is not a good character as his cartoons move as slow as he does.I'm not sure what kind of boxing match allows the various forms of humiliation and torture used by the hare, but one of gags involves fireworks and backfires on him, thus allowing Toby to win by default.Subliming message of the cartoon: if you lack the skill to win honestly - cheat.