''Africa Before Dark'' is a 1928 American

animated Animation is a method by which still figures are manipulated to appear as moving images. In traditional animation, images are drawn or painted by hand on transparent celluloid sheets to be photographed and exhibited on film. Today, most ani ...

short film A short film is any motion picture that is short enough in running time not to be considered a feature film. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences defines a short film as "an original motion picture that has a running time of 40 minutes ...

featuring Oswald the Lucky Rabbit, directed by

Walt Disney Walter Elias Disney (; December 5, 1901December 15, 1966) was an American animator, film producer and entrepreneur. A pioneer of the American animation industry, he introduced several developments in the production of cartoons. As a film p ...

and

Ub Iwerks Ubbe Ert Iwwerks (March 24, 1901 – July 7, 1971), known as Ub Iwerks ( ), was an American animator, cartoonist, character designer, inventor, and special effects technician. Born in Kansas City, Missouri, Iwerks grew up with a contentiou ...

Plot summary

Oswald is

big-game hunting Big-game hunting is the hunting of large game animals for meat, commercially valuable by-products (such as horns/antlers, furs, tusks, bones, body fat/ oil, or special organs and contents), trophy/taxidermy, or simply just for recreation ...

in Africa, and is riding an elephant, which trips and then accidentally sits on Oswald, crushing him flat. The elephant blows air into Oswald, reinflating him. A variety of African animals are playing games, including two monkeys playing

tic-tac-toe Tic-tac-toe (American English), noughts and crosses (Commonwealth English), or Xs and Os (Canadian or Irish English) is a paper-and-pencil game for two players who take turns marking the spaces in a three-by-three grid with ''X'' or ''O''. ...

on a tiger's back. Oswald stealthily approaches with a rifle and shoots numerous shots at the animals, who all vanish. An owl laughs at Oswald, and angered, he shoots the owl. A baby tiger approaches Oswald, kicks him and runs away. Oswald chases it, and the tiger runs into a burrow in the ground. Oswald tries to shoot it but the tiger redirects his rifle so that Oswald shoots himself. The tiger runs into a hollow log and Oswald produces an enormous handgun. Instead of the baby tiger, several huge lions emerge from the log, and Oswald's gun dwindles into a tiny pop-gun. Oswald runs away, chased by the lions. He leaps onto his elephant's back and they continue to run from the lions. The elephant then flaps his ears and flies away, carrying Oswald to safety.

Releases

The short was released on February 20, 1928, by

Universal Pictures Universal Pictures (legally Universal City Studios LLC, also known as Universal Studios, or simply Universal; common metonym: Uni, and formerly named Universal Film Manufacturing Company and Universal-International Pictures Inc.) is an Americ ...

. The film was thought to be

lost Lost may refer to getting lost, or to: Geography * Lost, Aberdeenshire, a hamlet in Scotland *Lake Okeechobee Scenic Trail, or LOST, a hiking and cycling trail in Florida, US History *Abbreviation of lost work, any work which is known to have bee ...

before a fragment was discovered in 2009 and later a full copy was found at the Austrian Film Museum in

Vienna en, Viennese , iso_code = AT-9 , registration_plate = W , postal_code_type = Postal code , postal_code = , timezone = CET , utc_offset = +1 , timezone_DST ...

. The film was restored by Walt Disney Animation Studios and shown at a screening on June 13, 2015, with live orchestration provided by the

Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra The Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra (LACO) is an American chamber orchestra based in Los Angeles, California. LACO presents its Orchestral Series concerts at two venues, the Alex Theatre in Glendale and UCLA's Royce Hall. History James Arkatov, a ...

. It was released as a bonus item on the 2017

Blu-ray The Blu-ray Disc (BD), often known simply as Blu-ray, is a digital optical disc data storage format. It was invented and developed in 2005 and released on June 20, 2006 worldwide. It is designed to supersede the DVD format, and capable of st ...

release of ''

Bambi ''Bambi'' is a 1942 American animated drama film directed by David Hand (supervising a team of sequence directors), produced by Walt Disney and based on the 1923 book ''Bambi, a Life in the Woods'' by Austrian author and hunter Felix Salten ...

''.

References

External links

1928 comedy films 1928 films 1928 animated films 1928 short films American black-and-white films Oswald the Lucky Rabbit cartoons American silent short films Films directed by Walt Disney Films directed by Ub Iwerks 1920s Disney animated short films 1920s rediscovered films Universal Pictures animated short films Animated films about animals Rediscovered American films 1920s American animated films Animated films without speech Films about hunters Films set in Africa Silent American comedy films {{Disney-animation-film-stub