YMMV / Oswald the Lucky Rabbit

• Accidental Nightmare Fuel:
  • Oswald's "fish-eye" closeup from Tall Timber.
  • The montage midway through "Confidence" when Oswald is trying to find help for his ailing farm, amid the American economy going into shambles, while screaming "DOCTOR!"
• Archive Panic: The series lasted 192 short subjects, most of which aren't available on DVD.
• Audience-Alienating Era: Any of his non-Disney Shorts. The early Lantz shorts and the batch that Bill Nolan directed by himself do have their fans (largely due to their Mind Screw qualities), but few consider them to be up there with the original Disney shorts.
• Awesome Music: One of the merits of the early Walter Lantz Oswalds is the excellent musical scores provided by James Dietrich.
  • Oswald's ""I Am" Song" from "Africa" and "Mars". The song was even remixed for Disney FanDaze from Disneyland Paris.
  • "One More Time", a licensed song used in "Radio Rhythm" (and coincidentally was also used in a Merrie Melodies short, called "One More Time" in 1931).
  • "New Deals Coming As Soon As You're Born", the ending song of "Confidence".
  • "The Egg Cracker Suite" (Oswald's final Lantz cartoon) has a jaunty jazz leitmotif play throughout, along with, like any good cartoon series can't do without, a rendition of Hungarian Rhapsody (provided by clucking chickens no less).
• Big-Lipped Alligator Moment: Late in "Hells Heels", there's an unusual non-sequitur gag (doubling as a Visual Pun) where the sheriff's kid drinks an entire pond dry, revealing an orchestra pit consisting of a walrus and misc. animals, who proceed to play an off key rendition of "How Dry I Am".
• Fandom-Enraging Misconception: This Oswald isn't that Oswald. Most Disney fans are irked by this since the octopus is the first thing that comes to mind to kids who grew up with the octopus, so it's easy to make this mistake since they have the same name. And he isn't Mickey Mouse either.
• Fanon Discontinuity: Many fans don't count the post-Disney Oswald shorts. Epic Mickey made this stance official.
• First Installment Wins: While Oswald starred in 192 shorts from the late 1920s to the early 1940s and during this time period had several different iterations, but the most famous is by far the original 26-short run of the character done by Walt Disney.
• Genius Bonus: In the Lantz Oswald short "Sky Larks", Oswald and his friend visit the planet Mars, where every living thing on the planet is a weapon. This seems like surreal silliness for its own sake, until you realize it's a nod to the Roman God Mars, who is associated with war.
• Germans Love David Hasselhoff: Oswald is very popular in Japan and has a ton of exclusive merchandise there. In fact, when Disney finally decided to have him appear as a mascot for the Disney Theme Parks, they chose Tokyo Disney Resort for his official Disney Park debut and even received a original Christmas short exclusive to Japan. This is largely because rabbits are traditionally very popular in Japan and happen to be a symbol of luck over there, making Oswald the "Lucky" Rabbit a natural fit for the country.
• Hilarious in Hindsight:
  • In the early Lantz Oswalds, Oswald, a character created by Disney, was voiced by Pinto Colvig, who would later go on to voice another Disney character; Goofy!
  • One of the gags in the Disney shorts has Oswald using a goat to make music, a gag that would end up being recycled in the breakout hit of his successor.
  • The Christmas-themed short "Empty Socks", believed lost for decades, was discovered shortly before Christmas of 2014. Then in late 2015, another once-lost Christmas-themed Oswald short, "Sleigh Bells", was found!
  • "Africa Before Dark" has a gag involving an elephant flying with its ears.
• Nightmare Fuel: The opening and the phantom from "Spooks" are rather creepy, especially the scene where the Phantom is unmasked.
• Retroactive Recognition: While Oswald's final theatrical short, "The Egg Cracker Suite" got little attention at the time of its original release, it's since become noteworthy because of who Walter Lantz hired to voice Oswald, namely a little-known (at the time) radio actress by the name of June Foray, who would go on to become arguably the most famous animation voice actress of all-time.
• Seasonal Rot:
  • While not as liked as the silent Disney shorts, the Lantz Oswalds from the early 30s are still perfectly enjoyable, creatively animated cartoons. Unfortunately, by the mid to late 30s, the shorts took a substantial downslide in entertainment when they abandoned their humorous and surreal roots in favor of more cutesy, Disney like material.
  • This also applies to the post-Disney Charles Mintz shorts, which are universally considered inferior to Disney's Oswald shorts.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character: He really hasn't been used in anything since the Epic Mickey games ended prematurely save for a few cameos in things like Get a Horse! and the Mickey Mouse (2013) TV shorts, fans are itching for him to be integrated into a full member of the gang. There were plans for an Oswald series on Disney+ from the team behind Legend of the Three Caballeros, but said show was scrapped during development. However, a new online hand-drawn animated Oswald short directed by Eric Goldberg got released on December 1, 2022, followed by a mixed-media Givenchy ad later that month, so it's clear that Disney isn't giving up on the character anytime soon. In addition, he has a Fate card in Pete's set in the Disney Villainous game, turns up in Once Upon a Studio, and is a playable character in Disney Speedstorm.
• Unintentional Period Piece: "Radio Rhythm", an early Lantz Oswald with numerous outdated references to 1930's radio stars.
• Values Dissonance: Oswald beating up and punching Homer after pranking Oswald many times in Homeless Homer would be considered child abuse if it was made today.

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