James Tyer and Oscar E. Soglow | Christmas Night (aka Pals) / 1933 [animated cartoon]

playing with the boys

by Douglas Messerli

 

Oscar E. Soglow (screenplay), James Tyer and Oscar E. Soglow (directors) Christmas Night (aka Pals) / 1933 [animated cartoon]

 

One of the most charming of the 1930s cartoons, and far different from what I have labeled as “sad and silly animated sissies,” in James Tyer’s and Oscar E. Soglow’s 1933 cartoon in “The Little King” series, Christmas Night, or Pals.

     This begins with the King on a ride in his coach as Christmas nears, his coach bearers outfitted in skates as they slide him through the streets of his busy kingdom. Taking out his binoculars, the King espies a father and son chopping down a tree for Christmas night, and peering out in another director observes children hanging their stockings for gifts from Santa.

     The carriage stops in front of a store, inside of which sits Santa, taking requests from children for their Christmas gifts. With faces pressed up to the window, are two hobos, sad voyeurs to the Christmas celebration, whom the Little King quickly joins creating a trio of on-lookers. They find great joy in the window trimmings, particularly when a small marionette dressed in black-face dances—perhaps the only moment of racist or sexist content in this otherwise feel-good film.

    Seeing the sign about Santa being inside, the Little King toddles in, making out his wish list and, following a little girl who Santa blesses before ringing the bell for next, handing him his wish list as Santa asks, “Do you to bed early? Do you each your spinach? All right, [patting the king on his head after a quick removal of his crown] go along now, I’ll bring you some toys.”

     The film now turns into a far more compassionate but even stranger work, as the Little King invites the hobos to join him in his carriage, speeding them into the castle, and hidden under his ermine coat, sneaking them off to his upstairs bedroom where he immediately disrobes, waiting for the others to do the same so that they might take a bath together.

     The hobos’ clothing is so moth-eaten that it literally is falling off their backs. The first one, tall and skinny, we discover to be wearing a bra or at least breast pads under his shirt while upon this apparent cross-dresser’s chest is a tattoo touting the NRA—not the National Rifle Association, but Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s National Recovery Administration—hinting that the recovery hasn’t yet reached out for him. The other, short and round, finds a spider’s web between his toes, suggesting just how long it’s been since he’s been able to wash them.

     They joyfully play in the tub together until, quite accidentally, the bar of soap slips from the King’s hands into the mouth of new his short hobo friend who throughout the rest of the film, at inconvenient moments, emits a bubble from his mouth.

      They redress in their long johns, with the King demanding they remove their socks so he might hang them over the fireplace for Santa’s arrival. The hobos’ socks are evidently so pungent in smell that the nails retreat from their holes, forcing the King to tip-toe into “Ye Queen”’s chamber, slip under her bed and pull off one of her endlessly long stockings (if you’ve seen other Little King movies, you’ll remember that the Queen is a quite hearty and towering lady). He hangs the stocking made for two in place of the others which have fallen to the floor.

     They hobos with the King trot off to his bed and crawl in with him to sleep, but quickly awaken, particularly when a bubble pops again out of the short one’s mouth and chip from the log the other is sawing drops upon his forehead. Besides, Santa’s on his way, soon to try to make his way down the castle chimney—which being too large for the brick enclosure he quickly destroys. Once in the living room, Santa takes out an awl and drills a hole in the floor into which he drops a seed that brings to bear a Christmas tree replete with ornaments and lights.

     As they tiptoe down the stairs they discover that Santa has brought a miniature car for the Little King, a firetruck for the short and tubby hobo, and a child’s airplane for the long and lean hobo, each of which they now navigate around the room, crashing into walls, pillars, and other supports of the castle until they all come crashing together, the Little King emerging from the mess with a bubble popping out of his mouth suggesting that the three were anything but comatose in the brief seconds they were hidden away under the debris.

     While this certainly is not an openly gay movie, it certainly doesn’t hide the fact that the Little King is not only willing to help the poor, but to share his toilet, his bed, and new Christmas toys with the boys, while the queen sleeps alone in her private chambers.

 

Los Angeles, November 18, 2025

Reprinted from My Queer Cinema blog (November 2025).