This is anime before anime knew what it was, a 1932 black-and-white short that runs on pure novelty and gets out. The animals do all the work here: the critter designs are the reason anyone still talks about this thing, while the human figures stay flat and plain by comparison. Ninety-plus years of wear and the linework still reads clean, which is its own small miracle when you consider what most film from that era looks like now. The gags land maybe half the time, the story is barely a story, and the sports-meet framing is more excuse than plot. But you don't queue this up for narrative, you queue it up because it's a physical artifact of the medium's toddler years. Watch it the way you'd handle an old photograph, carefully, and with some respect for whoever drew it by hand.

On a lush tropical island dotted with palm trees, a crowd of animals gathers to hold their own Olympic Games. The events range from tug of war to races run across the ground and through the sky, and each contest pits the animal athletes against one another in a bid to see who comes out on top. Released in 1932, this short comedy film brings a sports tournament to its island setting.