Who Killed Cock Robin?
Robin is crooning to a Mae West-like Jenny Wren when he is shot with an arrow. A court is convened; the judge, an owl, keeps singing the title. A variety of birds are brought to the witness stand, but nobody knows a thing.
Nominated for the Academy Award, and one of the most stylistically daring Silly Symphonies — a murder trial staged as film noir years before film noir, with dramatic lighting, a corrupt court and a jury baying for a conviction. Jenny Wren is a Mae West caricature and was very much a joke for the grown-ups in the audience. Animation historians rate it highly; it is not really a children's cartoon.
A courtroom comedy about a killing, with a lynch-mob jury played for laughs and a Mae West caricature whose humour is aimed at adults.