Jasper and the Haunted House

George Pal eventually became famous as the mastermind behind big-budget, wildly imaginative live-action features like TOM THUMB, THE TIME MACHINE and THE SEVEN FACES OF DR. LAO. But he drew industry esteem earlier as an innovative animator, including this entry in a successful "Puppetoon" series starring dutiful but oft-imperiled "negro" boy. Trafficking in racial stereotypes from the 1940s, the short has blackberry-pie-delivering Jasper being misled by con men into an alleged haunted house that turns out to be genuinely so. The short features terrifically colorful stop-motion animation and boogie-woogie music. - Dennis Harvey