Picnics, hardly the most exciting of pass times are they? even back when this was made. Felix tries his best with the material, but it is no-where near his best form. In the dawning 1930's Felix was at the height of his popularity, but most of his better and more surrealistic work was behind him. More unfortunately, the winds of change were blowing ill for the feline's fortunes. In a few more years the advent of Mickey Mouse, sound and the death of Pat Sullivan (who made no will and left his studio in tatters) would seal Felix's fate and even though the Van Beuren Corporation would make three shorts in 1936, Felix would soon disappear for good, at least until the 1950's.

Animation wise this is good stuff, with the energy you'd expect from a Felix short: what's lacking is imagination, something that the good Felix shorts have in abundance. I'm assuming the two younger cats are his children, since the nephew pandemic that short's characters had is still a decade or so the future. Still they admit about the same level of personality, maybe these two felines were the template, it wouldn’t surprise me.

Technically, there is nothing wrong here. It’s just the whole thing is, shall we say, a bit uninspired…

A less memorable Felix short, produced when he was well past his inventive peak of the mid 20's. It has some tedious sequences which drag on with little sense of comic timing, and the basic idea of not being able to have a picnic because of the weather isn't the most scintillating concept. It really seemed by this stage (I actually thought the short was a couple of years later than this) that the Felix Factory was downsizing on inspiration. It's ok, but go looking for the classic 1924-26 stuff first.