It's entirely possible that sending the audience out feeling lousy was intentional

By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

There are moments in this movie where the great movie it could've been peek out... They're fleeting, here, but they're worth savoring, and they happen often enough to make it worth your while.

Vernon Stalling does the Out-of-the-Inkwell plot with the Colonel in this amusing mix of live action and animation. Vernon starts out drawing Heeza Liar (who needs a second to put on some clothes). In comes a friend who has bought a rooster for $10,000 and had it stolen. So the Colonel puts on a deerstalker, pulls out a magnifying glass, and goes to investigate.While the Fleischers split their work about 60-40 between Ko-ko's cartoon world and live action, this one runs considerably in the other direction. Although the Bray Studios had cut the costs of animation enough to make them economically viable, the live sequences were still considerably cheaper to shoot.There was an earlier entry in the Heeza Liar series with the same title. It seems to be missing.