Film

Trip to Mars

Name: Trip to Mars
Genre: Science Fiction, Animation, Comedy
Released: 1924
Cast: Max Fleischer

A 1924 silent cartoon where animator Max Fleischer sends his Ko-Ko the Clown character on a surreal trip to Mars. It's antic, gorgeously drawn, and utterly weird—full of impossible physics and dream logic. For anyone curious about animation's earliest wild years, before Disney standardized everything.

If you liked this

Steamboat Willie1928

Mickey's debut is the logical next step: Disney's slightly later answer to Ko-Ko, with synchronised sound and a more iconic character. Still short, still anarchic, still delightful.

But It's become so culturally embedded that it can feel more historical artifact than entertainment. The novelty of sound has worn off.

Cinderella1950

Disney's masterpiece of the era and the opposite impulse from Fleischer—gorgeous, emotional, romantic. See what animation became when studios had money and control.

But It's everything 'Trip to Mars' isn't: polished, safe, and designed to be beloved. If you prize strangeness, this feels sterile.

Daffy Duck's Quackbusters1988

Warner Bros. cartoons carried the anarchic spirit that Fleischer pioneered. This compilation shows how that legacy lived on through Bugs, Daffy, and Tweety.

But It's a patchwork of old shorts with new linking material that doesn't quite hang together. Feels like a cash-in.

Not sure tonight? Get a pick in a minute, starting from Trip to Mars

The wildcard

Something you would not have found on your own.

Meshes of the Afternoon1943

Both films use impossible space and dream logic as their native language. Neither needs to explain itself. But while Fleischer is playful, Meshes is profound—it shows what happens when surrealism gets serious.

An avant-garde film made on almost no budget, using repetition and dream logic to build hypnotic unease. Like 'Trip to Mars', it's surreal and strange, but uses those qualities to explore the mind rather than just entertain.

But It's 14 minutes of abstract imagery with no dialogue and no conventional plot. You have to work to find meaning in it.

The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari1920

Silent expressionism that shares 'Trip to Mars'' sense of nightmare logic and warped space. Distorted, unsettling, utterly unlike anything modern. A masterpiece.

But It's slow by modern standards and relies entirely on acting and production design. If you want plot momentum, you'll be frustrated.

A Trip to the Moon1902

Georges Méliès's silent film is the granddaddy of space fantasy. 'Trip to Mars' is partly a response to this. Seeing Méliès's ingenious practical effects puts early animation in perspective.

But It's a curiosity rather than a story. At 14 minutes, even that feels a bit long for what amounts to a visual showcase.

Fantasia1940

Disney's ambitious experiment in abstract animation to classical music. It shows another path animation could have taken—more artistic, less narrative.

But Half of it feels pretentious now, and the middle section is genuinely dull. Even admirers skip parts of it.

Fantastic Planet1973

Both are science fiction cartoons made outside the Disney-industrial complex. But where Fleischer works in gags and slapstick, Tezuka and Laloux use animation to show us genuinely strange worlds—higher budget, stranger ideas.

A French animated science fiction film that's genuinely alien—weird creatures, impossible architecture, a moral argument playing out through pure visuals. It proves animation can be for adults in ways Hollywood never attempted.

But The plot is thin and the pacing is glacial. It's more like watching a beautiful, slow fever dream than a story with momentum.

Blackmail1929

Both are 1920s experiments with what film could be—Fleischer pushed animation's absurdist potential, Hitchcock pushed narrative suspense. They're on opposite ends of cinema's possibilities, but both refused to play it safe.

Hitchcock's first sound film—a thriller that still crackles with invention and dread. Seven years after 'Trip to Mars', film had learned to do so much more. A masterclass in how to use a new medium.

But The early talkie dialogue is stiff and sometimes inaudible. The pacing is slower than modern thrillers. It can feel like a historical document rather than entertainment.