The Cobweb Hotel (1936)
A spider runs a hotel that's really a trap for unsuspecting flies, and when a newlywed couple checks in, the groom's fight to free his bride turns into a full insect uprising against their captor.
The Cobweb Hotel gives its Color Classics premise — a predator luring guests into literal captivity — a darker comic edge than the series’ usual fare, helped along by Jack Mercer’s voicing of the spider.
Background
The Cobweb Hotel is a 1936 Fleischer Studios cartoon directed by Dave Fleischer and produced by Max Fleischer, part of the Color Classics series Paramount released to compete with Disney’s Silly Symphonies. Released May 15, 1936, the eight-minute short casts a spider as the proprietor of a fake hotel built to trap unsuspecting flies, voiced in part by Jack Mercer. When a newlywed fly couple checks in and the bride is caught in the spider’s web, her husband fights the spider before the other captive flies free themselves and turn on their captor together.
What to watch for
The premise is sold through scale rather than cuteness: the hotel is staged as a miniature world built from ordinary desk objects, with pins, pen nibs, and aspirin tablets repurposed as weapons once the flies revolt, a visual joke the Color Classics series used often to turn household clutter into a usable set. The tone is notably darker than the series’ typical fare; the spider is a genuine predator holding captives for food rather than a cartoon nuisance, and the flies’ uprising plays more like an escape thriller in miniature than a slapstick chase.
