The Awful Tooth is a decent if not great Buzzy and Katnip cartoon, and on the same level as their previous cartoon Cat-Choo.
With not much variety on the formula of Katnip trying to fight an ailment and with Buzzy offering to help but ending up making things worse, The Awful Tooth is on the predictable side and is a little slow to start. Buzzy is occasionally drawn a little roughly, then again it may have been to do with the print, and the final gag is a bit mean-spirited and makes one feel even more sorry for Katnip than we did at the start.
However, it is very well-animated on the whole, back at a time where any low-budgets did not show in the way it would do in a lot of Famous Studios' later cartoons. It is very detailed in the backgrounds and has many lush colours, while the character designs are mostly smooth and solid apart from a little occasional roughness on Buzzy, the beginning (emphasising the amount of pain Katnip is in in a clever visual) and the imaginative animation in the 'dentist' gag standing out. Adding much to the cartoon and matching brilliantly with the action, is the music score by Winston Sharples, it's so beautifully orchestrated, the energy is non-stop, use of instrumentation is clever and it's consistently characterful. The music is always one of the best components of Famous Studios' cartoons and it's no exception in The Awful Tooth.
The Awful Tooth also succeeds in entertaining, with some funny and well-timed gags, the 'dentist' scene being the funniest, one really identifies with Katnip's situation as it is as painful as it looks and there is a fun dynamic between him and Buzzy. Katnip is amusing and dim-witted, but also a character you feel sorry for, and while Buzzy is a rather stereotypical character and may not bode well with some he is a zany foil for Katnip. Sid Raymond and Jackson Beck's voice characterisations are great.
In conclusion, good, decent fun but unexceptional. 7/10 Bethany Cox