A Cartoonist's Nightmare is a 1935 Warner Bros. theatrical cartoon short in the Looney Tunes series, starring Beans the Cat in his first solo film.

In the animator's drawing, he sketches a dungeon scene where Beans the Cat encounters a goblin.

Weary for working several hours continuously, the animator decides to take a little snooze after he draws a steel barricade between the two characters to prevent the goblin from reaching Beans.

He is then brought into a mystic chamber where painted portraits of various villains are displayed on the walls, as they happened to be the animator's creations as well as those of his colleagues.

Coming to life with the intent for revenge for how the animator and other cartoonists made them get subdued in the end of each film, the villains give him a pencil and force him to draw a deep pit in the floor, where they toss him inside.

Not wanting to recall his experience, the animator happily erases both the goblin and the steel barricade and draws a platter with gelatin for Beans to eat, much to the latter's delight.

According to animation historian Michael Samerdyke, some classic Hollywood cartoons from the 1930s are "too scary for children" and A Cartoonist's Nightmare is one of them.

[4] Samerdyke notes that Beans the Cat had previously appeared in I Haven't Got a Hat (1935) as a tough little kitten.

Samerdyke speculates that these elements of the film could reflect the actual working conditions of the animators employed by Leon Schlesinger.

[4] The film features interactions between a cartoonist and a living, sentient cartoon character (Beans).

[4] Terry Lindvall and Matthew Melton have included this film in an analysis of reflexive cartoons, those whose narrative reveals something about the art of animation and filmmaking.

The writers find that Jack King's A Cartoonist's Nightmare clearly draws a portrait of what animators feel about their craft.

Lindvall and Melton find this scene to resemble a segment of Twilight Zone: The Movie (1983), "It's a Good Life" directed by Joe Dante.

[5] As the villain (described as a "hairy monster" by the writers), drags the captive cartoonist through the corridors of the studio, various sections are seen.