Oswald the Lucky Rabbit is a cop on the beat who captures an escaped prisoner in this excellent Walter Lantz cartoon.
Oswald does not enter the picture until more than halfway through this short, but when he does, it's to good effect. Lantz' team plays a lot of surprising gags involving the 'rubber tube' animation of the period, pushing the idea to extremes, as prison bars are used as harp strings. Also, pay attention to the excellent score, which sometimes drives the story -- as in the opening scenes while we watch the rat try to escape to the strains of 'If I Had the Wings of an Angel' -- and sometimes underlines the action.
This is as good as cartoons got during this period and it's still excellent today.