Platform : Solaris 7 WIN NT
Browser NS 4.75 / IE 5.0

Steps to Reproduce

On a solaris machine , Install the J2SE for merlin build 32 from :
/net/sqesvr/deployment3/merlin/beta/solaris.b32

On a Win NT machine , Install the J2SE for merlin build 32 from :
/net/sqesvr/deployment3/merlin/beta/win32.b32


Go to the below link for demos outside the Sun firewall
http://java.sun.com/products/plugin/1.3/demos/applets.html

Look for Applets to Enhance a Web Page -> Animator example1.html

Results :

It throws the following exceptions

java.net.SocketException: socket closed: Bad file number
  at java.net.SocketInputStream.socketRead(Native Method)
  at java.net.SocketInputStream.read(SocketInputStream.java:86)
  at java.io.BufferedInputStream.fill(BufferedInputStream.java:186)
  at java.io.BufferedInputStream.read1(BufferedInputStream.java:225)
  at java.io.BufferedInputStream.read(BufferedInputStream.java:280)
  at java.io.FilterInputStream.read(FilterInputStream.java:114)
  at java.io.PushbackInputStream.read(PushbackInputStream.java:164)
  at sun.net.www.MeteredStream.read(MeteredStream.java:68)
  at java.io.BufferedInputStream.fill(BufferedInputStream.java:186)
  at java.io.BufferedInputStream.read(BufferedInputStream.java:204)
  at sun.awt.image.GifImageDecoder.produceImage(GifImageDecoder.java:139)
  at sun.awt.image.InputStreamImageSource.doFetch(InputStreamImageSource.java:260)
  at sun.awt.image.ImageFetcher.fetchloop(ImageFetcher.java:217)
  at sun.awt.image.ImageFetcher.run(ImageFetcher.java:185)